What are sovereign citizens?

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The sovereign citizen movement emerged from the United States in the 1970s, before migrating to Australia shortly afterwards. Dr Kristy Campion from Charles Sturt University says, while there are overlapping themes in each sovereign citizens' ideology, it is a disparate group and the philosophies of individuals are often personal.

Transcript

00:00The sovereign citizen ideology essentially comes from the United States, right?

00:07In the 1970s, it emerged during a particularly difficult financial context.

00:12But what happened quite quickly is it actually came to Australia.

00:15And we start to see it in Australia around the 1980s.

00:18And it really sort of took off and became a bit more litigious, a bit more vexatious,

00:25until we get to around 2017.

00:27And this is when we start seeing the sovereign citizen movement sort of escalating in rhetoric

00:33and becoming a little bit more violent in what they're saying and doing.

00:37Now, when we're talking about the movement, we're not talking about an organised group

00:41with a centralised hierarchy or anything like that.

00:44We're talking about a really diverse array of individuals and sometimes small clusters

00:50of individuals who are all united by this central belief that the government as we know it

00:56is fundamentally illegitimate.

00:58And because it's illegitimate, you can reasonably resist it and oppose it.

01:03And this is where we start seeing some of those really dangerous ideas come out about particularly

01:08politicians, but also law enforcement and members of the judiciary being traitors to the Australian

01:14people and therefore a possible threat.

01:18And, you know, as to the prevalence, I mean, do we know if it's growing?

01:23Is it hard to gauge that in Australia?

01:26Look, it is really hard to gauge.

01:27We have seen some reports from law enforcement in the past about possible numbers and academics

01:33as well have attempted to identify possible numbers through court rulings.

01:38One thing that makes it almost impossible to measure is that the sovereign citizen belief

01:44system is really personal in some ways and really hybrid in others.

01:49So one sovereign's belief system isn't going to exactly match the next, which makes it really

01:54difficult to both identify but also to calibrate the ideology.

02:00And, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but generally those who follow the belief claim to be

02:04non-violent, what have you found in your work?

02:08Look, the vast majority are non-violent and they generally pursue vexatious litigation and

02:13actions through the court system.

02:15But what we have seen in Australia in the past sort of seven or eight years is this escalating

02:22and violent rhetoric.

02:23So threatening people in all sorts of horrible ways, particularly in association with their

02:30jobs.

02:30So, you know, if you're a politician, if you're a member of the police force or if you're

02:34you work in the court system, particularly the family court system, within the sovereign

02:39ideology, generally speaking, they may see you as a malevolent insider, you know, someone

02:46who knows that the government is illegitimate and who is actively working to oppress Australian

02:51citizens, which in their view makes you the enemy.

02:55And so when you've got that sort of ideology in play, where you've got this sort of division

02:59between friends and enemies so obviously, it does lead to that legitimation of violence

03:06against these people.

03:08We know the movement is on the radar of our intelligence agencies.

03:11What do we know about that?

03:14Well, look, I think one of the things to be aware of with the sovereign threat today and

03:19also moving forward is that it's extremely adaptive, which means that, like, for example, during

03:25COVID-19, we take the normal sovereign citizen belief system that's largely anti-government,

03:31largely focused on alleviating mortgages and taxes, and then we throw COVID-19 into the

03:35mix.

03:36All of a sudden, we're seeing sovereign citizens catalyse around health conspiracies, ideas that

03:43the government is so oppressive that it's secretly trying to conduct these horrible health actions

03:50against the average citizen to ensure their slavery.

03:52We also see them catalyse against border lockdowns, and suddenly we see them focus on things like

03:58the Colonial Boundaries Act.

04:00So they're very adaptive.

04:02And COVID-19 was an example of just how resilient they are in changing contexts.

04:08So I think one thing we need to be aware of moving forward as a society is that as of

04:13events change in society around us, the sovereign ideology is uniquely positioned to adapt with

04:18that change in order to continue.

04:21And in that way, I think it's quite a persistent and established threat in Australian national

04:26security landscapes.

04:27Dr. Christy Campier, an expert on extremism and policing at Charles Sturt University, thank

04:32you for speaking with us.

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