Montana Freemen

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The Montana Freemen were a Christian Patriot group based in Montana, United States, near the town of Jordan. The Montana Freemen believed in the doctrine of individual sovereignty as expounded by the Sovereign Citizen Movement, and rejected the authority of the U.S. Federal Government. As a result of these beliefs, they attempted to set up their own parallel systems of government ("Justus Township"), common-law court, banking, and credit. They became publicly known during their 81-day-long standoff with U.S. Federal Marshals from March 25 through June 13, 1996.

Leroy Schweitzer and the Freemen used Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code, a Bankers Handbook and various other materials related to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) to file notices of liens against public officials. The purported liens were then allegedly sold to generate equity to fund efforts of the Freeman to make a "firm offer to pay off the national debt". The Freemen believed that the liens conformed to the UCC, and that their "Justus Township" court had an interest in a tort claim for damages, or for damages incurred by the named public officials for violations of their oaths of office. The Freeman viewed public officials' support and support of the credit system as a non-constitutional act that was "...depriving the people of their property until our posterity wakes up homeless...".

Their efforts, from the Freeman perspective, raised the awareness of what the Freemen viewed as the never ending perpetual national debt fiat credit system, and of the relationship of that system to inflation and price manipulations that the Freemen believed were financially undermining and bankrupting the private individual class of farmers and ranchers. Laws were subsequently changed in Montana,^{[citation needed]} and eventually elsewhere,^{[citation needed]} to require that any liens filed had to have a current county judge or clerk signature to be held valid as "commercial paper" which can be sold or traded.

Freemen contended in various shortwave and talk radio interviews that several of the liens were sold into the offshore banking market. Some Freemen or members of their families claimed that pressure tactics were used to induce Schweitzer and others to release the liens on public officials.