Sovereign Citizens: What You Should Know Presentation to: NAPHSIS Webinar Presented by: Ken Bramlett Date: July 29, 2013

What is a Sovereign Citizen? Self-described Answerable only to common law Not subject to any statutes federal, state , local Do not recognize U.S. currency Free of any legal constraints Reject most forms of taxation as illegitimate

Federal Bureau of Investigation The FBI classifies "sovereign citizens" among domestic terror threats as anti-government extremists.

Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC According to the SPLC: Approx. 100,00 Americans are “hard core sovereign believers” Another 200,000 just starting out Resist everything from speeding tickets to drug charges

Revoke and Rescind U.S. Citizenship Remove any evidence of U.S. citizenship by relinquishing: Social Security number Driver’s license Car registration Marriage license Voter Registration Birth Certificate

Sovereign Citizen Encounters What should/could I expect: Attempt to distract/confuse with paperwork May identify self as an official of the state Being uncooperative Carrying concealed weapons Dangerous

Frequent Tactics May provide strange response to questions: “No not personally” May present some form of homemade ID Unconstitutional to ask for a drivers license May state picture on DL is not them, is not human, is a “non-breathing extraterrestrial”

Red Flags @ symbol or copyright symbol after their name Name in all capital letters Putting punctuation before the surname Using initials after name such as “sui juris” meaning “of one’s own law” No zip code or brackets around zip code Use of term “Employee ID Number” rather than Social Security number Reference to Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)

Housing Scams A recent twist in sovereign citizen tactics has been seizing foreclosed homes through the use of phony documents http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G4QMBdxGds

Significant Growth Although the sovereign citizen's sister movement, the militia movement, has garnered more publicity, the sovereign citizen movement is also growing, is larger than the militia movement, and engages in a much greater amount of criminal activity.

Potential for Violence Sovereign citizen criminal activity includes violent acts, exemplified recently by the brutal murder of two West Memphis police officers at the hands of a father and son pair of sovereign citizens in May 2010. Spontaneous sovereign citizen violence, especially during traffic stops and visits to residences, poses a significant risk to law enforcement officers and public officials.

Deadly Results

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_y-gLm9Hrw

License Plate Examples

Driver License Example

Identification Card Example

Paper Terrorism When sovereigns are angry with government officials, their revenge most often takes the form of "paper terrorism." Sovereigns file retaliatory, bogus property liens that may not be discovered by the victim until they attempt to sell their property. Sovereigns also file fake tax forms that are designed to ruin an enemy's credit rating and cause them to be audited by the IRS. In the mid-1990s, a period when the sovereign movement was also on the rise, several states passed laws specifically aimed at these paper terrorism tactics.

Pass Laws to prevent “Paper Terrorism? Aiming squarely at the antigovernment “sovereign citizens” movement, Georgia’s governor on Monday signed a law that will make it a felony to file fraudulent liens against public officials or employees, a tactic known as “paper terrorism.”

O.C.G.A. 16-10-20.1 "Public employee" means every person employed by the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of state government, or any department, board, bureau, agency, commission, or authority thereof, and any person employed by a county, municipality, consolidated government, or local board of education.    (2) "Public officer" shall have the same meaning as set forth in Code Section 21-5-3. (b) Notwithstanding Code Sections 16-10-20 and 16-10-71, it shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly file a false lien or encumbrance in a public record or private record that is generally available to the public against the real or personal property of a public officer or public employee on account of the performance of such public officer or public employee's official duties, knowing or having reason to know that such lien or encumbrance is false or contains a materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation. (c) Any person who violates subsection (b) of this Code section shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment of not less than one nor more than ten years, a fine not to exceed $10,000.00, or both.

Questions? Ken Bramlett Deborah Aderhold Inspector General GA Dept. of Public Health 2 Peachtree St. NW Suite 15-228 Atlanta, GA 30303 404-656-4409 State Registrar GA Dept. of Public Health 2600 Skyland Drive Atlanta, GA 30309 404-679-0559