Prologue

In first my post on sovereign citizens, The conspiracy theory that revolves around wordplay, my goal was to illustrate what the sovereign citizen movement is and highlight the particularly strange language they use, which often stands out immediately. Having limited myself to that, I next set out to write a second post covering several more different aspects of the movement, such as their religious inclinations. This was going well until a couple of sections into the post, when it started pushing 5,000 words and I had not covered even a fraction of everything I wanted to. Conspiracy theories are rabbit holes for believers and skeptics alike. There is simply so much information out there, and every new clue leads to more paths to investigate.

So this has become a series of posts about sovereign citizens. Read my first post to know what “sovereign citizens” are (they don’t call themselves that). My first follow-up post was What does “include” mean? where I looked at a specific argument in detail. While this argument is made by different people, the version I responded to came from a website called the Sovereign Education Defense Ministry (SEDM) and its “sister site” Family Guardian (I will refer to these collectively as SEDM).

This post focuses on SEDM itself and its author Christopher M. “Chris” Hansen (no relation to the TV personality).

About the author

I’m sure Hansen would object to me presuming that he owns and operates these sites, so allow me to provide evidence. Googling the sites’ names brings up a case against Hansen from 2006:

Federal Court Halts Tax Evasion Scheme:
San Diego Man Barred From Promoting Tax Fraud Programs

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department announced today that a federal court has permanently barred San Diego resident Christopher M. Hansen from promoting a tax evasion scheme. Hansen promotes a number of tax-fraud schemes using the business names of the Family Guardian and the Sovereignty Education and Defense Ministry. The civil injunction order bans Hansen from making fraudulent statements in connection with his scheme, including the false statements that only federal workers are subject to the Internal Revenue Code, workers need not submit accurate withholding forms, and that United States citizens are not subject to federal income taxes.

The court’s opinion states that Hansen sells products to help customers evade paying federal taxes and obstruct IRS examinations. According to the opinion, Hansen assists customers in preparing false or fraudulent tax returns or tells them not to file at all. Hansen also markets a “Citizenship Administrative Repudiation” program in which his customers purportedly give up their “U.S. citizenship” in favor of “American National citizenship,” which Hansen claims makes customers no longer liable for federal income taxes. The court found that Hansen knew or should know that the theories he uses to urge persons to avoid paying taxes are false or fraudulent. The injunction was filed on June 1, 2006.

The court’s order requires Hansen to remove from his Web sites all advertising for his fraudulent tax programs and to post the permanent injunction order on the Web sites. Hansen must also provide the government the names, addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers of those persons who have purchased his products.

(DOJ press release)

The full opinion can be read here. In accordance with the order, it is indeed posted on famguardian.org. In fact, many documents submitted to the court by Hansen are shared on the site, as well as some other letters and things, in the “C. Hansen tax case study” which describes Hansen as “one of our readers”. He also links to his own commentary on the order, calling the commentary “EXCELLENT!”

Hansen’s own documents reveal that he was held in contempt of court for refusing to obey the order. He still maintains that the judge was wrong and corrupt, and still appears to be encouraging tax evasion.

The “motions” he filed are a trip. He refers to himself as “the alleged defendant”, claiming that by downloading material from his sites, the prosecutor entered into a contract that makes the prosecutor the defendant.

The SEDM Member Agreement says that anyone who obtains the religious and political beliefs and opinions posted on the websites and uses them against the ministry becomes the SUBSTITUTE DEFENDANT. Therefore Hansen is NOT the “Defendant” by private contract. This private contract functions as the equivalent of a “binding arbitration agreement” that applies to all persons who download the materials or obtain them through the SEDM bookstore. The [court] is reminded that it may NOT lawfully impair the obligations of such contracts, which in this case are NOT protecting unlawful activity…

(Hansen, “Amended Order Rebutted”, p. 21)

Much of the sovereign citizen movement revolves around the idea of avoiding being tricked into contracts, which I guess means they think they can also trick people into contracts. They also think contracts can do things they can’t do. We’ll talk more about the Member Agreement later.

Hansen denies being associated with SEDM except as a member, both when writing as himself (to the court) and when writing as SEDM (for the website). However, there are suspicious similarities in the writing style:

And there are even sections that appear to be copied and pasted, links, formatting, and all:

Another peculiar writing practice shared between Hansen and SEDM is the presumptuous addition of words into biblical passages:

“Where do wars and fights [in the ballot box and the jury box] come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure [unearned money or “benefits” from the government] that war in your members [and your democratic SOCIALIST governments]? You lust [after other people’s money] and do not have. You murder [the unborn to increase your standard of living] and covet [the unearned] and cannot obtain [except by empowering your de facto THIEF government to STEAL for you!].”

(SEDM)

“And there was a great outcry of the [socialist] people and their wives [at the voting booths and in the jury boxes] against their Jewish brethren [who were building the wall]. For there were those who said, ” We, our sons, and our daughters are many; therefore let us get grain [through government usury by unjust taxation], that we may eat and live.”

(Hansen, p. 42)

This manipulation of scripture is something I imagine some Christians would find sacrilegious, but I think it’s funny.

Next, SEDM features a site revision history that has some interesting entries. On 4/14/2003, the Family Constitution document was updated with the following change:

Replaced all occurrences of “Hansen Family” with “__ Family”.

Actually, the Family Constitution still contains the phrase “Hansen family” (p. 193). The revision history also notes that sections of the Family Constitution were written by a Christopher Hollman Hansen and a Joshua Hansen. I could not find any information on these individuals, but my guess is that they are relatives of Christopher M. Hansen.

In the Family Constitution (and elsewhere) there are references to George Hansen (1930-2014), a Republican congressman who is known for his opposition to taxes and being imprisoned for fraud. While SEDM is supportive or sympathetic towards George Hansen, there does not appear to be any relation. After all, George Hansen lost an election to an (unrelated) Orval Hansen, so the name isn’t anything to go by here.

There are more substantial clues to Hansen’s involvement with SEDM. For example, this page—which is basically an index page with a list of links to other pages—says “Copyright Chris Hansen”, but each of the constituent pages say “Copyright Family Guardian Fellowship”. Notably, the pages that are attributed to Hansen have earlier revision dates. As it turns out, the archived version reveals the whole of famguardian.org used to say “Copyright Chris Hansen” before it was changed to “Copyright Family Guardian Fellowship”. It appears to have been changed right around the time of the case against Hansen, though it may have been changed earlier.

In an archived version of the “Contact Us” page from before the case, Hansen writes:

As we say throughout our books and website, the materials we offer are not intended to be a substitute for your own research or investigation. I can’t do EVERYTHING myself. I am only one man. Liberty is not a spectator sport.

(emphasis added)

In my post about the meaning of the word “include”, I responded primarily to a single 2,951-page document called The Great IRS Hoax. In an archived page about Hoax from 2004, Hansen writes:

Three years of continuous research by the webmaster went into writing this very significant and incredible book. This book is very different from most other tax books because:

1. The book is written in part by our tens of thousands of readers and growing…THAT’S YOU! We invite and frequently receive good new ideas and materials from legal researchers and ordinary people like YOU, and when we get them, we add them to the book after we research and verify them for ourselves to ensure their accuracy. Please keep your excellent ideas coming, because this is a team effort, guys!
2. We use words right out of the government’s own mouth, in most cases, as evidence of most assertions we make. If the government calls the research and processes found in this book frivolous, they would have to call the Supreme Court, the Statutes at Large, the Treasury Regulations (26 C.F.R.) and the U.S. Code frivolous, because everything derives from these sources.

(emphasis in the original)

The bottom of the page has “Copyright Chris Hansen”. The page also mentions that Hoax was first published in 2000. (The statistics provided on famguardian.org say the site began operation in 2000, and sedm.org‘s statistics say that site began in 2003.)

Between 2004 and 2006, this page went from saying:

The Family Guardian website exists as a free, educational public service of Chris Hansen.

to:

The Family Guardian website exists as a free, educational public service.

The attribution isn’t the only thing that changed, though. The press release about Hansen’s conviction mentions “zero returns”, or tax returns claiming $0 in tax liability:

“Zero returns” are on the IRS’s annual list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams that taxpayers are urged to avoid[.]

At some point—I’m guessing during or just after the case against him—Hansen came up with a new strategy, which he now advocates for throughout SEDM’s materials. (Unfortunately, older archived versions of sedm.org don’t exist.)

Selecting the correct approach in filing your refund claim as a “nontaxpayer” is absolutely crucial, because it could mean the difference between getting a refund and being penalized as frivolous. We can’t and won’t tell you which approach works best or is best for you, because this is your responsibility and we can’t give legal advice on this website. However, we can share information we have learned so far about the various alternatives available. There are three approaches you can take:

1. Claim zero (“0”) for “wages, salaries, tips, etc” on a signed return and ask for all of your money back. In this case, the IRS will regard you as a “nontaxpayer” and “not liable”. This is the approach advanced by several popular freedom fighters, such as Pete Hendrickson on his Lost Horizons website and this approach has proved effective.
2. Fill in an arbitrary but very small amount for “wages, salaries, tips, etc” , 1 ¢ for instance, on a signed return and then ask for all your money back. In this case, the IRS has to regard you as a “taxpayer” for the portion of your income which you designate essentially as a “donation” (the 1¢), which then forces them to respond to your refund and give you your money back for the rest, which is wrongfully withheld payments for earnings that are not taxable. This technique is more complicated than the zero return method above because you have to add several caveats to your letter so the IRS can’t exceed their authority by adjusting your income upward or by making absurd claims to undermine it. We have not seen this approach used by anyone but us, but we think it is the only approach which will work. We’ll explain shortly.
3. Submit a unsigned return with 1 ¢ for “wages, salaries, tips, etc” , attach a letter and a copy of our book, and tell them that they have your authority to sign the return IF they provide the following. …

(SEDM, emphasis in the original)

A post from this year (2024), titled “The Message You Send to Uncle [Sam] by Filing the 1040-NR instead of the 1040“, features the music video of the 1984 song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister with the following description:

IRS is the dad and the singers are those filing 1040-NR with a small donation to avoid a zero return.

(emphasis added)

Another page says:

If you aren’t legally “liable” for a tax to begin with and only file zero return or a one cent return, then you can’t be penalized for doing so!

(emphasis added)

And “How American Nationals VOLUNTEER to Pay Income Tax” says:

More likely if you amend and try to significantly decrease your tax or make it $0, IRS may threaten or impose a frivolous return penalty. The threat of that penalty is, in fact CRIMINAL witness tampering, because the return is signed under penalty of perjury. There is always a risk with an amended return of any kind where you attempt to decrease tax to $0, because the IRS tries to penalize “Zero return” filers, usually ILLEGALLY. So the tax amount due should be nonzero but as close to zero as possible.

(emphasis added)

A picture is beginning to come together. My hypothesis is that a large part of the content on SEDM was written in the late 90s. Hansen was probably researching and sharing these ideas from much earlier, perhaps finding like-minded people through early internet forums and chat rooms. He seems very tech-savvy and I believe he created the websites himself (they are certainly created by an amateur). The sites were created and grew in popularity in the early 2000s. By 2005 the operation was large enough to attract government attention, leading to the case against Hansen which concluded in 2006. During or before the proceedings against him, sometime between 2004 and 2006, Hansen made changes to SEDM to distance himself from it (recall that this is the case in which Hansen told the court he has no involvement with SEDM). At some point, he changed his strategy from “zero returns” (used throughout the sovereign citizen movement) to 1¢ returns, which the IRS is forced to process. Hansen continues to operate and write for SEDM to this day (late 2024).

SEDM certainly has always had its contributors. Hoax for example explicitly lists several people who made significant contributions. Much of the information on the site, while presented by Hansen, comes directly from other sources (note that Hansen is extremely careful to attribute sources, though occasionally the decade-plus-old links are now dead). I would never want to imply that the contents of SEDM is the work of one man. SEDM as a “project”, however, is.

The unexpected part

There is one thing about SEDM that doesn’t comport with my theory, and which in general doesn’t make a lot of sense: SEDM is ostensibly based in Canada, specifically Thunder Bay, Ontario. We see this is the place to send copyright complaints to in the SEDM Copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Policy. Additionally, all of the “products” in the “bookstore” are priced in Canadian dollars.

In general, SEDM mentions Canada only here and there to point out that SEDM is based in Canada. All of the actual materials relate to the United States. This does not appear to be something new. As early as 2004 Hansen wrote that “[o]ur main server at http://famguardian.org is not located anywhere in the United States (the country) and is therefore outside of the jurisdiction of any court in that country” which may mean Canada. Archives of sedm.org unfortunately don’t go back very far, but the site was based in Ontario at least as early as 2011.

I could not find any evidence of a physical presence of any kind in Canada. SEDM may have a genuine connection with Canada, but my suspicion is that this is nothing but an attempt to avoid US jurisdiction.

A note about SEDM’s copyright and TOS

Hansen is very determined to avoid legal liability for anything on the website. The site features several agreements, terms, disclaimers, and policies designed to accomplish this.

First of all, the Terms of Use and Service says that the user consents to the terms by “[d]ownloading any of the free materials or information available on the SEDM website” (note viewing in a web browser is a form of downloading). One of the provisions is that the user agrees to the Terms of Use, which is not the same as the Terms of Use and Service. The Terms of Use in turn says that “[a]ll those using this website” agree to the Member Agreement. The Member Agreement contains much of the same exact text as the Terms of Use and Service, including the quote above about downloading. The Terms of Use also links to the Disclaimer/License Agreement, which has a section entitled “Copyright/Software/User License Agreement”, and there is also a separate page called the Copyright and DMCA Policy. The Member Agreement links to the Terms of Use and Service, the Disclaimer, and to itself. Finally, there is a Public Notice that repeats much of the same information and links to the Terms of Use and Service and Member Agreement.

This bizarre and confusing setup—where several documents contain largely the same text verbatim or paraphrased and link back and forth to one another—is characteristic of SEDM. In short, we are to understand that merely using the site binds us to all of the provisions in all these documents. And what are those provisions?

As mentioned in Hansen’s motion above, the site’s terms supposedly force a prosecutor to substitute themselves as defendant in any case involving SEDM’s materials.

[The user agrees to:]

Substitute himself/herself as being liable for any judgments against this Ministry or its agents or Members relating to complaints filed by him/her or evidence provided by him/her to third parties or litigation initiated by him/her which result in prosecution of this Ministry or its agents or Members for the activities or offerings of the Ministry.

(Terms of Use and Service, p. 12)

This provision means that if someone brings charges against Hansen using the materials on their site as evidence, they agree to bring the charges against themselves instead. If enforceable, this would prevent Hansen from being held responsible for any illegal content on his site (by which I mean any hypothetical content). Even if everything on SEDM is perfectly legal, this provision of the Terms would permit Hansen to share absolutely any kind of illegal content on the site. Such a result is unconscionable, especially for an adhesion contract like a TOS. Substituting a defendant for another person who otherwise has no liability in the case is also a violation of the public policy that the person bringing the complaint (the prosecutor or plaintiff) always has the right to decide who they are bringing the complaint against. A contract can neither force a person to pursue a case against their will nor insulate someone from being named a defendant, as these would interfere with the application of the law and the carriage of justice.

Ultimately, in the 2005 case against Hansen the court decided there was no evidence the prosecutor consented to the contract. I imagine that the claims about the TOS were simply so absurd that the court felt no need to delve into this issue in depth, but that in a different context a contract like this would be treated differently. Lack of consent is, in my opinion, the weakest argument by far. If the provisions were different but the criteria for being subject to the TOS were the same, and the website was owned by a medium to large corporation, I believe the court would grant that the user consents to the contract. Rather, the provisions themselves void the contract. Keep in mind this is my layperson opinion.

To the extent that I can legally do so, I do not consent to the contract(s) on SEDM. I’ll now address a few specific points about my own use of the website and materials.

Permission to view the materials

1. The following parties may read, download, or learn materials available through this website or ministry but may not use them during litigation as evidence, attach them to a pleading, or submit them to any member of the government or legal professions in connection with any dispute, and especially legal dispute, over tax liability:

1.1. “taxpayers”, “U.S. citizens”, “U.S. persons”, U.S. “residents”, …
1.2. Atheists or those who do not believe in God.

…

(Terms of Use and Service, p. 9)

Whether enforceable or not, this is only a positive for me, as it gives me explicit permission to read and download the materials. Note that my status under 1.1 and 1.2 here make me a “Member in Bad Standing”.

Contacting SEDM about errors

[The user agrees to:]

Bring any inaccurate statements noted on this website, in any educational materials we provide, or in any of our statements to our attention immediately at the time noticed and give us an opportunity to remedy it BEFORE pursuing either: 1. A refund for a bookstore item the statement was contained in, so that we may correct it and send the correction to you without the need for a refund or; 2. Any litigation or injunctions against us because any information provided is erroneous. If we are physically able to correct the erroneous information, then we will do so as soon as practicable, provided that your comments are accompanied with credible, admissible evidence that the information provided is erroneous. We cannot correct an allegedly erroneous statement without court admissible evidence proving it erroneous or inaccurate.

(Terms of Use and Service, p. 12)

I am not obligated to contact SEDM about errors I allege in their materials because I am not pursuing 1 or 2.

The Terms of Use page also mentions this:

If you want to throw rocks, our Copyright License Agreement and Disclaimer both require that you are going to have to prove FIRST to a fully informed and completely impartial jury of our friends and neighbors sitting in a court from a state of the Union, who are the true sovereigns in our Republican form of government … that your cause is righteous. You are also going to have to prove this with the WHOLE truth available to the jury, and not just the subset of truth you can abuse and distort with presumption … and propaganda to favor your position.

(Terms of Use)

Here too, the context makes clear that “throwing rocks” means taking legal action, not merely criticizing.

Rules for online conduct

By using the service, you agree that you will not attempt to undermine the integrity of this web site.

(Terms of Use)

The Terms of Use (and not Service) does not explain further, nor does it stipulate any consequences for violating this agreement. The Terms of Use and Service offers clarification on what “using the service” means and the consequences:

The term “use” includes sending or submitting any information or materials on our site to any government, member of the legal profession, or court, including the output of any service. Any use of information, materials, or services available from Sovereignty Education and Defense Ministry in violation of this agreement is hereby stipulated, established, agreed, and declared to be to be unauthorized by all those subject to said agreement. Unauthorized uses make those engaging in the use into Members in Bad Standing.

(Terms of Use and Service, p. 1)

I am not “using” any materials or services, and moreover I am already a “Member in Bad Standing” for the reasons noted above.

Fair Use and conclusion

To Hansen’s credit, he does not appear to be interested in preventing what he calls “disinterested third parties” like myself from merely criticizing SEDM. I am actually in compliance with the TOS. That said, should he choose to make a copyright claim against me for the reproduction of SEDM’s materials, I will preemptively point out that my posts fall under Fair Use as provided in 17 USC § 107:

1. This personal blog is not a commercial enterprise and is not for profit. Its purposes are for education and creative expression.
2. The copyrighted work is of a technical and not a creative nature. I am referring to it because of the information it provides, not for any artistic purposes.
3. SEDM’s materials consist of thousands of pages and I have not reproduced a significant portion of any of them.
4. The materials I am using are freely available to the public and have been for decades. I am not incurring any loss in profitability for SEDM. I have not quoted any “members only” or otherwise paid materials.

I don’t expect that outcome, though. I have seen Hansen directly rebut anti-sovereign citizen articles and videos in the past, suggesting he is less interested in silencing criticism than I initially suspected.

Incidentally, all the pdfs Hansen has published have copying text disabled. My guess is that this is to prevent people from quoting portions of his work. If so, however, this is ineffective, as when viewing the pdf in a web browser you can right-click and select “Search” then copy the text from the search textbox.

Bonus: More crazy things said on SEDM

SEDM is filled to the brim with flabbergasting claims. Some are merely bizarre, and others are bizarre in the directness with which they contract reality.

On page 2311 of Hoax, Hansen states that the USC is called “code” and not “law” is “[b]ecause the truth is encrypted and hidden”. I don’t know if this is meant to be hyperbole or something, but it’s obviously not true. The word “code” referred to a collection of laws prior to referring to a cipher or “secret code”.

SEDM’s index of forms and publications contains more than 50,000 pages of materials across nearly 700 documents, most of which appear to be written by Hansen (including documents with lots of long quotes and documents that have large portions of identical text, which inflate these numbers). With such a large quantity of content, there are bound to be some oddities. Check out this question from the “Pagan Questionnaire“:

Have you ever worshipped a Pagan before? If so, which false God were you fooled by? Please check all that apply.
__ Mick Jagger

__ George Bush
__ Bill or Hillary Clinton

__ Demo-publican
__ Any Rudy….

__ The almighty federal reserve note.
__ W2, W4, I9, 1040 or other form you worshipped because you thought it was mandatory.

__ Bill Gates
__ Left-wing liberalism

__ The War on Drugs
__ The War on Poverty

__ The War on Terror
__ Foxx Fair and Unbalanced News

__ CNN, ABC, NBC, etc.
__ The radical right

__ Barney T.B.P.D.[the big purple dinosaur]
__ The Great Pumpkin

__ Elvis
__ Cindy Crawford

__ TV news
__ Jerry Springer

I can’t tell if this is meant to be an actual questionnaire or if the whole thing is a joke. If it is a real questionnaire, I have no idea who would fill this out and for what purpose. If it is a joke, it’s not very good and is delivered in a really strange way.

Incidentally, when counting the pages of documents, I opened tens of pdfs in quick succession, triggering SEDM’s anti-DDOS protections and banning my IP from viewing the site. This is totally fair and it was my fault for not considering the load I was putting on the site. I can still view the site from my phone or other different connections so it’s not really a problem but lesson learned!

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^{Featured image by Pixabay.}