WEBVTT - What is a sovereign citizen? 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:05.640 Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh, 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:16.360 now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.040 Daily OS. It's Monday, the first of September. 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.360 I'm Lucy Tassel and I'm a Cholla Rock. 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.840 Last week, two police were shot dead while trying to 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.440 serve an arrest warrant at a rural property near the 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.360 northeast Victorian town of Poor Punker. A third was wounded 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.280 and is recovering in hospital. The man police alleged murdered 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.479 their colleagues is believed to be a sovereign citizen, a 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.720 person who does not believe in standard laws and governments. 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.559 In today's episode, we'll explain what you need to know 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.559 about sovereign citizens and their beliefs. Before we get into it, 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:53.880 a quick word from our sponsor, Lucy. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.680 You and I have been researching sovereign citizens this week, 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.360 following those developments in Victoria that you mentioned. Before we 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.040 get into who these people are and what they believe in, 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.040 can we talk about what brought this to our attention? 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.720 Yeah? Absolutely. This came to our attention as a few 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.160 kinds of stories do, which is that we saw it 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:14.280 come up on the TVs that we have mounted on 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.199 the wall of the newsroom that we have multiple channels 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.319 running on all day, every day, and all we need 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.759 to start with was that there was a police operation 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.240 happening in northeast Victoria. Now that caught my attention because 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.959 big news networks don't typically cover police operations while they're 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.280 happening unless something really big is happening, like something has 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.800 been leaked that suggests that there's a really big deal happening. 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.080 Possibly someone has been killed, someone has a weapon. That's 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.000 the sort of thing that tends to pass the threshold 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.640 for Australian news networks to be like, there's a big 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.640 police operation happening right now and we don't know much 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.080 more about it than that. So that immediately kind of 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.000 tipped me and the whole newsroom off to the fact 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.600 that something really big was happening. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.480 Now, I remember that day. It felt so chaotic and 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.000 so much was happening. Now, when did we start understanding 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:06.360 what exactly was going on? 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:08.560 Yeah, So, over the course of the day we got 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.360 little dribs and drabs of information from the police in 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.400 various forms. Understandably, the situation was developing. They could only 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.639 give us so much information. But by that night, that's 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.800 Tuesday night, we had a press conference from the chief 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:27.160 of Police in Victoria. He said that ten police officers 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.040 had gone to a property in northeast Victoria to execute 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.640 a search warrant, that seven of those officers were physically okay, 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.040 but had been traumatized, that two had been shot dead, 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.320 and that a third was wounded like a gunshot wound, 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:47.120 so quite serious. And then he started talking about someone 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.160 that he at that point only referred to as the offender. 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:52.880 Now, can you break down what we do know at 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.399 this stage about what police are calling the offender. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:57.960 We know his name is Desi Freeman. We know he's 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.320 fifty six years old. We know he has a and 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.600 kids because they actually presented to police officers later on 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.520 that Tuesday night. And crucially what we know is that 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.560 he is someone who is called a sovereign citizen. And 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.280 we also know that in the past, this belief system 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.480 that he subscribes to has led to him being involved 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.800 in an unsuccessful attempt to sue former Victorian Premier Dan 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.399 Andrews for treason in twenty twenty one. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.160 Now, I feel like we've heard the word treason a lot, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.280 but what does that specifically mean? Yeah. 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.880 Absolutely. The crime of treason is maybe the most serious 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.240 crime there is other than murder in terms of how 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.600 the legal system treats it in Australia. It can cover 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.800 a range of fences. It could include killing the head 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.920 of state. It could look like launching war against Australia 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.920 as an Australian or helping an enemy of Australia to 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.000 harm Australia. Sorry to say Australia so many times, but 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.480 it really is about nations and what you, as a 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.440 citizen of a nation do to that nation. Victorian law 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:07.720 talks specifically about killing the sovereign, harming the sovereign. They 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:12.920 keep saying, quote the sovereign, maiming, wounding, imprisoning, restraining the sovereign. 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.679 I've lost count of how many times you said sovereign. Yeah. 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.240 But under the Victorian legal context, who specifically is that 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:20.960 referring to. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.040 Yeah, So that's referring to King Charles the Third, who 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.839 is our head of state. His power is exercised by 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.839 Governor General Sam Mostyn. So under Australian law, the sovereign 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.400 that phrase means the king or the Queen of the day. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.000 There's also this idea that a nation can have sovereign 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:41.000 tea so basically control over its own government, setting its 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.520 own rules. In Australia, this manifests as we have our 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.040 own independent government. We're part of the Commonwealth, but we 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.320 still we have our government. It makes its own rules 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:54.120 and its members are elected by us. So in a sense, 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.440 the nation of Australia has control over the nation of Australia. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.440 Another country invading us to take over would be a 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.520 violation of sovereignty. And there's another context. You might have 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.039 heard the word sovereignty or sovereign and that's in the 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.800 phrase sovereignty was never ceded, So that's referring to the 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.520 fact that Australia's first nations never agreed to hand over 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.800 their land to the British Empire. That, of course, is 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.400 a legitimate idea, while sov CITs ideas are not. 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.040 So to bring it back to the topic of today's podcast, Yeah, 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.520 what would you say are the top three things people 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:29.400 should know about sovereign citizens? 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.719 So sob CITs we can call them solvi sits. That's 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.599 probably just faster. They have this idea of sovereignty that 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.919 is somewhere between the ideas of sovereignty being a single 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.560 person and sovereignty being something about government power. So I 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.400 think that's part of the first thing that I think 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.160 people should know, which is they should know about their 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.919 ideology and where it came from. Second, I think the 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.560 listeners should know about what they're up to in Australia. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.560 And third, I think TDA listeners should know how and 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.640 why this belief system could lead to violence against police 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.960 officers specifically, since that's kind of what's brought it to 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:05.280 our attention this time around. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.520 And to bring it back to your first point, what 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:09.000 do self sits believe in? 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.120 Yeah, there's a variety and a diversity of beliefs, but 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.560 I think broadly speaking, they reject government authority and the 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.880 rule of law, and they don't participate in traditional societal structures. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:26.680 They instead perpetuate this thing called pseudo law, so fake law, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.440 which is like a mishmash of legal jargon that can 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.280 kind of differ from person to person or from group 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.800 to group. It has, though a fundamental lack of clarity 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.279 that is quite easy to identify once you know what 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.040 you're listening for. There are certain catch phrases and words 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:48.760 like obviously sovereign, things like natural person, things like saying 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.880 I'm traveling instead of driving. That it's kind of hard 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.159 to get into and it's quite complicated, but basically you'll 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.320 know it like you know when you hear it. There 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.200 are lots of examples online of that, primarily from so 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.240 of CITs who have been pulled over by police for 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.640 various traffic violations. And then again, I would say, another 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.400 crucial aspect of the belief system I would say is 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.880 this idea that at some point in history, governments, starting 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.760 with the US government, took away or sold the rights 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.520 of individual citizens and became corporations. Sovereign citizens tend to 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.360 believe that they have figured out a way to get 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.480 their original rights back from before governments became corporations, and 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.120 that this means that they don't have to pay taxes 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.080 or comply with laws, because all of these things are 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.280 part of the fake corporation government, not the true government. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.240 Now, Lucy, you've touched lightly on the historical context of 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.520 this movement. Can you tell us a little bit about 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.280 where this ideology came from. 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.200 Yeah, it came from a few different groups in the 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.239 US in the mid twentieth century who were generally speaking 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.560 against paying taxes. It also stems from a group called 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.920 Posse Commatatis, which is a far right extremist, antisemitic, aca 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.360 and racist group that formed in the late nineteen sixties. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.720 That group's beliefs were also strongly anti government and anti laws, 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.920 and involved the idea that the US Constitution was being 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.760 wrongly interpreted and that the government had no rights over 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.480 sovereign individuals or the money they earned. Again coming back 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.240 to paying taxes, So there's these kind of different streams 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.600 of ideas that are fairly united by this idea that 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:27.520 we shouldn't have to pay taxes to a government that 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.160 has no control over us. 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.200 So you've broken it down in the US context and 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.719 bringing it home here in Australia, how has that manifested? 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.679 So something that was really interesting to me, the kind 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.360 of sovereign citizen idea, came broadly to Australia in the 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.440 late nineteen nineties, which is also around the time that 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.440 I realized I first heard of things like sovereign citizens. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.080 But it was sort of presented to me as a 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.280 fun fact because I was thinking about the idea of 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.600 principalities or mini nations within Australia. I remember learning as 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.679 a fun fact in primary school. Oh there's a man 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.240 in this state and he calls himself the prince of 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.320 some made up nation, and he rules over a patch 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.520 of land, or he has an island. So that was 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.880 always presented to me as very lighthearted, like, there's this guy, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:13.960 he lives in this place and he says he's the prince. 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.520 During the COVID nineteen pandemic, particularly during the lockdowns which 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.440 forced people online as their primary form of socialization, that's 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:26.440 when kind of SOBCIT ideologies really flourished in this country. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.080 It was a kind of a perfect storm. The isolation 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.319 combined with repeated government orders to stay inside, as well 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.400 as a significant amount of mis and disinformation about the 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.040 safety of vaccines and government orders to get a vaccine 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.640 and tell the government so that you could participate in 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.800 public life. All of this kind of combined to for 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.920 a lot of people pushed them towards this anti government, 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.880 anti law ideology. And as I've said, it was during 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.840 that time that we saw that attempt to sue Dan Andrews, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:58.160 so late twenty twenty one. 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:02.199 See, now that's one kind of attempt on authority. Yeah, 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.360 and last week we saw another, you know, a very 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.520 aggressive one, the killing of two police officers, So what 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.280 do we know about sob CITs and the police that 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:11.360 relationship there. 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.160 In last week's case, the man suspected of killing those 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.760 officers had made several anti police social media posts over 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.280 the years. I think the first time this kind of 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.920 broke into the public consciousness though, was the terrorist attack 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.840 on police in Queensland in December twenty twenty two. The 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.400 attackers in that case believed SOBCIT ideologies. They also had 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.400 beliefs associated with Christian extremism which led them to murder 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.840 two police officers and their neighbor. But just to say 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.400 that sovereign citizenship was part of that. 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.160 As you've mentioned, we've seen multiple examples of these attacks 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.240 against police officers. Why do you think that, you know, 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.800 these beliefs have led people to extreme violence against them? 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.199 My kind of thinking, my analysis is that police are 0:10:56.200 --> 0:11:01.200 the most visible and like accessible representation of everything that 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:06.079 sovereign citizens don't believe in, the fake government, the laws 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.320 that they don't accept, even like the tax dollars that 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.120 they refuse to pay. Because obviously police are a state 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.760 entity that gets government funding, which and government funding comes 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.920 from our taxes, so I can understand why in their ideology. 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.040 Police would be kind of the most visible representation of 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.040 everything they're against. The other thing about police is that 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.920 they're accessible. You can call them, They're visible on a 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.720 street corner, and as we've seen happen tragically now in 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.360 Queensland and Victoria, they can come to your home. They 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.400 can have a legitimate reason to come to your property. 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.240 Wow, that's really interesting. Thank you so much for explaining 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:46.000 that to us, Lucy. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:46.680 Thanks Atop. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.439 We'll be back again this evening with the day's headlines 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.640 and then with another deep dive tomorrow morning. Until then, 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:59.360 have a great day. My name is Lily Madden and 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.160 I'm a proud Aranda Banjelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl country. 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.120 The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.640 the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.200 all Aboriginal and Torrestrate island and nations. We pay our 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.360 respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:16.959 and present.