The Intelligence Review | vol. 1 | iss. 1 |

During the early stages of the group’s existence, the beliefs of its members focused on anti-
Semitism and racism, of which many current African-American members of the Sovereign
Citizens movement appear to be unaware. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in
the 1980s the movement attracted large numbers of anti-Semites and white supremacists because
“sovereign theories originated in groups that saw Jews as working behind the scenes to manipulate
financial institutions and control the government” (Anon. n.d.). Today the movement propagates
the erroneous theory that a type of “common law” was put in place by America’s founding
fathers, but was subsequently replaced by a different legal code through a secret conspiracy of
government bureaucrats. The latter, claim the Sovereign Citizens, has turned what used to be
free people into slaves, and is enabling “secret government forces [that] have a vested interest
in keeping them that way” (Anon. n.d.).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has classified the Sovereign Citizens as a “domestic
terrorist movement”. According to the Bureau, its members “operate as individuals without
established leadership and only come together in loosely affiliated groups to train, help each
other with paperwork, or socialize and talk about their ideology” (FBI 2011). Moreover, the
group serves as an umbrella movement that has given birth to a host of smaller far-right groups
in recent years. Examples of such groups are the Oath Keepers, the Pacific Patriots Network,
the 3 Percenters, and the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom —also referred to as the “Bundy
Group”. These groups do not share the same degree of extremist beliefs, and have been known
to disagree with each other’s views and tactics.
The Oregon Standoff
On January 2, 2016, brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy (sons of Cliven Bundy and leaders in
the Bundy Group) started the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney
Country, Oregon. It has been reported that the brothers found a ring of keys that they used
to break into the federal facility when it was not staffed during the New Year holidays. The
occupation was aimed to protest the case of a father and son who had received a jail sentence
for committing arson on public lands adjoining their ranch (Morlin 2016). Heavily armed
supporters of the Bundy Group, many of them members of other militia groups (Anon. 2016c),
arrived from all corners of the country including Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma
and New Hampshire, to participate in the occupation (Tuohy and Ritter 2016). The Oath
Keepers were also directly involved in the occupation and subsequent standoff. However, unlike
the Bundy group and the Pacific Patriots Network, they did not join the protests, nor did they
take up arms against law enforcement and federal officials. Instead, they facilitated a partial
evacuation of the women and children from the scene of the occupation following news of an
armed confrontation with police on January 26 (Anon. 2016b).
Earlier during the occupation, one of the Bundy brothers, Ryan Bundy, told The Oregonian
newspaper that he and other armed self-described “patriots” were “willing to kill and be killed
if necessary” (Morlin 2016) in defense of their beliefs. The standoff did result in one death.
On February 26, Citizens for Constitutional Freedom member Robert Finicum was shot dead
at a traffic stop while attempting to pull a weapon out of his coat jacket in the presence of
Oregon State Police and FBI officers who had surrounded him. Along with the Bundy brothers,
Finicum was part of a group of occupiers that was headed to a community meeting in a nearby
town. During the stop, Ammon and Ryan Bundy were arrested. Ten other members of the
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