‘Paper terrorists’: New approach to Freemen on the land

Over the months that we’ve been following the Hampstead Hoax and its Merry Band of Hoaxateers, we’ve almost become accustomed to the ‘Freeman on the land’ bilge that some of them spout. There’s Neelu, of course, with her £13 trillion liens and her remedies and her oaths of office and arresting judges and whatnot.

And the other day we were introduced to another ‘Freeman’ type, old Melted Welly, who provided a few moments of entertainment on Angie’s latest webcast. As an acolyte of the noted Irish comedian Patrick “You can stick your ambulance up yer arse” Cullinane, Mr Duane has been noted in the past for blurting bilge such as the following:

Sure, John, whatever you say.

All of this reminded us of a story from Canada that one of our readers kindly passed along to us the other day:

“Paper terrorism”? That’s a new one on us. Intrigued, we read on:

EDMONTON—Police have charged a self-proclaimed Freeman on the Land with carrying out a “paper terrorism” campaign against a peace officer who issued him a speeding ticket.

Allen Boisjoli, 45, of Vegreville, Alta., faces a charge of intimidating a justice official and is to appear in an Edmonton courtroom Nov. 7.

Police say they have charged Boisjoli and other Freemen with intimidation before, but it’s the first time the charge has been laid in Canada strictly dealing with unlawful paperwork.

Freemen, who don’t recognize government or authority, often use the tactic of overwhelming courts with documents to try to have charges against them dismissed or withdrawn, said Det. Rae Gerrard.

“They use a plethora of documents which really mean absolutely nothing,” Gerrard said Wednesday.

“They’re just cutting and pasting from all over the Internet, from laws all over the world. They put them together into hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents and flood the courts with this.”

The term “paper terrorism” has been used by the courts in previous cases to describe a misuse of legal processes.

Boisjoli was pulled over by the Beaver County officer near Tofield, about 70 kilometres east of Edmonton, in May 2015. Boisjoli posted a YouTube video of his friendly-yet-stubborn interaction with the officer, in which Boisjoli said speeding isn’t a crime.

He never paid the ticket and a judge convicted him when he failed to show up and fight it in court, said Gerrard.

It’s alleged that Boisjoli filed various false documents against the peace officer over three months, including a personal lien on the officer’s property, claiming an award of $225,000 for being detained and issued the ticket.

Gerrard said Boisjoli has a history of similar behaviour. Court records show he was convicted in 2013 of intimidating two lawyers with Alberta Justice and sentenced to 10 ½ months in jail. He was also found guilty of assault.

The officer added that Boisjoli is also part of several other groups claiming self-sovereignty. An online profile lists Boisjoli as founder of Judicial Watch and the Sovereign Coalition of Exempt Natural Entities.

Members of the Freemen-on-the-Land movement commonly claim they do not require a driver’s licence, assert their rights to have weapons for self-protection and squat in unoccupied homes.

In 2013, a Freeman took over a Calgary duplex and claimed it as his embassy. After the landlady struggled for two years to get the man out, police arrested him on outstanding warrants in Quebec.

The Law Society of British Columbia and B.C. Notaries have issued several warnings about Freemen and estimated the group could number as many as 30,000 in Canada. The FBI considers the movement a domestic terror threat in the United States.

So it seems we’re not alone with our plague of Freeman nutters. (Not sure whether to take comfort from that, or be depressed about it.)

And fascinating that the Canadian courts seem to have hit upon the nub of the matter: Freemen on the land who try to overwhelm the courts with meaningless pseud0-legal paperwork are, in fact, attempting to intimidate justice officials.

In fact, if you listen to people like Mr Duane, they will state explicitly that their goal is to create havoc in the courts, and thus evade any consequences. Slapping them with this kind of charge might well put an end to their shenanigans, at least as far as the courts are concerned.

It seems that American courts, too, are getting wise to the antics of the Freemen. We were vastly entertained by this snippet from a Florida court:

Judge Hurley, wherever you are, we salute you!