Browsing by Subject "Paper Terrorism"

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    Legal Magic: Sovereign Citizenship as Mana-Work and Political Critique
    (2022) Powers, Conor; Stewart, Kathleen
    This is a thesis on the Sovereign Citizen Movement, a niche extremist group in the United States which, through a pastiche of historical and legal material, claims that the federal government is an illegitimate successor state with no jurisdiction over its members. Adherents to the ideas put forth by Sovereign Citizen thought leaders often make their beliefs known by targeting government offices with so-called ‘paper terrorism’, flooding them with bogus liens, lawsuits, and claims of sovereign emancipation that appeal to a reading of common law preceding and more powerful than written legislation. More broadly, however, Sovereign Citizens serve as an interesting case study in the myth making that happens when people are faced with the power of state sovereignty as it is distributed through markers of charismatic authority.