Florida became 'hotbed' for sovereign citizens, who FBI calls domestic terrorists

[Baitball Blogger]

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Note: The I-4 Corridor is considered a hotbed for sovereign citizens.

The FBI identifies sovereign citizens as domestic terrorists who do not recognize the authority of state and federal government or the court system. They create their own drivers licenses as well as other documents. This has led to frequent confrontations with law-enforcement officials.

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Last year, a study on what U.S. police officers consider their greatest threat identified sovereign citizens first among 18 extremist groups. Islamic extremists ranked second, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.

Sovereign Citizens' ideological roots stem from the early 1970s when anti-government movements started what became known as "paper terrorism" by filing lawsuits and liens without merit against public officials. That spread with the early 1980's recession and farm crisis.

And by the 1990s, the St. Petersburg-Tampa-Orlando corridor became a "hotbed" for the sovereign citizen movement, according to Mark Pitcavage, director of research for the Anti-Defamation League.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-sovereign-citizen-violence-orlando-20150215-story.html#page=1

[Baitball Blogger]

1. I may have witnessed a meeting where a form of "paper terrorism"

was being suggested. It was the late nineties or just after the turn of the century. The lawyer who held the meeting in his home said that he was looking for information, which would probably have to be researched in newspapers. He wanted to find sympathetic homeowners who were wronged by government actions. He specifically mentioned incidents where people were stopped by unmarked police cars or prevented from developing property because of wetlands.

I discovered later that this guy was also a developer with close ties to an ex-judge in the county who also had land interests. It didn't take much to put together that whatever law they could push using plaintiffs who were sympathetic land owners of small properties could also be used by developers who were trying to develop large tracts of land that were impacted by wetlands.

He belonged to a private organization that mingled with state and local politicians. The organization was so powerful that after the first few articles were published in the paper in the eighties by a capable reporter, no further articles were printed to report about their operation. This was per the organization's request. They specifically stated that they wanted to keep the public out of its business and the paper complied. For over twenty years this private organization was able to work in secret without even filing corporate papers with the state.

As a result this whole area was under control of the good ole boy and gal network. It included lawyers. Even a mitigated wetland bank was controlled by the same circle of close friends.

All this the authorities knew back then and as far as I know, they did nothing about the shenanigans that were taking hold in the area back then. Whatever they do now, it's a little too late for some of us.

[Javaman]

2. SC are the moron wing of the tea baggers...

I know it's hard to separate the two. LOL