Sovereign Citizen

sovereign citizennoun

• 1

  A member of a loose movement of Americans, Canadians and Australians who consider themselves answerable only to their own particular interpretation of the common law, and not subject to any government statutes or proceedings.

  • An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism. […] Last year, for example, a man who identified with the sovereign citizen movement — which claims not to recognize the authority of federal or local government — attacked a courthouse in Forsyth County, Ga., firing an assault rifle at police officers and trying to cover his approach with tear gas and smoke grenades.
  • That subgroup, known as Rise of the Moors, engaged in a standoff with the police for more than nine hours, claiming that as sovereign citizens, law enforcement had no authority to stop them. No one was injured; 11 people were arrested and charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition, among other offenses. Increasingly, across the country sovereign citizens have clashed with the authorities, tied up resources and frazzled lives in their insistence that laws, such as the requirement to pay taxes, obey speed limits and even obtain, say, a license for a pet dog, do not apply to them.
• 2

  The body politic of a nation.

  • The supreme authority remains with the sovereign citizens, and the uncurbed authority of the various branches of government, local, national and federal, extends only to the specific and limited functions which have been conferred upon each by the free consent of hte citizens for their better government.
  • In response, the prosecutor made the simple but valuable point that a government of representative democracy cannot function in an atmosphere of deceit – when one branch is lying to another and lying to the sovereign citizens as well.