Suspected Pipeline Bomber Has Anti-Government Extremist Ties, Admired Joseph Stack

Anson Chi on YouTube

Anson Chi, the north Texas man authorities suspect bombed a natural gas pipeline station in Plano, Texas, on June 18, is an anti-government extremist active in the tax protest movement.

Chi, 32, a former engineer who claimed to have “retired” but was living with his parents, supported many causes, including environmental and animal rights causes, but the convictions he expressed most strongly in on-line writings were anti-government ones. He routinely posted anti-government comments to his Facebook Wall, collecting them from both the right and left.

However, statements by Chi in recent years reveal a strong connection with the right-wing “patriot movement,” especially its tax protest branch. The tax protest movement claims Americans aren’t required to pay federal income taxes and a government conspiracy is hiding this fact. “There is no law for the average American to pay the income tax,” Chi claimed in 2010, “as stated over and over again by the Supreme Court—case closed!”

In 2010, after fellow tax protester Joseph Andrew Stack flew his plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, in a suicide attack, Chi posted a link to Stack’s suicide note while proclaiming, “Bring down the IRS!”

Chi’s postings reveal familiarity with the movement’s pseudo-legal arguments, as well as key figures. Chi easily rattled off the names of tax protest gurus and court cases involving tax protesters. Saying he was a “paralegal,” Chi claimed to be friends with tax protest movement attorneys Tom Cryer and Larry Becraft, and to have attended the trial of Sherry Jackson, a former IRS employee who joined the tax protest movement and was convicted in 2007 of failing to file income tax returns.

Chi was also familiar with the pseudo-legal arguments of the sovereign citizen movement, proclaiming in late 2010 that he knew “all about admiralty maritime law and the strawman theory.”

Chi’s other fixation was on the banking system; like many anti-government extremists, he was obsessed with “international bankers” and the Federal Reserve. “Your life is under control by greedy private bankers,” he told visitors to his Facebook page, “especially since they print YOUR money based on nothing but thin air!”

Chi liked the movie Zeitgeist, as well as other recent popular on-line movies that combined New World Order and Federal Reserve conspiracy theories with New Age concepts. Chi’s postings reflected the theories advanced by such movies. “The private central bankers like the Rothschilds—changed from Jewish name Bauer, like Henry Kissinger changed from Heinz Loeb,” he wrote in 2010, “are…a bunch of con artists, working as the financial gatekeepers…for the Vatican.”

Five Apparent Anarchists Arrested In Plot To Bomb Cleveland Bridge

Five Ohio men were arrested Monday night after allegedly attempting to blow up a Cleveland-area bridge “to send a message to corporations and the United States government.”

The five men, Douglas Wright, Brandon Baxter, Anthony Hayne, Connor Stevens, and Joshua Stafford, had been considering acts of violence for months, according to federal agents. Two of the men placed what they believed to be explosive devices at the bridge and tried to remotely detonate it. The devices, however, were inert and provided by the FBI as part of a sting operation.

Wright, Baxter, and Hayne have been charged with conspiracy and attempted use of explosives; charges against Stevens and Stafford are pending.

All five men were apparently involved in Occupy Cleveland protests and have been characterized by law enforcement or self-identify as anarchists. Hayne, Stafford, and Baxter list the movement as their “employer” on their Facebook pages.

In recorded conversation with the FBI, Baxter discussed the impact of blowing up a bridge. “Taking out a bridge in the business district would cost the…corporate big wigs a lot of money,” he said. Wright believed that the Occupy Movement had been coopted by “corporate American and law enforcement” and that therefore they needed new recruits from outside the movement.

The media coordinator for Occupy Cleveland denied any knowledge of the planned attack, but acknowledged that some members of the movement are acquainted with the suspects.

Baxter’s anti-capitalist views were voiced in interview last month during a protest in Cleveland against home foreclosures. “…I feel the powers that be, whoever they might be - on all levels of government and those who hold corporate power - are not listening because not enough people are actually taking a stance…”

The five men allegedly considered other targets for attack, including the local Federal Reserve Bank and law enforcement Fusion Center, before settling on the bridge. Baxter inquired into targeting the Klan or other neo-Nazi groups in Ohio, but was dissuaded when he was told they were not in Cleveland. He claimed to have previously participated in a protest against the Klan in Oakland, California.

The planned attack was allegedly timed to coincide with May Day, a celebration of International Workers Day that has been seized upon by anarchist and anti-capitalist groups around the world. May Day events around the world have often featured property destruction and arrests.

Georgia Passes Tougher Bogus Lien Law

A new measure came into force in Georgia this week, when Governor Nathan Deal signed into law HB 997, making it a felony to file bogus liens against public officials and law enforcement officers. The act amends the Georgia code to create a new crime, that of making false lien statements against public officers or public employees, and provides a punishment of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000.

The bill had originally been sponsored by a group of Republican state representatives and received strong bipartisan support in both the Georgia House and Senate. The aim of the bill was to help counter the growing problems caused by the sovereign citizen movement, an extreme right-wing anti-government movement whose adherents believe that current governments are illegitimate and have no authority over them. Though the movement has existed since the 1970s, in the past few years it has experienced a surprising resurgence, including a growth of violent and criminal activity.



Portion of document filed by Robert Eugene Stephens
attempting to copyright his own name,
a common sovereign citizen tactic


Though the sovereign citizen movement has a strong association with violence, it has an even stronger association with what has come to be called “paper terrorism”—the use of bogus legal filings or documents or the misuse of actual ones in order to harass, intimidate, or retaliate against perceived enemies.

For 30 years, bogus liens have been one of the most popular paper terrorism tactics, often used to harass police officers, prosecutors, officials, and judges with whom sovereign citizens come into contact. To give one recent Georgia example, in October 2011 Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents arrested sovereign citizen Robert Eugene Stephens of Mineral Bluff on 12 criminal counts related to a series of bogus liens Stephens allegedly filed against a variety of local and state officials, including a county clerk, a local judge and her secretary, the county tax commissioner, and even the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives (which probably didn’t hurt the chance the subsequent law had of passing).

A number of states still don’t have bogus lien laws on their books, while the laws of other states make the crime only a misdemeanor and some states with bogus lien laws have been lax in enforcing them. The result has been a flood of bogus liens across the entire country in the past several years.

The Georgia law could still be strengthened further, as it does not protect private citizens and businesses, who also can be the victim of bogus liens filed by sovereign citizens.

Hutaree Militia Verdict Shows Sedition Charges Risky

In a rebuke to federal prosecutors, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts on March 27 threw out seditious conspiracy charges against seven Michigan militia members whom the government had accused in 2010 of plotting to start a war with the U.S. government.

Only weapons charges remained against two defendants--David Stone, Sr., the leader of the so-called Hutaree Militia, and his son, Joshua Stone—and they pleaded guilty the following day to possessing a machine gun. According to Roberts, though there was evidence to conclude that “something fishy” was going on, the government did not present enough evidence to prove that defendants had “reached a concrete agreement to forcibly oppose the United States government.”

The Hutaree case illustrated vividly how problematic the very issue of sedition—currently defined in U.S. law as a conspiracy to overthrow or destroy the U.S. government, to oppose by force its authority, or to delay by force the execution of U.S. laws—is in the United States. From the very first sedition law, the Sedition Act of 1798, such acts have been highly controversial. One of the major problems has always been distinguishing between speech and conduct—it is for this very reason that current sedition law specifies “by force,” though it has not made attempts to implement the law much easier.

In recent decades, another reason why sedition trials are often problematic is that increasingly jurors find it difficult to believe that defendants could have possibly thought they could successfully wage war against the government. After the Hutaree trial, one of the jurors told a reporter that “I was shocked by their effort to bring the defendants to trial…Do you think a group that small can go up against the mighty U.S. government?”

The modern track record of sedition cases in the United States has been relatively poor. In 1941, the federal government indicted 28 union activists and left-wing extremists for violations of the Sedition Act and a related act, the Smith act, but the jury acquitted all of the defendants of the sedition charge. In 1944, 30 right-wing extremists and Nazi sympathizers were accused of violating the same acts, but their lengthy trial ended in a mistrial. In one of the few successful sedition cases, a number of radical Puerto Rican liberation activists were convicted of seditious conspiracy in the mid-1980s for an extensive terrorist campaign.

However, in 1987, 14 prominent white supremacists charged with seditious conspiracy were acquitted in what came to be called the “Fort Smith Sedition Trial.” In 1995, Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “Blind Sheikh,” and nine other Muslim extremists were convicted of seditious conspiracy for plans to commit a variety of terrorist acts in the greater New York area, as well as other violent acts actually committed.

The history of sedition cases in the United States suggests that other types of conspiracy or other criminal charges might well be a better prosecution strategy when dealing with extremist-related plots and conspiracies.

Alleged Cop-Killer May Be Anti-Government Extremist

Source: Ogden Standard-Examiner

In the latest twist to a deadly shootout that stunned the residents of Ogden, Utah, a recently revealed search warrant affidavit provides evidence that suggests the defendant, Matthew David Stewart, 37, may have been an anti-government extremist.

The shootout began on January 4, 2012, after police launched a raid on Stewart’s residence to execute a search warrant—an informant had alleged he was growing marijuana (16 plants were reportedly later found).  According to police, Stewart hid, opening fire on officers as they searched his residence.  Six officers were hit, some more than once, and Ogden police officer Jared Francom was wounded fatally.  Stewart allegedly continued firing as the officers fled the residence.  Police eventually wounded and subdued him in a backyard shed. 

Stewart was charged with aggravated murder, seven counts of attempted aggravated murder, and production of a controlled substance in a “drug free zone,” along with a dangerous weapons enhancement.

In March, authorities released an affidavit explaining the results of the search.  According to the affidavit, Stewart’s former girlfriend said that Stewart was “into” conspiracy theories and that he believed the federal government had no right to collect taxes (the primary belief of the anti-government extremist tax protest movement).  She claimed that he had not paid his own federal or state taxes since 2005 and that, if he were “forced” to pay taxes, he would “kill IRS employees.”  According to the girlfriend, Stewart claimed that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was “misunderstood.”

The affidavit further claimed that police recovered “computer-generated documents” related to anti-government extremism, anti-police Web sites, Oklahoma City bombing Web sites, instructions for making potassium chloride (used in explosives), and a map to the closest IRS building (where Stewart once worked as a security guard), among other items.  According to the affidavit, police also discovered “what appeared to be the makings of a bomb,” which were later removed and detonated by the bomb squad. 

Last summer, according to police, Stewart had allegedly told someone that if police ever raided him, he would “go out in a blaze of glory and shoot to kill.”  After the release of the affidavit, a neighbor of Stewart’s told a local television station that Stewart had allegedly talked about moving to Montana and “get[ting] myself a compound.”

Officer Francom was the first police officer to have been killed by a suspected domestic extremist since May 2010, when two West Memphis, Arkansas, officers were killed by anti-government “sovereign citizens.”  Since 2000, 27 police officers have been killed in the United States by domestic extremists. 

Triple Murder Suspect Uses Sovereign Citizen Arguments in Court Hearing

Source: Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office

Phoenix resident Michael Lee Crane, 31, charged with the murders of an elderly couple from Paradise Valley, Arizona, and a suspect in a third murder, recently used arguments from the anti-government extremist “sovereign citizen” movement when appearing in court following his arrest. 

On January 26, 2012, after being called to a fire at a residence, Phoenix police discovered the body of a cigar salesman, Bruce Gaudet, who had been shot to death. Several days later, police in Paradise Valley, after finding a burning car on January 30 that belonged to Lawrence and Glenna Shapiro, went to their home to discover it too was on fire. They also found the burned and bound bodies of the elderly Shapiros, who had been shot to death.   Preliminary ballistic reports suggest a match between the bullet casings in each incident.

Crane has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder (he has not yet been charged in connection with the Gaudet murder), two counts of kidnapping, two counts of armed robbery, one count of burglary, and one count of arson. Five other people have also been charged in connection with the case, primarily on charges of theft or trafficking in stolen property. 

On February 10, Crane and two other defendants appeared in a Maricopa County court to determine their bonds. Courtroom video reveals that Crane attempted to use “sovereign citizen” arguments in his appearance before the magistrate. The sovereign citizen movement is an extreme right-wing anti-government movement that believes that the legitimate government was long ago infiltrated by a conspiracy and changed into an illegitimate, tyrannical government. Consequently, sovereign citizens believe that this “illegitimate” government has no authority or jurisdiction over them. In the past several years, the sovereign citizen movement has been experiencing a significant resurgence of adherents and activity, including criminal activity. 

Asked by the judge for his name, Crane spelled his entire name out, specifying upper and lower case letters—sovereign citizens believe that if their name is written in all upper case letters, it is actually not referring to their “flesh and blood” person. Crane also declined to have an attorney appointed for him, which is common within the sovereign citizen movement. 

At the end of the proceeding, the judge asked Crane if he had any questions. Crane replied no, but that “I have a statement I’d like to make.”  He announced that he wanted to “reserve my right to Uniform Commercial Code 1-207 and the Uniform Commercial Code 1-103.”  Sovereign citizens believe that the “conspiracy” replaced constitutional law with commercial law and that therefore the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) governs all legal matters.  Many believe that all legal proceedings are also commercial transactions.  Almost all sovereign citizens believe that they can avoid entering into “commerce” with the illegitimate government by reserving their rights under UCC 1-207 (now renumbered to UCC1-308). 

The judge did not seem to recognize this common sovereign citizen reference and merely informed Crane that the UCC did not apply.  Crane tried to get the judge to confirm that his appearance was a “commercial affair,” but the judge reiterated that it was actually a criminal proceeding. “Mmm, okay,” Crane replied doubtfully. “That’s what you say.”

It is possible that Crane, who has a past criminal history, became exposed to the arguments of the movement while incarcerated, as the movement has been spreading rapidly in prisons and jails across the country over the past decade.