INTRODUCTION

When I beat the IRS, I used supreme court decisions. If I had tried to use these in court, I would have been convicted.

I was involved with a patriot group and I studied supreme court cases. I concluded that the supreme court had declared that I was not a person required to file an income tax -- that that tax was an excise tax on privileges granted by government. So I quit filing and paying income taxes and it was not long before they came down on me with a heavy hand. They issued a notice of deficiency, which had such a fantastic sum on it that the greatest temptation was to go in with their letter and say, ""Where in the world did you ever get that figure?"" They claimed I owed them some $60,000. But even if I had been paying taxes, I never had that much money, so how could I have owed them that much?

NEVER ARGUE THE AMOUNT OF DEFICIENCY

Fortunately, I had been given just a little bit of information: NEVER ARGUE THE FACTS IN A TAX CASE. If you're not required to file, what do you care whether they say you owe sixty dollars or $60,000. If you are not required to file, the amount doesn't matter. DON''T ARGUE THE AMOUNT -- that is a fact issue. In most instances, when you get a Notice of Deficiency, it is usually for some fantastic amount. The minute you say, "I don't owe that much," you have agreed that you owe them something, and you have given them jurisdiction. Just don't be shocked at the amount on a Notice of Deficiency, even if it is ten million dollars! If the law says that you are not required to file or pay tax, the amount doesn't matter.

By arguing the amount, they will just say that you must go to tax court and decide what the amount is to be. By the time you get to tax court, the law issues are all decided. You are only there to decide HOW MUCH YOU OWE. They will not listen to arguments of law.

So I went to see the agent and told him that I wasn't required to file. He said, "You ARE required to file, Mr. Freeman."" But I had all these cases, and I started reading them to him. He said, "I don't know anything about law, Mr. Freeman, but the Code says that you are required to file, and you're going to pay that amount or you're going to tax court."" I thought that someone there ought to know something about law, so I asked to talk to his superior. I went to him and got out my cases, and he wouldn't listen to them. "I don't know anything about law, Mr. Freeman……."" Finally I got to the Problems Resolution Officer, and he said the same thing. He said that the only person above him was the District Director. So I went to see him. By the time I got to his office, they had phoned ahead, and his secretary said he was out. But I heard someone in his office, and I knew he was there.

I went down in the elevator, around the corner to the Federal Building and into Senator Simpson's office. There was a girl there at the desk, and she asked me if she could help me. I told her my problem. I told her that I thought that the District Director was up there. I asked her to call the IRS and tell them that it was Senator Simpson's office calling and to ask if the District Director was in. I said, "if you get him on the phone, tell him that you are from the Senator's office and you have a person who you are sending over to speak to him and could he wait just five minutes."" It worked. He was there, and I ran back up to his office. His secretary met me when I came in and said, "Mr. Freeman, you're so lucky - - the Director just arrived.""

The Director was very nice and offered me coffee and cookies and we sat and talked. So he asked me what I wanted to talk to him about. (If you ever have someone say to you, "I'm from the government and I'm here to do you a favor."" Watch out! But we can turn that around and approach them the same way.) So I said, "I thought you ought to know that there are agents working for you who are writing letters over your name that you wouldn't agree with. Do you read all the mail that goes out of this office over your signature?"" The Director said, "Oh, I couldn't read everything -- it goes out of here by the bagful."" That was what I thought. I said, "There are some of your agents writing letters which contradict the decisions of the supreme court of the United States and they're not doing it over their name, they're doing it over YOUR name.""

He was very interested to hear about it and asked if I had any examples. I just happened to have some with me, so I got them out and presented them to him. [supreme court cases supporting his position] He thought it was very interesting and asked if I could leave this information with him, which I did. He said he would look it over and contact me within 3 days. Three days later he called me up and said, "I'm sure, Mr. Freeman, that you will be glad to know that your Notice of Deficiency has been withdrawn. We've determined that you are not a person required to file. Your file is closed and you will hear no more from us." I haven't heard another word from them since. That was in 1980 and I haven't filed since 1969.

THE SUPREME COURT ON TRIAL

I thought that I had the answer, but when a friend got charged with Willful Failure to File an income tax, he asked me to help him. I told him that they would have to prove that he willfully failed to file and I suggested that he should put me on the witness stand. He should ask me if I spoke at a certain time and place in Scott's Bluff and did I see him in the audience, he should then ask me what I spoke of that day. When I got on the stand, I brought out all of the supreme court cases I had used with the District Director. I thought I would be lucky to get a sentence of two out before the judge cut me off, but I was reading whole paragraphs and the judge didn't stop me. I read one and then another and so on. And finally when I had read just about as much as I thought I should, the judge called a recess of the court. I told Bob I thought we had it made. There was just no way that they could rule against him after all that testimony. So we relaxed.

The prosecution presented it's case and he (Bob) decided to rest his case on my testimony, which showed that he was not required to file, and that the supreme court had upheld this position. The prosecution then presented its closing statement and we were just sure that he had won. But at the very end, the judge spoke to the jury and told them, "You will decide the facts of this case and I will give you the law. The law requires this man to file an Income Tax form; you decide whether or not he filed it," What a shock! The jury convicted him. Later some of the members of the jury said, "What could we do? The man admitted that he had not filed the form, so we had to convict him."

As soon as the trial was over, I went around to the Judge's office and he was just coming in through his back door. I said, "Judge, by what authority do you overturn the standing decisions of the United States supreme court? You sat on the bench while I read the case law. Now how do you, a District Court Judge, have the authority to overturn decisions of the supreme court?" He said. "Oh, those were old decisions." I said, "Those are standing decisions. They have never been overturned. I don't care how old they are; you have no right to overturn a standing decision of the U.S. supreme court in a District Court."

PUBLIC LAW V. PUBLIC LAW

He said, "Name any decision of the supreme court after 1938 and I'll honor it, but all the decisions you read were prior to 1938, and I don't honor those decisions." I asked what happened in 1938 and he said, "Prior to 1938, the supreme court was dealing with Public Law; since 1938, the supreme court has dealt with Public Policy. The charge that Mr. S was being tried for is a Public Policy Statute, not a Public Law, and those supreme court cases do not apply to the Public Policy." I asked him what happened in 1938. He said that he had already told me too much -- he wasn't going to tell me any more.

1938 AND THE ERIE RAILROAD

I began to investigate. I found that 1938 was the year of the "Erie Railroad v. Tompkins" case of the supreme court. It was also the year the courts claim they blended Law with Equity. I read the Erie Railroad case. A man had sued the Erie Railroad for damages when he was struck by a board sticking out of a boxcar as he walked along beside the tracks. The District Court had decided on the bases of Commercial (Negotiable Instruments) Law: that this man was not under any contract with the Erie Railroad, and therefore he had no standing to sue the company. Under the Common Law, he was damaged and he would have had the right to sue.

This overturned a standing decision of over one hundred years. Swift v. Tyson in 1840 was a similar case, and the decision of the supreme count was that in any case of this type, the court would judge the case on Common Law of the state where the incident occurred -- in this case Pennsylvania. But in the Erie Railroad Case, the supreme court ruled that all federal cases would be judged under the Negotiable Instruments Law. There would be no more decisions based on the Common Law at the federal level. So here we find the blending of the Law with Equity.

This was a puzzle to me. As I put these new pieces together, I determined that all our courts since 1938 were Merchant Law Courts and not Common Law Courts. There were still some pieces of the puzzle missing.

A FRIEND IN THE COURT

Fortunately, I made a friend of a judge. Now you won't make friends with a judge if you go into the court like a "wolf in black sheep country." You must approach him as though you are the sheep and he is the wolf. If you go into a court as a wolf, you make demands and tell the judge what the law is -- how he had better uphold the law or else…… Remember the verse: I send you out as a sheep in wolf country; be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. We have to go into court and be wise and harmless, and not make demands. We must play a little dumb and ask a lot of questions. Well, I asked a lot of questions and boxed the judges into the corner where they had to give me a victory or admit what they didn't want to admit.

I won the case and on the way out I had to stop by the clerk's office to get some papers. One of the judges stopped and said, "You're an interesting man, Mr. Freeman. If you're ever in town, stop by and if I'm not sitting on a case we will talk."

AMERICA IS BANKRUPT

Later, when I went to visit the judge, I told him my problem with the supreme court cases dealing with Public Policy rather than Public Law. He said, "in 1938, all the higher judges, the top attorneys and the U.S. Attorneys were called together into a secret meeting and this is what we were told:

America is a bankrupt nation -- it is owned completely by its creditors. The creditors own the Congress, they own the executive, they own the Judiciary and they own all the state governments.

Take silent judicial notice of this fact, but never reveal it openly. Your court is operating in an Admiralty Jurisdiction -- Call it anything you want, but do noot call it Admiralty.

ADMIRALTY COURTS

The reason they cannot call it Admiralty Jurisdiction is that your defense would be quite different in Admiralty Jurisdiction from your defense under the Common Law. In Admiralty, there is no court, which has jurisdiction unless there is a valid International Contract in dispute. If you know it is Admiralty Jurisdiction, and they have admitted on the record that you are in an Admiralty Court, you can demand that the international maritime contract, to which you are supposedly party, and which you supposedly have breached, be placed in evidence.

No court has Admiralty/Maritime Jurisdiction unless there is a valid international maritime contract that has been breached.

So you say, just innocently like a lamb, "Well, I never knew that I got involved with an international maritime contract, so I deny that such a contract exists. If this court is taking jurisdiction in Admiralty, then place the contract in evidence, so that I might challenge the validity of the contract." What they would have to do is place the national debt into evidence. They would have to admit that the international bankers own the whole nation, and that we are their slaves.

NOT EXPEDIENT

But the bankers said it is not expedient at this time to admit that they own everything and could foreclose on every nation of the world. [My note: DAMN RIGHT!] "at this time" that is the KEY behind the building up of the UN as a MILITARY FORCE! That is the KEY to disarming America, that is the KEY to "ending" the cold war. Like now we have no more enemies, so we can melt all our guns. WRONG! The bankers PLAN to foreclose, they just don't want their HEADS BLOWN OFF WHILE DOING IT, so they DICTATE to the "congress" to get rid of the guns---." The reason they don't want to tell everyone that they own everything is that there are still too many privately owned guns. [see! ITYS.] There are uncooperative armies and other military forces. So until they can gradually consolidate all armies into a WORLD ARMY, and all courts into a WORLD COURT, it is not expedient to admit what jurisdiction the courts are operating under. When we understand these things, we realize that there are certain secrets they don't want to admit, and we can use this to our benefit.

JURISDICTION

The Constitution of the united States mentions three areas of jurisdiction in which the courts may operate:

COMMON LAW

Common Law is based on God's Law: Anytime someone is charged under the Common Law, there must be a damaged party. You are free under the Common Law to do anything you please, as long as you do not infringe on the life, liberty or property of someone else. You have a right to make a fool of yourself provided you do not infringe on the life, liberty or property of someone else. The Common Law does not allow for any government action that prevents a man from making a fool of himself. For instance, when you cross over state lines in most states, you will see a sign which says, "BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELTS -- IT'S THE LAW." This cannot be Common Law, because who would you injure if you did not buckle up? Nobody. This would be compelled performance. But Common Law cannot compel performance. Any violation of Common Law is a CRIMINAL ACT, and is punishable.

EQUITY LAW

Equity Law is law that compels performance. It compels you to perform to the exact letter of any contract that you are under. So, if you have compelled performance, there must be a contract somewhere, and you are being compelled to perform under the obligation of the contract. Now this can only be a civil action -- not criminal. In Equity Jurisdiction, you cannot be tried criminally, but you can be compelled to perform to the letter of the contract. If you then refuse to perform as directed by the court, you can be charged with contempt of court -- this is a criminal action. Are our seat belt laws Equity laws? No, they are not, because you cannot be penalized or punished for not keeping to the letter of the contract. [This has, of course, changed since the publishing of the article, so read on - -- -]

ADMIRALTY/MARITIME LAW

This is civil jurisdiction of compelled performance that also has Criminal Penalties for not adhering to the letter of the contract, but this only applies to International Contracts. Now we can see what jurisdiction the seatbelt laws (and all traffic laws, building codes, ordinances, tax codes, etc.) are under. Whenever there is a penalty for failure to perform (such as willful failure to file) that is Admiralty/Maritime Law and there must be a valid international contract in force.

However, the courts don't want to admit that they are operating under Admiralty/Maritime Jurisdiction, so they took the international law or Law Merchant and adopted it into our codes. This is what the supreme court decided in the Erie Railroad case -- that the decisions will be based on commercial law or business law and that it will have criminal penalties associated with it. Since they were instructed not to call it Admiralty/Merchant Jurisdiction, they call it Statutory Jurisdiction.

NOTE: Statutory Jurisdiction is not in the 4^th edition of Black's Law. Statute is defined as written law and is opposed to, or opposite, unwritten Law. Common Law is a body of rules and principles written or unwritten which must be applied to controversies rigorously and in their entirety, and cannot be modified to suit the peculiarities of a specific case, or colored by any judicial discretion, and which rests confessedly upon custom or statute, as distinguished from and claim to ethical superiority.

COURTS OF CONTRACT

You may ask how we got into this situation where we can be charged with failure to wear seat belts and be fined for it. Isn't the judge sworn to uphold the Constitution? Yes, he is. But you must understand that the Constitution in Article I, Section 10, gives us the unlimited right to contract as long as we do not infringe on the life, liberty, or property of someone else. Contracts are enforceable, and the Constitution gives two jurisdictions where contracts can be enforced, Equity or Admiralty. But we find them being enforced in Statutory Jurisdiction. This is the embarrassing part for the courts, but we can use this to box the judges into a corner in their own courts. We will cover more of this later.

CONTRACTS MUST BE VOLUNTARY

Under the Common Law, both parties must enter into every contract knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally or it is void and unenforceable. These are characteristics of the Common Law contract. There is another characteristic -- it must be based on substance. For example, contracts used to read, "For one dollar and other valuable considerations, I will paint your house, etc." That was a valid contract -- the dollar was a genuine silver dollar. Now suppose you wrote a contract the said, "for one Federal Reserve Note and other consideration, I will paint your house." And suppose for example, I painted your house the wrong color. Could you go into Common Law Court and get justice? NO, you could not. You see, a Federal Reserve Note is a "colorable" dollar, as it has no substance, and in a Common Law Jurisdiction, that contract would be unenforceable.

COLORABLE MONEY-COLORABLE COURTS

The word "colorable" means something that appears to be genuine, but is not. Maybe it looks like a dollar, and maybe it spends like a dollar, but if it is not redeemable for lawful money (silver or gold) it is "colorable". If a Federal Reserve Note is used in a contract, then the contract becomes a "colorable" contract. And "colorable" contracts must be enforced under a "colorable" jurisdiction. So by creating Federal Reserve Notes, the government had to create a jurisdiction to cover the kinds of contracts that use them. We now have what is called Statutory Jurisdiction, which is not a genuine Admiralty Jurisdiction. It is a "colorable" Admiralty Jurisdiction the judges are enforcing because we are using "colorable money". Colorable Admiralty is now known as Statutory Jurisdiction. Let's see how we got under this Statutory Jurisdiction.

UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE

The government setup a "colorable" law system to fit the "colorable" currency. It used to be called the Law Merchant or the Law of Redeemable Instruments, because it dealt with paper which was redeemable in something of substance. But once Federal Reserve Notes had become unredeemable, there had to be a system of law which was completely "colorable" from the start to finish. This system of law was codified as the Uniform Commercial Code, and has been adopted in every state. This is "colorable law, and it is used in all the courts.

I explained one of the keys earlier, which is that the country is bankrupt and we have no rights. If the master says "Jump!" then the slave had better jump, because the master has the right to cut his head off. As slaves we have no rights. But the creditors/masters had to cover that up, so they created a system of law called the UCC. This "colorable" jurisdiction under the UCC is the next key to understanding what has happened.

CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT

One difference between Common Law and the Ucc is that in Common Law, contracts must be intered into: (1) knowingly, (2) voluntarily, and (3) intentionally. Under the UCC this is not so. First of all, contracts are necessary. Under this new law, "agreements" can be binding, and if you only exercise the benefits of an "agreement" it is presumed or implied that you intend to meet the obligations associated with those benefits. If you accept a benefit offered by government, then you are obligated to follow, to the letter, each and every statute involved with that benefit. The method has been to get everybody exercising a benefit and they don't even have to tell the people what the benefit is. Some people think it's the driver's license, and marriage license, or the birth certificate, etc. I believe it's none of these.

COMPELLED BENEFIT

I believe the benefit being used is that we have been given the privilege of DISCHARGING debt with limited liability, instead of paying debt. When we pay a debt, we give substance for substance. If I buy a quart of milk with a silver dollar, that dollar bought the milk, and the milk bought the dollar -- substance for substance. But if I use a Federal Reserve Note (hereafter called FRN) to buy the milk, I have not PAID for it. There is no substance in the FRN. It is worthless paper given in exchange for something of substantive value. Congress offers us this benefit:

Debt money, created by the federal United States, can be spent all over the continental united States, it will be legal tender for all debts, public and private, and the limited liability is that you cannot be sued for not paying your debts.

So now they have said, "We're going to help you out, and you can just discharge your debts instead of paying your debts." When we use this "colorable" money to discharge our debts, we cannot use Common Law Court. We can only use "colorable court." We are completely under the jurisdiction of the UCC - we are using non-redeemable negotiable instruments and we are discharging debt rather than paying the debt.

REMEDY AND RECOURSE

Every system of civilized law must have two characteristics: Remedy and Recourse. Remedy is a way to get out from under the law. The Recourse is if you have been damaged under the law, you can recover your loss. The Common Law, the Law of Merchants, and even the UCC all have remedy and recourse, but for a long time we could not find it. If you go to a law library and ask to see the UCC they will show you a shelf of books completely filled with the UCC. When you pick up one volume and start to read it it will seem to have been intentionally written to be confusing. It took us a long time to discover where the Remedy and Recourse are found in the UCC. They were found right in the first volume, at 1-207 and l-103.

REMEDY

The making of a valid Reservation of Rights preserves whatever rights the person then possessed, and prevents the loss of such rights by application of concepts of waiver or estoppel. (UCC 1-207.7)

It is important to remember when we go into a court, that we are in a commercial, international jurisdiction. If we go into court and say, "I DEMAND MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS," the judge will most likely say, "You mention the Constitution again and I'll find you in contempt of court!" Then we don't understand how he can do that. Hasn't he sworn to uphold the Constitution? The rule here is: you cannot be charged under one jurisdiction and defend under another. For example, if the French government came to you and asked where you filed your French income tax in a certain, do you go to the French Gov. and say, "I demand my Constitutional Rights?" No. The proper answer is "THE LAW DOESN'T APPLY TO ME -- I'M NOT A FRENCHMAN." You must make your reservation of rights under the jurisdiction in which you are charged -- not under some other jurisdiction. So in a UCC court, you must claim your reservation of rights under the UCC 1-207.

The UCC 1-207 goes on to say:

When a waivable right or claim is involved, the failure to make a reservation thereof causes a loss of the right, and bars it's assertion at a later date. (UCC 1-207.9)

You have to make your claim known early. Further it says:

The Sufficiency of the Reservation -- Any expression indicating an intention to reserve rights, is sufficient, such as "without prejudice." (UCC 1-207.4)