The members of the group referred to their land as "Justus Township" and had declared their leaders and followers "sovereign citizens" no longer under the authority of any outside government.
The Montana Freemen, who were direct ideological descendants of the Posse Comitatus movement,[1] espoused the doctrine of individual sovereignty and based on this belief, they rejected the authority of the federal government of the United States.
[2] The Freemen, led by LeRoy M. Schweitzer,[3] used inter alia Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code and Bankers Handbook to draw notices of lien against public officials.
They also claimed that support of the corporate credit system was an unconstitutional and corrupt act which has throughout the last half of the twentieth century "...[deprived the majority of Americans] of their property until [their] posterity wakes up homeless..."[citation needed], a paraphrased quotation attributed to Thomas Jefferson.
[5] In late April, political activist Bo Gritz was allowed by the FBI to enter Justus Township so he could try to negotiate a conclusion to the standoff.
[6] After holding five meetings over four days with the Freemen, Gritz left in frustration, commenting that the group had presented him with a mixture of religious and legal "mumbo-jumbo".
After an investigation, federal prosecutors found that Petersen had invented a company that supposedly held assets that included a $100 trillion default judgment against the United States.
[28] A 2011 National Public Radio report claimed that some of the people who were associated with the Montana Freemen were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit.