U.S. Tells Citizens to Leave Iraq After Second Attack on Embassy

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An Iran-backed militia took responsibility for an overnight attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. President Trump called on other nations to help escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

An Iran-backed militia took responsibility for an overnight attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. President Trump called on other nations to help escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

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In-Depth Context: Sovereign citizen movement

The sovereign citizen movement (SovCits) is a loose group of anti-government activists, conspiracy theorists, vexatious litigants, tax protesters and financial scammers found mainly in English-speaking common law countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Sovereign citizens have a pseudolegal belief system based on misinterpretations of common law, and claim not to be subject to any government statutes unless they consent to them. The movement appeared in the U.S. in the early 1970s and has since expanded to other countries; the similar freeman on the land movement emerged during the 2000s in Canada before spreading to other Commonwealth countries. Sovereign citizen ideas have also been incorporated by other fringe movements in the United States and abroad, such as the Reichsbürger in Germany and Austria. The FBI has called sovereign citizens "anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or 'sovereign' from the United States". The sovereign citizen phenomenon is the main contemporary source of pseudolaw. Sovereign citizens believe that courts have no jurisdiction over people and that certain procedures and loopholes can make one immune to government laws and regulations. They regard most forms of taxation as illegitimate and reject Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, and vehicle registration. The movement may appeal to people facing financial or legal difficulties or wishing to resist perceived government oppression. As a result, it has grown significantly during times of economic or social crisis. Most schemes promoted by sovereign citizens aim to avoid paying taxes, ignore laws, eliminate debts, or extract money from the government. Sovereign citizen arguments have no basis in law and have never been successful in court. American sovereign citizens claim that the United States federal government is illegitimate, and those outside the U.S. hold similar beliefs about their countries' governments. The movement can be traced to American far-right groups such as the Posse Comitatus and the constitutionalist wing of the militia movement. It was originally associated with White supremacy and antisemitism but now attracts people of various ethnicities, including a significant number of African Americans. The latter sometimes belong to self-declared "Moorish" sects. Most sovereign citizens are not violent, but the methods the movement advocates are illegal. Sovereign citizens notably adhere to the fraudulent schemes promoted by the redemption "A4V" movement. Many have been found guilty of offenses such as tax evasion, hostile possession, forgery, threatening public officials, bank fraud, and traffic violations. Two of the most important crackdowns by U.S. authorities on sovereign citizen organizations were the 1996 case of the Montana Freemen and the 2018 sentencing of self-proclaimed judge Bruce Doucette and his associates. Because some have engaged in armed confrontations with law enforcement, the FBI classifies "sovereign citizen extremists" as domestic terrorists. Terry Nichols, one of the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, subscribed to sovereign citizen ideology. In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, representatives of U.S. law enforcement ranked the risk of terrorism from the sovereign citizen movement higher than the risk from any other group. In 2015, the Australian New South Wales Police Force identified sovereign citizens as a potential terrorist threat.

== History ==

=== Origin ===

The sovereign citizen movement originated from a combination of tax protester ideas, 1960s–70s radical and racist anti-government movements, and pseudolaw, which has existed in the U.S. since at least the 1950s. The movement's belief in the illegitimacy of federal income tax gradually expanded to challenging the legitimacy of the government. The concept of a "sovereign citizen" whose rights are unfairly denied appeared in 1971 within the Posse Comitatus as part of the teachings of Christian Identity minister William Potter Gale. The Posse Comitatus, whose name derived from the historical militias led by local sheriffs, was a far-right, anti-government movement that denounced income tax, debt-based currency, and debt collection as tools of Jewish control over the United States. The roots of the sovereign citizen movement were thus strongly associated with white supremacist and antisemitic ideologies. Gale's racist beliefs were far from unique, but he innovated by devising a "legal" philosophy about the government's illegitimacy. Posse Comitatus members used the term "sovereign citizens" to convey the idea that they were entitled to enforce their interpretation of the Constitution. After originating in that particular group, the sovereign citizen concept went on to influence the broader tax protester and Christian Patriot movements. Until the 1990s, observers primarily classified the Posse Comitatus as a tax-protest movement rather than an outright far-right extremist group. The Posse Comitatus, Christian Identity, and militia movements did not fully overlap, but they shared members and influenced one another.

=== Developments ===

In the early 1980s, tax protester Gordon Kahl, a former Posse Comitatus member, helped radicalize sovereign citizens' anti-government rhetoric. Kahl considered the government not only illegitimate but actively hostile to Americans' interests. After he was killed in 1983 during a shootout with law enforcement, the movement considered him a martyr, which helped amplify his views. The movement garnered more support during the American farm crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s, which coincided with a general financial crisis in the U.S. and Canada. The farm crisis saw the rise of anti-government protesters selling sham debt relief programs, some of whom were associated with far-right groups. They included Roger Elvick, a member of a successor orga

Background information sourced from Wikipedia: Sovereign citizen movement under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Original Source: U.S. Tells Citizens to Leave Iraq After Second Attack on Embassy