How Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1 Billion From the Government They Disavow

NY Times ^ | 03-29-2019 | Ashley Powers

[NRx]

...What sovereign citizens believe

Sovereigns, who sometimes call themselves “freemen” or “state citizens,” have no foundational document, but broadly they subscribe to an alternate version of American history. The tale can vary from sovereign to sovereign, but it goes roughly like this: At some point, a corporation secretly usurped the United States government, then went bankrupt and sought aid from international bankers. As collateral, the corporation offered the financiers … us. As sovereigns tell it, your birth certificate and Social Security card are not benign documents, but contracts that enslave you.

There is, they believe, a pathway to freedom: Renounce these contracts or otherwise assert your sovereignty. (Mr. Morton said he once told the Social Security Administration, “I don’t want this number.”) Then no one — not the taxman, not the police — can tell you what to do. Not all sovereigns are con men, but their belief system lends itself to deceit. You might declare yourself a “diplomat” from a nonexistent country. (Mr. Morton represented the Republic of New Lemuria and the Dominion of Melchizedek.) Or start a fake Native American tribe. Or blow off a court case because the American flag in the courtroom has gold fringe. Some sovereigns have even lashed out violently at law enforcement officers, which is why they’re considered a domestic terrorism threat.

Many sovereign myths hark back to the creation, in 1913, of the Federal Reserve. “It was this weird, complicated instrument for controlling the monetary system. People saw it as sinister,” the author J. M. Berger told me. In a recent paper, Mr. Berger traced the circulation of these ideas, in part, to a company named Omni Publications, which was something like the Infowars of the middle of the 20th century.

[NRx]

The government has no money of its own. It’s money is OUR money. Stealing from the public treasury is stealing from me.

[Veto!]

OMG, Ashley is a TransDental.

[Rockingham]

Drivers licences come closer to being national IDs in that they must now be backed by a SS# and birth certificate and include a photo and other biometric information. That is what cops ask for when they want an ID, not your social security card. Yet the limits on access to DL databases diminishes their usefulness as national IDs.

Thus, for purposes of Social Security verification when you turn 65, one needs to show up in person with your drivers' license, original social security card, and an original or officially certified copy of your birth certificate. That requirement shows the limitations of a social security card as a national ID: not even the Social Security Administration fully trusts it and requires more for ID verification purposes.