Domestic terrorismDHS intelligence assessment highlights threat posed by sovereign citizen groups

U.S. security officials have long considered sovereign citizen groups as a growing threat to domestic security. In a 2014 survey of state and local law enforcement agencies by the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), state and local law-enforcement officers listed members of sovereign citizen groups as the top domestic terror threat ahead of foreign Islamist and domestic militia groups (see “U.S. law enforcement agencies perceive Sovereign citizen movement as top terrorist threat,” HSNW, 6 August 2014; and “W.Va. dealing with a growing threat from sovereign citizen movement members,” HSNW, 19 September 2014). A year before that study was published, a man who held anti-government views shot three Transportation Security Administration employees at Los Angeles International Airport, killing one officer.

The U.S. government has primarily focused its counterterrorism efforts on the threats posed by foreign extremist groups, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, but the problem posed by domestic would-be terrorists has not been overlooked. CNN reports that a new DHS intelligence assessment, released earlier this month, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists. That report attributes at least twenty-four violent attacks since 2010 to sovereign citizen groups. CNN notes that these are extremists believe they can ignore laws and regulations, and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as traffic stops or being required to obey a court order.

In its assessment, DHS predicts that “(Sovereign citizen) violence during 2015 will occur most frequently during routine law enforcement encounters at a suspect’s home, during enforcement stops and at government offices.” In 2012 a father and son were accused of engaging in a shootout with police in Louisiana after a confrontation that began when an officer pulled them over for a traffic violation. Two officers were killed and several others wounded in that incident. The father and son were sovereign citizen extremists who claimed police had no authority over them. “Law enforcement officers will remain the primary target of (sovereign citizen) violence over the next year due to their role in physically enforcing laws and regulations,” added the DHS intelligence assessment.

The threat of domestic terrorism posed by sovereign citizens, armed militias, and other anti-government groups was barely mentioned in last week’s White House conference on violent extremism. The conference dealt exclusively with the threat posed by jihadist Islamist groups. Administration officials say, though, that U.S. security and law-enforcement agencies focus on the threat from all terrorists, regardless of their ideological leanings.

The Justice Department, which is leading the Obama administration’s counter-radicalization efforts against Islamist extremism, says many of the methods and tactics aimed at stopping recruitment of young people for jihad can also be used to fight anti-government extremist groups (see “Lone-wolf domestic terrorism on the rise,” HSNW, 16 February 2015).

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, says there could be as many as 300,000 people in the United States involved in some form of sovereign citizens-inspired activity, but that only about 100,000 of them form the hard core of the movement.

Potok notes that just as many young Muslims join radical groups because of poor economic circumstances, sovereign citizen groups have attracted support for the same reason. Some sovereign citizen groups, for example, travel the country pitching their ideology as a way to help homeowners escape foreclosure or debts by simply ignoring the courts and bankruptcy laws.

CNN notes that in 2009, a DHS report on possible recruitment by right-wing militia groups of military veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted an outcry from some veteran groups. GOP politicians charged that the Obama administration was motivated by politics in preparing the report. The report, however, was researched and produced by DHS staff members during the Bush administration, and its review process was not completed until the Obama administration took office.

— Read more in Understanding Law Enforcement Intelligence Processes: Report to the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, July 2014); and Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, July 2014)