Constitution v. Law
What started in 1999 as a straightforward, honest effort to help Joe Banister obtain answers from the IRS to his petition regarding the alleged fraudulent origin and illegal operation and enforcement of the federal income tax system, has taken on the nature of an epic, characterized by events of historical, legendary and exceptional importance.
Our epic is about nothing less than the Right of the People to hold the Government accountable to the Constitution by claiming and exercising the capstone Right guaranteed by the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging…the right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Our epic is about the deeds of modern heroic Freedom Keepers, expressing the ideals, character, and traditions Free Men experienced during the first years of our nation, in their exercise of their Right to Petition for Redress of constitutional torts.
Our epic is unfolding against a background of warfare between the Constitution and unconstitutional acts of Government that violate the tax, war, money and privacy clauses of the Constitution.
Our epic includes men of strong heart and character, unafraid to confront those that would seek to deny them their Liberty, and lesser souls as well, either too enamored with power or rapt with fear to proudly proclaim the self-evident truths and Principles of Nature that beckoned the dawn of the Republic.
The story of the battles, customs, and legends telling the history of the Freedom Keepers’ defense of the People’s capstone Right to Petition the Government for Redress of these Grievances is narrated in prose in a detailed affidavit by Bob Schulz, appended with 78 exhibits.
The epic includes the filing of a landmark lawsuit in which the federal judiciary has been asked to declare, for the first time in history, whether the Government is obligated to respond to the People’s Petitions for Redress of constitutional torts, and whether the People can retain their money until their grievances are redressed. In other words, the Court has been asked to declare the Rights of the People and the obligations of the Government under the First Amendment’s Petition clause.
The Decision by the United States Court of Appeals
On May 8, 2007, a mid-level court -- the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit -- issued its decision, affirming the lower court’s ruling that the Government is not obligated to listen or respond to the Petitions for Redress of Grievances and that, therefore, the Court has no basis to enjoin the IRS from continuing its traditional enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code.
On the question of the Government’s obligation to respond to these Petitions for Redress, the Court claimed it was bound to apply a principle of law established in two earlier cases decided by the Supreme Court. This is known as the judicial doctrine of stare decisis.
This is what Black’s Law Dictionary has to say about the meaning of stare decisis:
“Doctrine that, when court has once laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle, and apply it to all future cases, where facts are substantially the same; regardless of whether the parties and property are the same. (citation omitted)…Under doctrine a deliberate or solemn decision of court made after argument on question of law fairly arising in the case, and necessary to its determination, is an authority, or binding precedent in the same court, or in other courts of equal or lower rank in subsequent cases where the very point is again in controversy. (citation omitted)…The doctrine is a salutary one, and should not ordinarily be departed from where decision is of long-standing and rights have been acquired under it, unless considerations of public policy demand it. (citation omitted). The doctrine is limited to actual determinations in respect to litigated and necessary decided questions, and is not applicable to dicta or obiter dicta.” (emphasis added by WTP).
| Clearly, the DC Court of Appeals committed reversible error in its ruling in We the People v United States. The facts in our case are clearly distinguishable from the Smith and Knight cases cited by the Court of Appeals. In fact, these two cases address only the limited “petitioning” rights of state employees within the context of state labor relations legislation. Neither case addresses the constitutional meaning of the Right when claimed and exercised by ordinary Citizens against constitutional torts – violations of the Constitution by the Government. In addition, as Judge Rodgers expressed in her separate opinion, we argued a question of law that was not argued in either Smith or Knight – i.e., the historical meaning and purpose of the Petition Clause of the First Amendment. For a more detailed review of our initial thoughts on the Court’s ruling, click here. |
The People now have four options:
1. Petition the United States Supreme Court to hear the case. The appeal to the Supreme Court is "not of right" meaning the Supreme Court decides whether it wants to hear the case. The Petition would have to be filed before August 6th.
2. Return to the DC Court of Appeals with a Petition for Rehearing by the three-judge panel that decided the case. The Petition would have to be filed before June 22nd.
3. Return to the DC Court of Appeals with a Petition for Rehearing En Banc, meaning our Petition for Rehearing would be put before all 14 judges of the Court of Appeals. If a majority decide the case should be reheard, it will be, and a new decision will be issued, either affirming, reversing or modifying the earlier decision. The Petition for Rehearing would have to be filed before June 22nd.
4. Return to the DC Court of Appeals with both a Petition for Rehearing by the same three-judge Panel that originally decided the case and a Petition for Rehearing En Banc. The ruling by the Panel would probably precede any En Banc ruling. Both Petitions would have to be filed before June 22nd.
We are leaning towards option 3 or 4.
As we have said all along, whether the United States or the People ultimately lose at this mid-level Court, the matter will eventually to taken to the United States Supreme Court.
Please remember our agreement with attorney Mark Lane is for him to represent the Plaintiffs until we have exhausted our judicial remedy, for a total of $285,000. There is still much work to be done at the Court of Appeals and then at the Supreme Court. We have already paid Mark $200,000 and need to make another payment now. Please send your generous donation today. We are very grateful for your contribution and continued support. We shutter when we think of all that is at stake in the outcome of this case.
The IRS’s Unconstitutional Application of the IRC
Our epic, besides its story of the history of our Freedom Keepers’ defense (in and out of court) of the capstone Right under the Petition Clause to hold Government accountable to the Constitution, contains a still-unfinished chapter detailing the ongoing warfare between the Constitution and the misuse by the Government of a constitutional law, i.e., the Internal Revenue Code.
To the dismay and disgust of many, the IRS and the DOJ have engaged in an “institutional hijacking” of the law in such a way as to result in a tragic and terrifying tyrannical abridgment of constitutional protections. This deliberate program involving the misuse and misapplication of the government’s (limited) legal authority to collect taxes has punished Freedom Keepers from coast to coast, depriving them of their freedoms including the Rights of Speech, Press and Association, Privacy and Due Process, to say nothing about the egregious abridgments of their First Amendment Right to Petition for Redress of Grievances.
We refer specifically to the laws -- the Acts of Congress, that authorize the IRS to serve summonses, to lien and levy property, to investigate illegal tax shelters and to seek injunctions to stop people from promoting illegal tax shelters. On their face these laws are constitutional, but when invoked with vengeance by IRS and DOJ with the intent to silence the Freedom Keepers and quash the lawful exercise of their unalienable Rights they become unconstitutional by their application – an abomination, a source of utter disgust, an overwhelming repugnancy.
Our epic is also about the abdication of the constitutional role of the federal courts in allowing these abuses to continue unchecked as hordes of IRS and DOJ agents unabashedly enforce the Internal Revenue Code in an unconstitutional manner to satiate their cravings to secure tax bounties for their managers at any cost -- even Liberty itself.
Rather than wait for the People to exhaust their judicial remedies, rather than wait for the meaning of the Constitution to be determined by the ultimate arbiters of the Constitution, rather than honor the principles of the Rule of Law and Due Process to settle the exceptionally important questions regarding the Rights of the People and the obligations of the Government under the Petition Clause of the First Amendment, the IRS and the DOJ under color of the law are doing everything in their power to shut down the Petition process.
For instance, it is now abundantly clear that the IRS is openly attacking and harassing the 1700 named plaintiffs in the landmark RTP lawsuit, most of whom have filed sworn affidavits with the Court that they are claiming and exercising their Right to withdraw their financial support of the Government because the Government has not responded to their four Petitions for Redress of constitutional torts! This is obstruction of justice!
In addition, under the guise of what is otherwise a constitutional law designed to prevent illegal tax shelters (26 USC Section 6700), the IRS has been seeking the identities of everyone who is supporting the Petition process. In 2003, the IRS informed WTP that it had reviewed certain material published by WTP and was, therefore, initiating an investigation under Section 6700 of a “potentially illegal” tax shelter.
Under the cover of its “Section 6700 investigation of a potentially illegal tax shelter”:
1. In 2003, the IRS served a first party summons on Schulz. Schulz sued the IRS to quash the summons. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Schulz did not have to comply with the summons without a court order.
2. In 2005, the IRS served a third party summonses on WTP board members, naming Schulz as the target. Schulz sued the IRS to quash the summonses. The matter is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The case will probably be decided on a technicality. The IRS missed the statutory deadline for notifying Schulz that it served Summonses and Schulz missed the statutory deadline for serving the Petition on the IRS.
3. In 2005, the IRS served a third party summons on PayPal at its San Jose office, and a third party summons on PayPal at its Omaha office. Both summonses named Schulz as the target. Schulz sued the IRS in San Jose and in Omaha to quash the two summonses. The matters are before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Eight Circuit (Nebraska) and the Ninth Circuit (California). In both cases the lower courts have closed their eyes to the constitutional arguments, seeing only the law that authorizes IRS to issue summonses.
4. In 2006, the IRS served a third party summons on the Glens Falls National Bank and Trust Company in New York, naming Schulz as the target. Schulz sued the IRS to quash the summons. In this case, the IRS agent perjured herself by submitting a Declaration under penalty of perjury that a reason for the summons was the IRS had evidence that money had been transferred from PayPal to accounts at the bank controlled by Schulz. This was obviously a false statement and the agent knew it. The agent has since been removed from the case and Schulz has asked the court to sanction the agent. The matter is pending before the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.
In each of these cases Schulz has argued that the summons was served to chill the enthusiasm of Schulz and his supporters and is an infringement of Schulz’s First Amendment Right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association and, of course, his freedom to petition for redress of constitutional torts. In other words, the summons was issued in bad faith.
IRS’s only argument is that it has the authority under 6700 to conduct investigations and that it does not have to worry about the Constitution in doing so.
Our epic, therefore, includes this warfare between the Constitution and the Law. The issue is whether the IRS can apply the otherwise constitutional Internal Revenue Code in a manner that patently violates the Constitution.
After four years, it wasn’t until April 3, 2007 that the IRS finally identified exactly what WTP material it considered to be subject to penalty under Section 6700 and why.
On April 3, 2007 the United States filed a civil injunction complaint against Schulz and WTP in the New York District Court, seeking to prohibit Schulz and WTP from making certain statements regarding wage withholding. (RIGHT-Click to download the Complaint, 1.2 MB)
On May 23rd Schulz filed a motion to dismiss the civil injunction case on ground that the United States has failed to make a claim for which relief can be granted under the First Amendment and under Section 6700 itself.
On May 24th Schulz filed a motion to consolidate his bank summons case (Schulz v. United States) with the new civil injunction case (United States v Schulz).
WTP has responded to these shallow attempts to unlawfully interfere with our organization’s ability to freely exercise our First Amendment Rights, particularly the Right of Petition, speak freely and to prosecute a substantial number of ongoing Right-to-Petition related lawsuits that have now reached, without final resolution, four of the eleven Circuit Courts.
The WTP motion to dismiss makes clear that this 6700 lawsuit is just another in a series of continuing acts of harassment by the U.S. Government in an unlawful effort to derail the work of the Foundation, bully our supporters and obstruct justice as WTP continues to defend the Constitution and encourage Americans to claim and exercise their unalienable Rights.
In many respects, the Government has risked much by exposing itself as a civil plaintiff in what will surely be contentious litigation against experienced litigators such as Schulz and Lane who are well prepared to defend and justify the actions of the WTP organization and its network of supporters.
The 6700 lawsuit may be the best evidence yet about the impact that our organization is having on the Government’s ability to perpetuate the income tax fraud as well as the unconstitutional acts and appendages of the federal leviathan.
We ask for your continued support and participation as we continue our defense of Freedom against those who seek to destroy it. A glorious day awaits us if we have the heart and determination to embrace the Light of Liberty and stand tall for the final battles.
GML 2007 Conference Record Now Available
Approximately sixty days ago a throng of souls committed to the defense of Liberty came together in person and live via the Internet in Alexandria, Virginia to experience Give Me Liberty 2007 -- the Conference on the State of the Constitution.
This event, the second of its kind, marked yet another milestone in the People’s march to restore Constitutional Order and secure Freedom for our nation. Over three days, 23 speakers spoke at length about the grave issues now threatening our Republic.
But unlike any other pro-freedom conference, the GML 2007 conference’s subjects were consciously viewed through the lens of the Constitution, in terms of both specific constitutional violations and viable constitutional solutions.
Far beyond the fraud of the federal income tax system which propelled the WTP organization onto the national stage several years ago, this conference continued to expose the seemingly endless list of government acts that are outside the strictly limited constitutional authorities delegated by We the People, but that now threaten our very way of life. These violations have made the permanent loss of Freedoms a disturbing possibility in our lifetime.
Beyond the bedrock freedom issues already well covered by this Foundation (e.g., Second Amendment Rights, the income tax fraud, etc.) the GML 2007 conference ventured into new, highly inflammatory issues such as U.S. Foreign Policy and foreign aid in the Middle East (particularly the nation’s relationship with Israel), the failure of successive administrations to execute our immigration laws, the character and dangers of the growing Police State and the emerging body of evidence that our Government and others had advanced knowledge and benefited from the tragic events of 9-11.
Beyond these topics, GML 2007 delved into government control of the medical profession, the national judicial crisis, and the CFR/New World Order.
In an effort to bring these disturbing realities to the American public and assure them that all is not yet lost, the Give Me Liberty conference staked out “new ground’ revealing areas of abuse, that although known to many individuals and organizations, had yet been “framed” as specific Constitutional violations that can be peacefully remedied -- not through political means, but through the potent legal weapon provided by the Constitution itself, i.e., the Right to Petition government for Redress of Grievances.
As we have written about extensively, this profound Right, articulated by the last ten words of the First Amendment is an expression of Nature herself, giving dominion over servant governments to the People that create them. This is the essence of the Right to Petition. It is the practical means of exercising Popular Sovereignty.
This is why we devoted a full 1/2 day of the three day conference to the exercise of the Right by protesting in “V” costumes across from the White House. We were pleased the of event was not only covered by the Washington Post, but that the Post got the story right.
The GML 2007 conference stands as an integral element of this Foundation’s continuing efforts to enlighten the American populace about this Right and to move them to claim and exercise it as a principle, non-violent way to restore the Constitution and our unalienable Rights.
We urge everyone to obtain a copy of the GML 2007 record.
You can watch a preview of the GML 2007 content here:
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Special Note to conference attendees and GML 2007 Pay-Per-View donors:
If you have not been already, you will be contacted shortly by our partner company
e-Knowledge which is responsible for distribution of your free or discounted GML 2007 packages.
The three-day conference record contains approximately 20 hours of video, 23 speakers including renowned attorneys, professors and subject matter experts. The record contains video of all the dinner speakers and the White House Right to Petition protest (which were not broadcast via the live Internet webcast.) The record also contains supplementary items such as copies of the speakers presentation materials (PowerPoint files, video clips, etc.) and other documents related to the presentations.
The record is now available on a two-disc DVD-ROM set.
We urge everyone to make a donation and obtain this powerful package of material so you can share it with your friends, family and communities.
By sharing the unique experience of GML 2007 with others, you not only support the WTP Foundation, you help ignite the Light of Liberty in others and “recruit” the freedom-seeking organizations and souls that are needed to prevail in our common defense of Freedom.
Update Related Links:
Click here to obtain the GML 2007 record on DVD
You can watch a preview of the GML 2007 content here:
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US Court of Appeals RTP Decision (5/07)
6700 IRS Complaint
6700 WTP Motion to Dismiss
6700 WTP Motion to Consolidate
Please remember:
The Landmark Right-To-Petition Lawsuit
and Operations of the WTP Foundation
are Funded Solely By Your Generous Support.
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