“Redemption” UCC Filing This is a “redemption” UCC filing. “Redemption” is a series of pseudo-legal beliefs and tactics that originated in 1999 by long-time sovereign citizen and convicted felon Roger Elvick. It spread like wildfire in the summer and fall of 1999 and has since become accepted canon in the sovereign citizen movement. Though there are by now many variations, basically redemption adherents believe that in 1933 the government created securities out of people’s birth certificates in order to pay international bankers, and to perpetrate this fraud they had to create fictional dopplegangers of every man, woman and child, which they refer to as straw men. Redemption theory teaches that you can do certain things (of which filing a UCC-1 and sending a letter to the secretary of the treasury are two important steps), you can get all sorts of magical results. Redemption theory has evolved over the years, with the most important development being the notion that you can copyright your own name (or that of your straw man) and if someone uses it without your permission, you can charge them huge amounts of money, etc. See http://www.adl.org/mwd/redemption.asp for a full explanation of this sovereign citizen scheme. Mark Pitcavage Director of Investigative Research Anti-Defamation League