The Sovereign Individual

CORE DEFINITION

The sovereign citizen movement is broadly a collection of litigants (primarily in the United States), commentators, anti-tax protesters, and financial product salespeople who hold similar beliefs. They consider themselves bound only by informal interpretations of common law, and by relying on these interpretations, they claim to be exempt from government legislation and judicial procedures. Within the United States, they do not recognize the US dollar as currency and believe they are not subject to regulatory legislation, such as vehicle registration and taxation. Participants in the movement have created the concept of the "federal citizen" as the opposite of the "sovereign citizen." They claim that they were deceived into accepting certain aspects of federal law, thereby unknowingly losing their right to be free from legislation. They believe that certain legal-like rituals can restore these rights. These claims are often not recognized by courts, and judges may dismiss such procedures as frivolous. The FBI has classified the more extreme sovereign citizens as domestic terrorists. In Australia and Canada, similar movements call themselves "freemen on the land."