{"id":194030,"date":"2025-10-06T20:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/194030\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T20:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:58:12","slug":"doxed-man-launches-petition-to-have-sovereign-citizens-declared-domestic-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/194030\/","title":{"rendered":"Doxed man launches petition to have sovereign citizens declared domestic terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terry \u2014 whose name has been changed to protect his identity \u2014 began looking into sovereign citizens a few years ago after a friend expressed interest in the movement.<\/p>\n

After doing some amateur research, he became aware that a prominent member of the movement lived in his neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

“He saw me down the street, he tracked me back to my house, and then just doxed me,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He told me where my eight-year-old daughter went to school.”<\/p>\n

Terry, who regularly posts on YouTube, said his address and mobile number were posted on a social media page with a large sovereign citizen following.<\/p>\n

“I had no choice but to hide my family,” he said.<\/p>\n

Terry said his family moved house, and his daughter is now homeschooled.<\/p>\n

He said he still received online harassment from sovereign citizens, ranging from people threatening to find out where he lived, to death threats.<\/p>\n

“My wife and young family live in fear that what I do will come back in the long run,” he said.\"Young<\/p>\n

Terry says he had to relocate his family after his personal details were leaked. (ABC News\/file photo)<\/p>\n

Senior lecturer at Macquarie University’s Department of Security Studies and Criminology, Lise Waldek, said members of the sovereign citizen movement believed the government impeded their individual ability to live.<\/p>\n

“They feel that the government and our interpretation of the rules that we have is wrong and incorrect and therefore don’t apply to them,” Ms Waldek said.<\/p>\n

“They don’t believe, for example, that the laws around driving licenses apply to them; they don’t believe the taxation laws apply to them.”<\/p>\n

A 2023 declassified Australian Federal Police report warned that while the movement differed from other extremist groups, there was “an underlying capacity to inspire violence”.<\/p>\n

Petition after police killing<\/p>\n

Terry is now petitioning the federal government to formally designate sovereign citizens as domestic terrorists, arguing this would allow law enforcement greater powers to monitor and prevent violence.<\/p>\n

The petition was posted online after Porepunkah resident Dezi Freeman \u2014 who has been linked to sovereign citizen views online \u2014 allegedly shot and killed two police officers in Victoria’s north east last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A sign depicting fugitive Dezi Freeman was displayed at the March for Australia rally in Adelaide in August. (ABC News: Che Chorley)<\/p>\n

Terry’s petition, which has about 90 signatures, argued “these are not isolated ‘one-off’ tragedies. They are part of a pattern of escalating violence”.<\/p>\n

Terrorist labels counter-productive, expert says<\/p>\n

Dr Liam Gillespie, a criminology lecturer at the University of Melbourne, said the terrorist label would be ineffective, as sovereign citizens in Australia were not part of a single movement.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Liam Gillespie says sovereign citizens could feel more alienated if classified as domestic terrorists. (Supplied: Liam Gillespie\u00a0)<\/p>\n

“It is an umbrella term that captures a wide variety of actors,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Many of these are unrelated, contradictory, and even at odds with one another.”<\/p>\n

Dr Gillespie said the label could inadvertently fuel radicalisation.<\/p>\n

“If we label sovereign citizens ‘domestic terrorists’, we would essentially be exiling them entirely from society,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We would be saying ‘There is no way back; you’re completely other to society and outside of it’.<\/p>\n

“This could radicalise existing members, driving them to violence, or leading to an escalation in their behaviour.”<\/p>\n

The ABC contacted the Department of Home Affairs in regards to the petition’s move to designate sovereign citizens as domestic terrorists.<\/p>\n

“It is the Australian government’s longstanding practice not to comment on the possible listings of terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code, including whether a particular entity is under consideration for listing,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

United States a ‘blueprint’<\/p>\n

In the United States, the FBI has designated sovereign citizens a domestic terrorism threat.<\/p>\n

Terry wants Australia to follow suit.<\/p>\n

“If [Australia] was to follow that blueprint, it would give more powers to police to stop these issues before they get to the levels that we are starting to see in society,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

The Sovereign Peoples Assembly of Western Australia is one group that appoints its own “sheriffs”. (Four Corners: Mark Hiney)<\/p>\n

Dr Gillespie said the link between the US sovereign citizen movement and armed white supremacist militia, as well as other historical and cultural conditions unique to the US, meant they dealt with sovereign citizens differently to Australia.<\/p>\n

Rule of Law Education Centre CEO, Sally Layson, said tackling sovereign citizen ideology required restoring confidence in Australia’s democratic institutions.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sally Layson says misinformation is widespread and easily accessible online. (Supplied: Sally Layson)<\/p>\n

“This erosion of trust creates fertile ground for misinformation, fringe legal beliefs and legal conspiracy theories to take hold,” she said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, it was revealed Australian students’ skills in civics had fallen to their lowest level in two decades<\/a>, with just 28 per cent of Year 10 students being ranked as proficient.<\/p>\n

Ms Layson said poor civic and legal education was a “major contributor” to the lack of trust in the legal system.<\/p>\n

“It is no surprise that Australians struggle to constructively engage with our legal system when they lack both understanding and respect for it,” she said.<\/p>\n

“In today’s digital age, where misinformation is widespread and easily accessible online, it is more important than ever to equip citizens, especially school students, with the knowledge and tools to critically assess legal claims and understand how our legal institutions function.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terry \u2014 whose name has been changed to protect his identity \u2014 began looking into sovereign citizens a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[72303,122458,122460,43,36204,44,1158,71351,122459,122457,58400,122461,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-194030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dezi-freeman","tag-domestic-terrorist","tag-extremist","tag-headlines","tag-national-security","tag-news","tag-police","tag-porepunkah","tag-radicalize","tag-sov-cits","tag-sovereign-citizen","tag-terrorist","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}