prioritization should be banned out right. >> reporter: a final decision on the plan could take months. tom akerman, al jazeera, washington. well, you can go to our website, all of the news is there, at aljazeera.com. ♪ hi, i'm lisa fletcher and you are in the "stream." the nation's top domestic security threat may not be who you think. >> oh, my god! oh, [ censor bleep ]! >> here why a new study supported by the department of homeland security, found the sovereign's citizens movement to be the leading threat. and are white supremacists gaining fresh momentum? ♪

waj is out, and we have my co-host and digital producer brings in your feedback. i think a lot of our viewers had the same experience we did, which was initially we won't sure what the sovereign citizen's movement was. >> exactly. i'll give you example here: these are questions you often hear debated and this question of sovereign citizens is really bringing that out.

>> you may not have heard of the sovereign citizens movements, but you probably know about some of the attacks that their ideology has inspired like the oklahoma city bombing, and the texas suicide tack when a man intentionally crashed his airplane into an irs office. there have been shootings by those involved with the movement in a new study, the national consortium for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism surveys officials from 175 law enforcemented organizations across the country. and they sound that sovereign citizens are the top per received domestic terrorism threat. so what moore do we know about

the sovereign citizens movement and what is being done to curb their activity. joining ugh is the former chief of police who's killed by a sovereign citizen in 2010. he now travels across the country training law enforcement on the movement. and senior writer for the southern poverty law center. and a spokesperson for the movement. you have been a spokesperson for 20 years, who are they and what is their ideology. >> first off i'm not aware of any movement. there is no organization to the people that are studying the concept of sovereignty. what they are looking for in my opinion is to create a new booingman. >> okay.

who are these people? them? >> yeah, they are inclined to read and to write, the ones that are truly sovereigns. there are a bunch of people who claim to be sovereigns who don't know how to spell the word. what keeps a people in the sovereignty movement right now, they are concerned about traffic tickets, divorce court laws, losing their homes to foreclose sure, they are concerned about the government shipping our jobs to china and allowing and encouraging illegal aliens to come into this country, and they are studying how can this be? and that will take you back to fundamentals. >> ryan talk about this group a little more. they are loosely organized. they don't call themselves a group.

any sense of how many people are associated with it? >> well, we have estimated that in the neighborhood of 300,000 people in the country are probably sovereign citizens or self identify somewhere under that ideology. i think alfred is somewhat incorrect in saying that it is not a group. while it is an ideology, there are certainly sovereign groups across the country who have organized and formed themselves to be established organizations. for example, the -- just last year, or over the course of the last four years, there was a large group called the republic for the united states of america, which was a group formed by a collection of sovereign citizens in southern alabama, and over the course of three years, they managed to build or at least make massive strides towards the mirrored institutions of the federal

government so that when the federal government fell by being overthrown or collapse, they could step up and form the government of this country. >> ryan can you just give us a sense of what the main beliefs are? what the main ideologies are associated with this group? >> sure. sovereign citizens ultimately believe that they -- not any institution of government decide what laws are valid and what laws they can -- they will follow. it is an idea or an ideology that at its core believes that the federal government as it exists today is -- is ultimately works to enslave u.s. citizens, put them in a state of financial burden and basically collect money off of their backs. and what alfred said just a moment ago, they are a people who like to read and write, yes,

they write quite a lot of court documents and read a lot of historical readings. however, it's an ideology that dives deep, and when you go down that rabbit hole you are in a complete conspiracy theory. i have heard them say that they have determined cures for cancer and leukemia, and i have heard them say that the federal government they are trying to reoccupy is this mythical institution that was abandoned after the civil war. >> chief potter until may 2010 you didn't know much about that movement. that day you tragically lost your son to the actions of a sovereign citizen. if it's okay with you, we have a clip of what happened that i would like to show. are you okay with that? >> sure. >> for our viewers you will be hearing the voice of a truck

driver witness and his 911 call, and looking at video from the officer's patrol car. >> oh, my god! oh, [ censor bleep ]! [ inaudible ] >> he shot once ho put him the ditch. >> chief potter walk us through what happened. how was your son and the other officer so caught off guard in this situation? >> well, my son, brandon and the other officer is bill evans, we working the interstate that day, and they stopped a white van occupied by a father and a son from ohio, and they happened to be sovereign citizens and we had

never heard of sovereign citizens before that date. many in law enforcement had never heard sovereign citizens. we knew of others -- >> so they thought this was just a normal traffic stop? >> well, they did -- thought it was a normal traffic stop and thought that jerry kaine was a pastor. he had a bible in the car. he had scriptures from the bible, and the license plate was registered to a church in ohio, so they thought they stopped a father and son going around the country preaching gospel to the country, when in reality they are now as liabled, domestic terrorists. >> why are sovereign citizens now considered the top domestic terror threat? >> well, i think it stemmed from the shooting in may of 2010, and they -- they now meet the

criteria for what the fbi says are domestic terrorists. they pose a danger to those in this country that commit either federal or state crimes. they are a threat and -- to most that they come in contact with. so in the beginning, the reason they weren't classified as domestic terrorists they were under the white collar section of the fbi and the statutes -- of the federal statutes. they were not listed as domestic terrorists. since the 2010 shooting, that has changed where now they are listed as white collar crime and domestic terrorists too. and i know this man would disagree with that -- >> alfred what do you think about that title? >> domestic terrorists? i think it is absurd. the fbi can identify six individuals who have been shot

by people who claim to be sovereign citizens since 2000. in 2012 the police officers of the united states killed 409 americans. right now what that means is you are 800 times more likely to be shot by the chief than by me. all right? and yet he is saying, watch out for al. he is dangerous. listen, our -- the ratio of people when southern poff earnty law -- the law center says there's 300,000. if there's 300,000 of us, we should be knocking off at least 45 people per year. we don't. >> i want to jump in here and give you a comment we got from jason:

so this is one prosecutor and he says he runs into that many. what is the scale of this? occur? >> well, it is increasing. in my travels around the country, in the beginning there were very few that had heard of sovereigns, and now everywhere i go, prosecutors and state are dealing with sovereign [ overlapping speakers ] >> or traffic tickets. >> sir, i didn't hear you. >> they are claiming to be of - sovereign citizens, and they are coming in on a traffic ticket beef but how many are coming in for violence. >> i agree, it is a low

percentage of them. i agree with a lot of what they talk about, the federal government is too involved in our business. where i disagree is where they are shooting police officers they don't even know. what i have found in my research and my travels is the more encounters sovereigns have with law enforcement, the more dangerous they become, and that was certainly the case in the kaines that had been stopped numerous times and arrested, and they never had anything in the car. they were arrested in new mexico, spent two days in jail, he gets out goes straight to phoenix, guys an ak 47, and now he is traveling the country with the ak 47, several rounds of ammunition, and spoke dope. why? because he new the next encounter with law enforcement,

there was going to be a shootout. i understand many of what they are saying and doing, many feel the same they do. but they are still -- abide by the laws of this country. so -- >> all right. we're going to have to take a quick pause here. the sovereign citizens movement deploys a lot of tactics to turn the tables on government. up next is called paper terrorism. and later the ku klux klan has been around for 150 years. are they trying to beef up on

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i'm chief of the west memphis police department, my son brandon didn't realize that there were people at war with this country that are not international terrorists. >> welcome back, we're discussing the sovereign citizens movement. those in the believe that virtually all government in the u.s. is ill legitimate. while sovereign citizens is loosely based, it is more organized than some groups. can you talk about some of the tactics used. >> sure. the primary tactic is paper terrorism, where sovereign

citizens will file court paperwork for grievances. they will frequently put liens on properties. in birmingham there have been citizens who have tried to put liens on the county court building. but there is also the idea that they do not have to answer to law enforcement. before the break there was some discussion about gauging the danger posed by the sovereign citizen ideology, and the danger is not necessarily -- it doesn't have to be measured in a body count. they do not believe in the rule of law as it exists in this country. >> i want to jump in here, and ask -- i was struck by this video of a man named anthony williams. >> today is my first official day as a sovereign peace officer.

see i got my badge, got my handcuffs, and i got my citations in my vehicle. >> alfred how common is that? >> that's the first i have heard of it. but there are people that do crazy things in any group you want to point to. you can find them on the dallas cowboys, in the police departments, and in people who claim to be sovereigns. i would like to -- the man from southern poverty law enter said paper terrorism. how terrifying can it be to send paper into court? would you rather people shoot? set off bombs? do you have any idea how much work goes into trying to learn enough where you can file a credible lawsuit. >> alfred i think the problem is

it appears to be used as an intimidation tactic where billions of dollars in false liens are filed against public officials to intimidate them. are you okay with that? >> are you okay with the idea that a man who commits a relatively minor crime can go to court and be sentenced to a lengthy sentence based on the idea of deterrence. we're going to ruin one man's life for a relatively minor offense. the whole concept of deterrence is retallatory and wrong -- intimidation. >> i'm not interested in intimidating, but i am interested in getting to the dialogue of where we are? when we talk about paper

terrorism, all -- just using the world paper terrorism. people who write court cases are terrorists? it's an attempt -- a bias -- this is propaganda. this is trying to -- it's a way of saying forget that, don't pay any attention to those people. they are filing court cases against the government they must be crazy. this government has very nearly collapsed our economy. >> alfred i want to get the chief back in. chief since your son's murder, you have dedicated your life to educating law enforcement officers about a group of -- a slice of the sovereign citizens who are perceived to be dangerous. talk about what you are doing in terms of education and curbing the activities of this violent sect. >> just trying to educate officers around the country about the dangers they pose when they confront sovereigns.

not all sovereigns, but some, and we can't identify those that are the extremists, and as mr. albert says there are those crazy ones in any group you have, but i am convinced if law enforcement is aware of their tactics, then it will save lives. brandon and bill had no idea who sovereigns were. they thought they were dealing with a church group, a father and son from a church. their guard was down. had they had the information we're passing out today, i'm convinced they would be alive, but that's behind us. there's nothing we can do with that. but we can give officers now the information that sovereigns have said that law enforcement i their enemy. >> some sovereigns may have said that. >> all right.

on that note, thanks so our guests. ryan you are going to stay with us. in the last ten years more americans have died on u.s. soil by attacks by violent far white groups, and those inspired by al-qaeda. coming up next, hear about some of the new strategies and rebranding efforts that these groups are using to gain more followers, and can and should the government be doing more to

♪ welcome back. we mentioned before the break that there have been more attacks on americans by violent far right groups than by individuals inspired by al-qaeda. in the last six months people have been finding bags of candy with flyers urging them to join the ku klux klan. some say the kkk is stepping up recruitment in the wake of increased racial tension in the country. so ryan, we have seen a recent surge in some of these attacks associated with white supersy, a shooting at a jew ish

community center, is there a revivalal right now in the white supersy movement? >> oh, absolutely. hate groups on the racist right have been climbing steadily. last year they shrunk slightly. but there is no doubt they are on the rise. we believe these groups are growing as a result of changing demographics in this country, and discomfort among some people in that reality. >> ryan there is certainly data to back that up: and when i share this information online, and you can take a look at some of the different kinds of shootings that were included in these deadly attacks, we got a lot of responses that questioned the labels being used vrment

- : and it really made me as i went back to the foundation and asked them. and they said: and i want to ask you, are there -- do you take issue with these labels? because our community certainly has. what do you think about how it is framed? >> i think that label that you just described regarding the radical right in this country is quite accurate. these are groups that don't hold the government in any state of validity; that generally denigrate groups of people based on characteristics like skin color, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, so i think it's quite clear what domestic extremism is. >> david you were inspired to

use humor after a kkk rally in 2007. tell us about that. >> it was a pretty creative response on behalf of activists with a group called mountain justice that formed a group called the coo cluck clowns. and rather than meeting hatred with hatred and running away and saying they just want attention ignore them, they chose to be presence and transform the energy of the event in a way that denied the kkk for what they came from. >> you are using innovative techniques to combat racism and hatred. it is clear that the kkk is trying to get in touch with kids. starts? >> well, i think it's extremely important to reach out to the kids. these problems are long in the making, and generally long in

the solution, but i really think it's incumbent upon all of us to reach out to each other and children. the best defense against bigotry is forming community that can withstand it. >> i know you acknowledge it's tough to talk to kids about bigotry and hatred, but how important is that conversation? >> it's massively important. they through white flour and joined the rally. that gives us a way to talk to kids about violence. >> you are quite an inspiration. thank you to all of our guests today. until next time, we will see you online at aljazeera.com/ajamstream. ♪

hel al jazeera live from doha. also ahead on the program. an al jazeera exclusive, the palestinian authority accused of missing the chance to have israel investigated for war crimes. emergency teams get vital aid in flooredded areas across south asia, but thousands are still not rescued. plus. pro independence demonstrations is