Iron March Data Leak

Iron March – a now-defunct online messaging forum for neo-Nazis – was once one of the most important online hubs which facilitated the emergence of a new generation of xenophobic extremists. The site was founded by a Russian nationalist in March 2011 and stayed online until it was shut down abruptly in 2017.²⁰

Despite its short-lived existence, Iron March quickly became a bustling platform for militant neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups and sympathizers across the world, including the Nordic Resistance in several Nordic countries, National Action in the U.K., the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, the Atomwaffen Division (AWD), Combat-18 and the Base in the U.S. and Canada; and the Antipodean Resistance in Australia, to name a few.²¹ While some of these groups existed before Iron March, like the Nordic Resistance, others were formed due to online collaboration like National Action, the Base, and AWD. 

Many of the site’s users and groups embraced Siege Culture and accelerationism, seizing the opportunity for transnational collaboration. For example, due to communications through Iron March, groups like the Nordic Resistance and CasaPound – a neo-fascist political party in Italy – began collaborating with other, newer groups online.²²

Additionally, several site members went on to commit or attempt acts of violence around the world, including in Canada. For example, in 2015, the RCMP foiled a plot by three individuals – two men from Halifax and a woman from Illinois – to commit a mass shooting at the Halifax Shopping Centre.²³ 

The American woman and one of the Canadian men met online and formed an online romance over their shared admiration of the Columbine massacre. The pair routinely visited websites that glorified mass killings, and the American woman routinely posted on Iron March, where she also allegedly had a brief online relationship with the site’s founder.²⁴ 

After several weeks, the two planned to meet in Canada in February 2015 and commit a mass shooting at the shopping centre. However, a tip to the police led the woman to be arrested at the airport. Her online romantic interest took his own life shortly after police surrounded his home. The third Canadian individual is serving a ten-year sentence for his role in the plot.

In 2019, many of Iron March’s records were leaked and posted online by an anonymous anti-fascist activist, which included private messages and posts between members, IP, and email addresses, and in some cases, names. The data leak revealed the identity of many Iron March users, including several Canadians who attempted to foster connections with individuals across the United States and Europe.²⁵ 

According to a CBC News report, at least 88 users were based in Canadian cities. Analysis by Bellingcat – an investigative journalism group based in the Netherlands, specializing in online investigations and fact-checking using open-source materials – revealed that many groups on Iron March sought to recruit current and former military members to destroy and overthrowthe government through a fascist paramilitary insurgency.²⁷ Atomwaffen Division (described next) set up funding networks and actively tried to infiltrate the U.S. military to recruit and learn combat and tactical skills.²⁸ 

The New Generation of Violent White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis

The Legacies of Atomwaffen Division/National Socialist Order

Atomwaffen (AWD), recently rebranded as the National Socialist Order, was one of the higher-profile accelerationist neo-Nazi groups to emerge in the last decade. It is also one of the most recent additions to Canada’s official list of terrorist entities, added in February 2021.²⁹ It began as many similar groups did on the now defunct online hub for neo-Nazis, Iron March.³⁰ Iron March and associated websites like Fascist Forge – the now-defunct heir-apparent to Iron March – played an important role in facilitating the emergence of a new generation of white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups who blended accelerationism with their pre-existing ideas on race and ethnicity.

During the height of the group’s activities during the mid-to-late 2010s, AWD members and supporters were found across the U.S., Canada, Europe, Ukraine, and Russia. 

AWD supporters have also been involved in several high-profile criminal and terrorist offenses in the U.S. and Canada. 

For example, in 2019, the FBI stopped two individuals from Washington traveling in northern Texas with assault rifles and nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition.³¹ 

In the same year, Kaleb James Cole – a 24-year-old leader of AWD’s Washington State Cell – was deported and banned for life from Canada.³² Cole made frequent trips across the border into British Columbia, eventually attracting the attention of the Canadian Border Services Agency after press reports linked him to AWD and identified that he had travelled overseas to Ukraine. He was subsequently held by Canadian authorities and deported and barred for life due to his involvement in “an organization that may engage in terrorism,” as per Section 34 [1][F] of the Canadian Immigration Code. 

More recently, a Texas leader of AWD was sentenced in the spring of 2021 for what the Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case called “the most widespread swatting conspiracy in the country.”³³ According to officials, the perpetrator was not alone and had co-conspirators in Canada and the U.K., who chose their targets based on race. By calling in false emergencies, perpetrators accomplish two goals: strike fear in the location of the emergency, which can be xenophobically motivated (e.g., a historically black college; religious institutions like a synagogue, etc.), while also causing emergency services to waste precious resources on false emergencies.  

These and other arrests were part of a large sweep carried out around the U.S. against AWD, whose members have been linked to at least five murders.³⁴ These arrests left the group largely defunct and shattered their ability to form and operate anything resembling a traditional hierarchical terrorist organization. 

Although the structure of AWD as an organization has since fallen out of favour with most xenophobic extremists, its legacy and the ideas its members spread persist. Perhaps one of the most important ideological legacies left by AWD was re-popularizing James Mason’s Siege. 

In 2017, members of AWD tracked Mason down in Denver, where he lived, and received his blessing to promote his ideas online and within the group itself.³⁵  

Unfortunately, AWD’s post-organizational legacy and absence in favour of smaller and more isolated individuals and cells may also make identifying and preventing xenophobic extremist attacks more difficult. 

This is evidenced by the recent mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York supermarket by an accelerationist lone actor inspired by the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory. In his manifesto, he detailed the same accelerationist points emphasized earlier by AWD.³⁶

Another important legacy left by AWD are the significant transnational ties established across Europe and Russia. This creates the potential for AWD’s ideas to continue to spread and can make rooting out sympathizers more difficult. 

For example, in April 2022, German police arrested 4 individuals, and are investigating 10 others who are allegedly supporters of a group called Atomwaffen Division Deutschland, an offshoot of the North American brand of AWD.³⁷ 

More recently, in May 2022, Swedish police arrested a man with enough bomb-making materials to ”kill hundreds.”³⁸ According to court documents obtained in the case, the man drew inspiration from AWD, and other infamous neo-Nazis like Anders Breivik.

Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Ukraine is particularly important as the ongoing conflict acts as a physical “battlefield laboratory” where followers can travel to gain combat experience.³⁹ 

During its height, AWD allegedly established connections with the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian paramilitary militia that has promoted Nazi symbols and ideas.⁴⁰ With the ongoing war in Ukraine, it remains to be seen if individuals linked to the xenophobic extremist movement will continue to leverage these transnational linkages to participate in combat. This has occurred in other instances with tragic consequences. 

For example, The Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), an ultranationalist white supremacist group based in St. Petersburg, Russia, also actively encourages white supremacists from around the world to travel and participate in combat training in Ukraine.⁴¹ To date, at least one terror attack in Europe has been directly linked to white supremacists who trained with RIM.⁴²

Like the transnational ties forged in Europe and Russia, in the past, AWD supporters and members have also engaged in some cross-border movements and collaboration between the U.S. and Canada prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. One notable series of arrests in 2019 involved an AWD plot to attack power stations in the south-eastern U.S.⁴³

In an unsealed affidavit, the FBI alleges that an Ohio teen communicated over encrypted messaging applications with more than a dozen people to plan an elaborate attack on the U.S. power grid during the summer of 2020 and aspired to create militant cells inspired by AWD around the country. One of these contacts was a Canadian man who attempted to cross the border into Detroit. Border agents stopped him and found an assault rifle, two other guns, and white supremacy and neo-Nazi content on his phone, including a copy of Siege.⁴⁴ From this arrest, officials discovered the plot, which would set off the wider investigation.

Although North American chapters of AWD are now largely defunct, its ideas continue to inspire others, and recent arrests in Europe indicate that outside North America, remnants of the network remain.⁴⁵ Although AWD is certainly not responsible for creating ideas such as Siege Culture or accelerationism, AWD’s rapid rise and widely publicized fall as a keynote group espousing these ideas has certainly had an impact on and inspired and inspired the current landscape of the xenophobic extremist movement today.

The Base

The Base, another recent addition to Canada’s terrorist list alongside AWD, is a similar white nationalist accelerationist group.⁴⁶ Founded around the same time as AWD, it emerged from the same online ecosystem of white nationalist and neo-Nazi forums and boasted significant transnational ties and opportunities for paramilitary training. 

Like AWD, the Base was also the subject of a similarly effective police takedown that has effectively dismantled the group’s organizational capacity in the last few years. However, the group’s ideas are still popular amongst neo-Nazi sympathizers and supporters. Like AWD, it retains the potential to inspire small cells or individuals from across the xenophobic extremist movement to conduct violent attacks. 

Founded online by an American living in Russia, Rinaldo Nazzaro was heavily involved in recruitment and instructing members on how to avoid detection and carry out attacks.⁴⁷ Unlike AWD, which touted a largely leaderless structure, Nazzaro acted as a key decision-maker and moral leader for the group throughout its existence. 

The group promoted the importance of paramilitary and survivalist training and sought out current or ex-military personnel. For example, in a series of covert recordings passed on to U.S. civil rights organizations, Nazzaro and other Base leaders were recorded during recruitment meetings indicating the group was eager to recruit experienced soldiers from western militaries across North America, the U.K., and Europe.⁴⁸ 

The Base’s activities, rooted in their accelerationist ideas, included physical survival and weapons training in preparation for the aftermath of an imminent collapse of western governments. For example, a string of arrests across the United States in 2020 targeted individuals involved in operating a series of ‘hate camps’ for Base members to engage in tactical and firearms training.⁴⁹ 

The paramilitary structure of the Base is also a concern from a recruitment perspective. To date in Canada, other militia-type groups that offered this type of training, namely the Canadian iteration of the now defunct Three Percenters, possessed some, albeit weak, norms against violence and demonstrated a willingness to expel overtly homicidal individuals from their ranks. These norms, however, were largely absent within the subculture of the Base, whereby its extreme rhetoric and activities appealed to individuals deemed ‘too extreme’ for other militia-type groups.

One of the Base’s ‘hate camps,’ purchased by a corporate entity affiliated with Nazzaro (most of the other properties were owned by its members), was located roughly 50 kilometres south of the Canada-U.S. border in north-eastern Washington state. It is unclear, however, if training occurred at this specific location.⁵⁰ Its location in a remote area in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) has long captured the imagination of white supremacists and militia movements in the United States and Canada. They view the region both as being a safe “fallback” area post-governmental collapse, and as a region hospitable to the emergence of a white proto ethno-state.⁵¹ 

This belief dates back to at least the 1980s and white supremacist ideologues like Richard Butler, David Lane, and Harold Covington. Lane and Butler were linked to two important groups active during the late 20th century, namely the Order and Aryan Nations. Covington was active in a number of domestic and international white supremacist groups and was an advocate for the ”Northwest Territorial Imperative”. 

The continued resonance of the PNW in the minds of the next generation of xenophobic extremists is further evidence of some inter-generational transfer of beliefs and ideas between successive manifestations of the movement. For example, several members of the Base expressed affinity for Covington’s beliefs and attempts at organizing. And at least two Base members, including Nazzaro himself, met or tried to meet Covington before his death in 2018.⁵² 

Like the cross-border activities of AWD discussed above, the relative porosity of the Canada-U.S. border (e.g., across British Columbia and Alberta) raises the possibility that the region could serve as a conduit for illegal travel between the two countries in the furtherance of xenophobic extremist goals, including those once held by the Base and its supporters. 

Cross-border cooperation between members in the U.S. and Canada has occurred in the past. It presents the opportunity for Canadians to gain direct access to paramilitary training in ‘hate camps’ described above. For example, in 2020, an American was sentenced to 5 years in prison after he transported a Canadian man from Winnipeg, Patrik Mathews, to participate in paramilitary training camps including firearm drills.⁵³ However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts on cross-border activity, it remains to be seen if cross-border collaboration between American and Canadian xenophobic extremists will increase. 

Similar to AWD, the Base in the U.S. suffered serious setbacks by law enforcement. In January 2020, the FBI conducted a series of raids and arrests targeting the group’s leadership structure. The FBI also planted an infiltrator in the Georgia Base cell, leading to several members’ arrests.⁵⁴ In a series of leaked phone calls hours after members received news about the arrests, Navarro is heard giving a pep talk to other nervous Base leaders, citing AWD as inspiration: 

“Look at Atomwaffen. They’ve been through everything. They’ve been through the satanic panic, through all kinds of doxxing, now through their own series of arrests, et-cetera, et-cetera… There was a time where they almost disappeared, but they stuck it out and are still around. The important thing about maintaining the brand is it can be salvaged and be rehabilitated, and that would give us more credibility in the long run.” 

– Navarro on a call with other remaining Base leaders following news of several Base member arrests.⁵⁵ 

After the initial arrests, phone and chat logs show that some members began to panic, begging Nazzaro to remove them from chat groups or announcing their departure from the group altogether. Others, like a high-profile Base leader in Michigan who had organized ‘hate camps,’ strengthened their resolve, stating they would not be arrested without a fight. However, he was later arrested and taken into custody peacefully.⁵⁶ 

Several days later, the Guardian published an article that revealed Nazzaro’s identity, which sent him into hiding.⁵⁷ Before doing so, Nazzaro gave another member access to the group’s Telegram and email accounts, who turned out to be an anti-fascist infiltrator. The infiltrator publicly embarrassed the group by changing the group’s Telegram name to ‘the Base is a Honey Pot,’ and posting memes that poked fun at Nazzaro and the neo-Nazi community.⁵⁸ This last act by the infiltrator likely permanently damaged the group’s reputation beyond repair, and so far, the group has shown no credible signs of resurgence. As stated above, it is still possible the group’s legacy will inspire lone actors and small cells from across the xenophobic extremist movement.

The Canadian Armed Forces

White supremacy and neo-Nazi groups across many countries have a clear desire to recruit current and former military personnel.⁵⁹ The media highlighted this after the January 6th Capitol riots in the U.S., where the Pentagon found that at least 1 in 10 rioters had links to the U.S. military.⁶⁰ Similarly, several members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have been found to have links to Proud Boys groups, The Base, Atomwaffen, Combat-18 and others.⁶¹ 

A notable case was the arrest of a former CAF reservist in the U.S., who prosecutors accuse of attempting to recruit for the Base to set off a race war.⁶² He fled from Winnipeg after the local media publicly revealed his involvement in a hate group, which sparked an investigation by the CAF. The RCMP raided his home and seized several weapons.⁶³ The FBI later arrested him in the U.S. where he was found carrying a firearm and allegedly participated in paramilitary training provided by Base members.⁶⁴ Later in 2021, he and one of his co-conspirators were sentenced to 9 years in prison.⁶⁵

This case indicates what some argue is a larger CAF issue. An internal CAF report from November 2018 indicated that since 2013, 16 members of the Canadian armed forces and reserves were found to have links with extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, Atomwaffen, La Meute, Hammerskins Nation, the Three Percenters and the Soldiers of Odin; though not all of these classify as white supremacy or neo-Nazi groups.⁶⁶ In addition, at least 37 other CAF members were alleged to have engaged in racist or hate-motivated conduct between 2013 and 2018, though not associated with a formal group.⁶⁷ 

Overall, these numbers represent a very small proportion of the CAF, and the report ultimately concludes that, at present, there is no “significant threat to the CAF/DND.”⁶⁸

A more recent report by the Minister of National Defence Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism and Discrimination from January 2022 noted that “membership in extremist groups is growing, it is becoming increasingly covert, and technological advances such as Darknet and encryption methods pose significant challenges in detecting these members.”⁶⁹  Although the report does not specify the number of individuals with links to extremist groups or ideologies, publicly reported cases underscore the disproportionate effects even one CAF member’s involvement with an IMVE group can have on the military.⁷⁰

The presence of extremists – particularly xenophobic extremists – within the CAF confirms the larger trend of valuing combat training and explicitly recruiting current and former members of the armed forces. 

Correspondingly, the 2019 Iron March data leak exposed the identity of at least 88 users based in Canadian cities, several of which claimed to be CAF members.⁷¹ Many users on Iron March, including these self-proclaimed CAF members, actively encouraged other Canadians on the forum to join the CAF or the armed forces in their country to obtain firearms training.⁷²

As a result of a series of data leaks, high-profile incidents and media reporting, the issue of white supremacy and neo-Nazi sympathies within Canada’s military has since been acknowledged by the Department of Defence.⁷³ Researchers are developing policy frameworks to improve recruitment, moderation, and security processes for the CAF, which aims to shut out violent extremism from its ranks and address the more pervasive issues of racism, discrimination, and bias within the institution.⁷⁴

As part of these efforts, the CAF has announced a new system to monitor and track suspected incidents of hateful conduct and adapted a series of new policies designed to address hate and extremism in its ranks.⁷⁵

For example, in 2020, the CAF introduced its ”hateful conduct” policy, which seeks to help identify and weed out service members with potential ties to hateful or extremist groups. 

Alongside its new policy, the CAF has also broadened the definition of “hateful content” to include ”the display or communication of words, symbols, or images, by a CAF member, that they knew or ought reasonably to have known would constitute, encourage, justify or promote violence or hatred against a person or persons on an identifiable group, based on their national or ethnic origin, race, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics or disability.”⁷⁶

Anti-Authority Extremism

Background and Ideological Trends in Alberta

Individuals and groups espousing anti-authority extremism are motivated by belief systems centered on rejecting the power and legitimacy of the modern state, as well as the sovereignty of the individual. To justify their beliefs, anti-authority extremists refer to a body of false but legal-sounding rules they claim to be the ‘true’ law.⁸⁰ 

Adherents lay claim to privileged knowledge of certain processes by which historical documents like the Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution, paired with a defined set of pseudo-legal arguments, can be used to ‘liberate’ people from the necessity of following laws or being subject to the whims of corporations. 

In Canada and Alberta, individuals espousing particular anti-authority ideologies have gone by different groups’ names, including the loosely connected detaxer movement, Freemen on the Land (FOTL) or Sovereign Citizens (SC). However, today, many anti-authority adherents no longer associate themselves with groups and can instead be categorized broadly as the pseudo-legal movement (PLM).  

PLM adherents are under the false assumption that they are exempt from Canadian civil law simply by claiming legal impunity. Like other extremist ideologies, many of these pseudo-legal beliefs are built on conspiratorial foundations. PLM adherents believe that the current government authority is illegitimate, yet this ‘fact’ is unknown by the general population.⁸¹ In this way, PLM adherents claim to have ’privileged’ knowledge of the ’true’ nature of government and authority. 

Many PLM adherents use historical but legally-irrelevant documents such as the Magna Carta to justify what they view as “lawful dissent.” The Magna Carta refers to a treaty between sovereign people and King John of the English monarchy in 1215. This treaty has no relevance or implication in Canada’s legal framework and cannot be used as a permissible argument in a Canadian court of law. However, “lawful dissenters” take on an Oath of Allegiance to the Barons committee as part of their “lawful duty to disobey statutes” under Article 61 of the Magna Carta. 

Variants of pseudo-legal beliefs exist in multiple countries, particularly in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.  The most prominent manifestation of this type of belief system in Canada was the FOTL movement, which evolved from the earlier detaxer movement, an adaptation of U.S.-style pseudo-law for Commonwealth countries. 

Since the early-to-mid 2010s, however, the FOTL ideology has experienced a steady decline in popularity, largely due to the withdrawal of key FOTL figures – like Robert A. Menard – from the public as a result of arrests and public losses in court, as well as the general failure of FOTL legal arguments and concepts in court.⁸² However, communications with a confidential Government of Canada source indicate that, despite the academic consensus of a decline in activity, the FOTL have seen somewhat of a resurgence during the Covid-19 pandemic. It remains to be seen if this resurgence will continue or decline due to fewer public health measures. 

Despite the fluctuating popularity of the FOTL, belief in ‘lawful dissent’ and the misapplication of the Magna Carta has remained to define features of the current PLM wave. Specifically, the last several years have seen the re-emergence of pseudo-legal ‘gurus’: individuals looking to profit from instructing others about how to opt-out of the social contract, as well as an increase in the number of protest groups using pseudo-legal arguments borrowed from the anti-authority ideological space. 

There have also been increasing signs of anti-authority activity outside of the traditional hotspots in North America, particularly in some European countries, such as the Reichsbürger in Germany, and Australian variants of FOTL. As mentioned in OPV’s 2019 report, anti-authority adherents tend to be overwhelmingly non-violent and prefer to rely on using false liens, lawsuits, or other legal documents that lack credible factual basis as a tool of harassment. This continues to be true, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, where we have seen a disorganized but prominent new wave of PLM adherents in Canada and Alberta, which blend traditional anti-authority narratives, anti-public health order rhetoric, and conspiracy theories. 

Although rare, when anti-authority extremists resort to violence, their primary target tends to be law enforcement and government officials.  In a recent example, a 26-year man in Alberta was arrested in February of 2021 on charges related to possessing weapons prohibited in Canada, explosive substances, police gear, and impersonating a peace officer.⁸³ 

It is worth noting that the man also possessed small amounts of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a substance used in the making of explosives and has been used in other high-profile terrorist attacks, including the London bombings in 2005.⁸⁴ The arrest was allegedly prompted by posts he made online, which the RCMP described as ”involving anti-government messaging.”⁸⁵

Although details of the online messages were initially limited, later investigation revealed the man was a frequent poster on the anonymous message board known as 4chan, and his beliefs appeared to align closely with other xenophobic extremists.⁸⁶  However, the RCMP noted that despite these beliefs, there was also “some anti-government type of sentiment” to many of his posts.⁸⁷

A new trend since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the targeting of public health authorities, which rarely occurred before 2020. Additionally, PLM adherents have also increasingly attended protests, which has become a common way to increase visibility and make their sentiments known. 

For example, a highly militarized anti-authority fringe group known as the Boogaloo movement in the U.S. found fertile ground in the wake of Covid-19 and civil rights movements, and individuals linked to the movement have since been involved in several high-profile attacks and plots.⁸⁸ Like other anti-authority movements, the Boogaloo movement is only loosely connected and individuals appear to operate in small, disconnected cells. Although this particular movement has yet to gain similar momentum in Canada, many attendees of the 2022 Trucker Convoy across the country evidenced similar anti-authority sentiments. 

Many anti-authority groups and PLM ideologies at anti-public health rallies have led some to speculate if the Covid-19 pandemic will lead to an increase in extremist radicalization. However, the link between the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and extremist activity is not yet known. For example, research published in March 2021 by OPV researchers has found that while online extremist activity has increased since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, particularly amongst anti-authority groups, it has yet to translate into a commensurate rise in terrorism.⁸⁹

Status of Anti-Authority Extremism in Alberta

Due to the lack of reliable and consistent data on membership, the number of people within Alberta who are connected to the Freemen on the Land (FOTL) and other similar anti-authority ideological groups is difficult to ascertain.⁹⁰ This is largely because, unlike some other groups within the IMVE category, anti-authority ideologies are often adopted as a way of life rather than based on association with a group. 

Therefore, although individuals may borrow ideas and beliefs from FOTL ideology, they may not view themselves as ’members’ or even be connected to the FOTL in any meaningful way. This creates a constellation of loosely or entirely disconnected individuals with varying beliefs. This was echoed in our interviews with law enforcement officials across Alberta, who overwhelmingly agreed that individuals who hold anti-authority beliefs tend to be unconnected and largely independent of one another: 

“A lot of these people that have these anti-societal views, a lot of them are loners, that’s what I’m finding. And so, you have that plus you have the whole Covid thing, if you have someone who’s a Freemen on the Land – because we have a few of those too – they’re more individualized.”

– Law enforcement official

“We’re fairly isolated and we only have one highway in and out. And so, we do have people that come here [and] who believe this area is somewhat untouched… We have had in the past, actually one individual who came to Canada on a visa, and then decided to use that visa to start a cabin in the woods. And built that cabin on Crown land, which is obviously unlawful. 

So, we have had that kind of isolationist mentality exhibited. We also have someone else in the community who kind of adheres to the Freemen code or ethos, or anti-government. But, very much those individuals, their main objective is to be left alone. They don’t really have a strong interaction [with us]; they’re not trying to muster up a following. They’re not trying to influence the local community.” 

– Law enforcement official

“I don’t think the [anti-authority extremists] I remember encountering here subscribe to that specific ideology of Freemen on the Land, or Sovereign Citizens. Just more of, well, they’ll say some of the phrases that those groups use. The one’s we’ve seen are not like outright full members of those groups.” 

– Law enforcement official

“We do have Freemen on the Land… [But] they are kind of scattered, and we haven’t seen any instances where they’re gathering together or working collaboratively.” 

– Law enforcement official

“We get the sporadic popping [up] of [FOTL]. Usually, it’ll be something as simple as a traffic stop, and they claim that they’re Freemen and they don’t have to follow the rules. They don’t have to have a license and stuff like that. But commonly, for two things, we don’t see them grouped together because they’re Freemen and they don’t really seem to want to follow the rules or be [linked] up with anyone. [They] just want to be left alone.” 

– Law enforcement official

Despite their historically disconnected nature, the FOTL remain one of the most well-known anti-authority ideological groups in Canada and Alberta, and their rhetoric continues to be used by the contemporary PLM or other anti-authority extremists. Research suggests that throughout its existence, the FOTL has splintered and has multiple arms, of which adherents may only loosely connect themselves to FOTL.⁹¹ For example, according to law enforcement officials we interviewed, FOTL ideas continue to be influential in the PLM today, even if individuals do not identify themselves as Freemen: 

“[The new wave of anti-authority extremism is] getting very close [to Freemen on the Land]. If you look at the Freemen ideologies, their different beliefs, and now you’re seeing this anti-government [wave]… it’s getting to that very gray area… my concern is it does start to look like the Freemen ideologies. 

And, it’s very hard for society, even law enforcement, when you deal with these individuals, to try and figure out are they pseudo-law promoters? When they start to identify they’re trying to break government and police laws, and bend them to their will… is this someone who’s going down the FOTL road, or is this just a watered-down version? It makes it really challenging right now, because we’re used to a more defined line between the two. But now we’re starting to see a lot of anti-government sentiment rise. If anything, it seems like it’s been a rejuvenation in some [FOTL] beliefs.” 

– Law enforcement official

Although researchers have noted a decline of FOTL since about 2014, as noted above, a confidential Government of Canada source has said that the FOTL are currently experiencing a resurgence. Although it remains to be seen how sustainable this is, many law enforcement officials we interviewed noted a substantial increase in broader PLM in the province over the last few years:

“Anti-authority is, in my opinion, growing rapidly right now… For pseudo-law and pseudo-legal anti-authority groups and individuals, there’s been a substantial growth. Again, this is something that seems cyclical. So, there was a big pseudo-law cycle from 2009 until about 2014 that peaked around 2011-2012. That was the Freemen on the Land in Canada, Sovereign Citizens in the States. They were the dominant brand of pseudo-law that caught on back then. Nowadays, it’s a bit different. Again, we’re [seeing] that massive appetite [for that brand of extremism].” 

– Law enforcement official

“The last two years with Covid has created an entirely new number of groups. Whether it’s anti-mask, anti-vax, [there’s] much more anti-government rearing its head.” 

– Law enforcement official

FOTL, like other PLM adherents, commonly use dubious or illegitimate legal strategies to make their objections known and to obstruct or intimidate others.⁹² 

For example, in 2020, an Alberta court decision barred a prominent anti-authority figure known as Jacquie Phoenix from representing a mother in a child-custody dispute.⁹³ Phoenix is part of a pseudo-legal scheme known as the Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion, which is “a loose collection of individuals who, in 2020, notified a collection of Alberta courts of their “legal immunity.”⁹⁴

This court decision is particularly notable for the lengths the judge went to refute the arguments made by Phoenix about the Magna Carta, noting that Article 61 —which pseudo-legal adherents argue justifies lawful dissent — was removed 700 years ago.⁹⁵ 

In response, Phoenix continued to send letters to court staff, threatening them with trial and life in prison, prompting the judge to issue a second ruling which addressed pseudo-legal and pandemic-related conspiracies.⁹⁶ The judge has since threatened Phoenix with contempt for threatening court staff. 

Phoenix is a particularly prolific ‘guru’ in the online pseudo-legal community and offers Zoom courses on Magna Carta theory.⁹⁷ She also makes pseudo-legal arguments and tactics more accessible for anti-authority adherents by providing pseudo-legal documents that can be downloaded via her Facebook page. 

Her beliefs are highly emblematic of this new wave of the PLM in Canada, whereby adherents deny the Covid-19 pandemic and related public health orders as ”nonsense” and promote a variety of conspiracies, including QAnon-linked conspiracies. Indeed, many law enforcement officials have noted that these new anti-authority adherents overwhelmingly target public health officials as a result of public health orders and directives:

“Out of that anti-[Public Health Order] movement… especially the ones who have made threats of violence…, the majority of them seem to be more invested in the pseudo-legal part of anti-authority extremism… All of the threats of violence that we have seen have involved some kind of invalidation of government in general. Whether it’s because they believe that the Magna Carta has created a band of rebel barons and they’re going to pledge loyalty to them. Or, whether they believe there’s some offenses that have been committed by conventional politicians, and they believe that invalidates all of their authority and they just want the whole system gone. Those are the two main themes that we see.” 

– Law enforcement official 

“We’ve had some [anti-authority individuals] try to serve the mayor with special papers for the lockdowns or vaccinations and stuff like that. We’ve had some send letters to the chief, especially the Sovereign Citizen or Freemen on the Land people.” 

– Law enforcement official

When anti-authority extremists resort to violence, they tend to target members of government and law enforcement. One notable, albeit dated, example is Ian Bush’s murder of a retired Chief Court of Canada tax judge Alban Garon, his wife and their neighbour in Ottawa in 2007. Bush was found guilty of triple homicide in 2015 and had long held contempt for the Canada Revenue Agency. 

Although Bush had no formal ties to anti-authority groups, he likely ascribed to some form of anti-authority ideology, similar to that of the detaxers or the FOTL. Although the attacks occurred 15 years ago, the atrocity of Bush’s actions continue to inform court-dealings with anti-authority actors today. For example, an Ottawa-based human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Phoenix in 2020, citing the murders committed by Bush as evidence that this kind of behavior and ideology should be taken seriously to avoid further tragedies.⁹⁸

Although violence by members of the anti-authority movement has been far less common in Canada than in the U.S., the threat cannot be ignored. A closer study of on-duty murders of members of law enforcement in Canada may reveal more cases where perpetrators were influenced, at least in part, by anti-authority grievances or ideologies. While the majority of law enforcement officials we interviewed agreed that their dealings with anti-authority extremists to date had been peaceful, they were careful to note that there is always the potential for an escalation to violence: 

“The one we were involved with was actually a tax enforcement issue, initially, and then when we went and assisted Alberta Revenue folks with executing a warrant of arrest for their charges, it ended up then bringing [the individual] into physical conflict with police and now [they are] facing some criminal code charges in relation to resisting arrest. [This individual] had made some posts to local Facebook groups talking about the police being the Storm Troopers of the state, you know, that kind of stuff we see on and on.” 

– Law enforcement official

“If [the province suffered a mass casualty] attack within the next three years, [xenophobic extremists are] probably the category I’d be least surprised for it to come out of. But, the probability in my opinion is equally close for jihadists, [and] incels. I’d give a lower rating to pseudo-legal groups. But, that is, I think, way more likely to be [an individual event]. That’s going to be, you know, somebody stabs a police officer during a traffic stop, or something like that.” 

– Law enforcement official

“I think that potential [for violence] is there. There’s evidence to show it’s there. We haven’t had somebody act out, no. Not recent[ly]. But, the evidence is there to show it could happen.” 

– Law enforcement official

Additionally, the current increase in PLM activity in the province could provide an environment which encourages violence. However, for now, the current and increasing trend in the province is for members of the PLM to resort to vexatious litigation as a way to make their sentiments known. As one member of law enforcement noted, this can have a substantial impact on government service, particularly during the pandemic: 

“As far as actual radicalization into violence, it’s very limited out of the pseudo-law crowd. We’ve only seen a handful that I can think of in the last couple years who have actually started collecting weapons. For the most part, those people are just at the nuisance level, [but] that nuisance varies in impact. During the pandemic, the nuisance has been substantial. So, the impact on government service is pretty significant, but it’s not violent extremism, necessarily. It’s just extremism.” 

– Law enforcement official

Boogaloo Movement

The Boogaloo movement is a loosely organized movement that has been most active since 2019 and is based around a collection of anti-government beliefs. The group’s name is derived from a 1980s breakdancing movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, whose title was the subject of an online phrasal joke and became dubbed by adherents as Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo. The term ‘boogaloo’ itself refers to a violent uprising or civil war and got its start online in the early-to-mid 2010s on 4chan.⁹⁹

The term ‘boogaloo’ has since been adopted by various extremist movements like radical gun rights activists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis. It is meant to reference an impending civil or race war that will overthrow the government and establish a new order. Members of the Boogaloo movement tend to be heavily armed and espouse accelerationist violence, though they lack the hierarchy emblematic of other militias.¹⁰⁰

The ‘Boogaloo’ movement is a somewhat unique threat in that, despite being relatively ‘young,’ individuals claiming to be ‘boogaloo bois’ have engaged in a significant amount of violence in the U.S. in a short period. In line with the target selection common among the anti-authority movement, most violence has targeted government and law enforcement officials. 

For example, two individuals in Minnesota were charged and sentenced to prison for attempting to provide material support and resources to Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization.¹⁰¹ The two self-proclaimed ‘boogaloo bois’ believed that providing support to Hamas would aid in their desire to overthrow the U.S. government because, as they believed, Hamas shared the same goals to harm the U.S. government. 

Individuals claiming to be ‘boogaloo bois’ were also engaged in various protests in the U.S. in 2020, including civil rights and police reform protests and anti-Covid lockdown protests. In Las Vegas, three men connected with the Boogaloo movement were charged with conspiracy to cause destruction during the civil rights protests there, and for possessing Molotov cocktails.¹⁰² The extent to which the movement’s support of civil liberties movements was genuine rather than opportunistic, however, remains open to debate.

In some cases, members have used the protests as cover to carry out attacks against law enforcement. In May and June of 2020, two ambush-style attacks were carried out in California. The first attack targeted two security officers in front of a federal courthouse in Oakland and resulted in the death of one officer.¹⁰³

The second occurred a week later in Santa Cruz, where sheriff’s deputies were shot at and had pipe bombs thrown at them, resulting in the death of one deputy.¹⁰⁴ Both attacks were carried out by the same individual who wrote phrases like “boog” (short for boogaloo) and ‘I became ungovernable’ with his blood on the hood of his car before his arrest. The number of violent attacks and plots linked to the Boogaloo movement suggests the threat from their nascent movement in the U.S. is high.

Given the movement’s growing presence and threat in the U.S., several Canadian media outlets and experts have since reported that there appears to be some growing online support in Canada.¹⁰⁵

This online growth was largely prompted by a long-promised federal ban on ‘assault style weapons’ introduced in the spring of 2020. However, despite initial concern about the threat a Boogaloo-style movement could pose in Canada, it appears that, at least for now, the movement has gained little traction in Canada. This is presumably at least partly due to differences in Canadians’ political culture and relationship to firearms ownership.¹⁰⁶

Despite initial fears over the group’s growing popularity online, there is currently no evidence that the group is particularly active in Canada. For example, there have been no reported Boogaloos at Canadian protests or organizations in person.¹⁰⁷ Additionally, many of the Facebook pages, which were allegedly populated by Canadian members discussing killing protesters and the RCMP, have since been removed. 

In January 2021, a Montreal-based anti-government website claiming to be the “press platform” of the Boogaloo movement, which promoted armed protests in the U.S. ahead of the 2021 presidential inauguration, was taken down.¹⁰⁸ Although it remains unclear if the site’s moderator was indeed Canadian —as the RCMP investigation is ongoing— indications suggest there is at least some nascent online support for the movement within Canada. Law enforcement officials Alberta: 

“I divide anti-authority in two directions – there’s the pseudo-law or pseudo-legal driven versions of anti-authority; and the [second] one is the catch-all anti-authority, so that would include groups that are loosely anti-government, but are kind of libertarian-driven. So, the Boogaloo movement [in the U.S.] was a symptom of that appetite being filled. But, we also haven’t seen very much of that anti-authority category in Alberta. There’s a substantial appetite [for those types of narratives], but as far as actual extremism emerging out of that, we haven’t seen very much of it.” 

– Law enforcement official

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Anti-Lockdown Protests

The global Covid-19 pandemic has invoked many anti-government sentiments both within and outside of Canada. The ideologies espoused by many anti-authority groups and movements have been used, knowingly and unknowingly, by anti-lockdown protesters around the world. For example, a woman in Singapore who claimed to be a sovereign citizen was arrested after refusing to wear a mask in 2020.¹⁰⁹

Although Covid-19 protests have been overwhelmingly non-violent, there are several reports of protestors espousing anti-authority views or outright claiming to be sovereign citizens and resorting to violence against law enforcement. 

Notably, within the last two years, Australia has seen a marked increase in lockdown resistance – particularly violent resistance – which law enforcement attribute to a resurging sovereign citizens movement.¹¹⁰ In Melbourne, one woman repeatedly smashed a policewoman’s head into the ground after being stopped for not wearing a mask; meanwhile others have engaged in “baiting” police at checkpoints around the city.¹¹¹

In Germany, members of the Reichsbürger movement have joined in protests against Covid-19 measures and lockdowns, which, for the most part, have been non-violent.¹¹² However, several of these protests ended in violence, for which German authorities have blamed extremist agitators, including Reichsbürger members. 

For example, in August 2020, hundreds of anti-Covid lockdown protesters attempted to storm the Reichstag, which houses the German parliament. Many of the individuals involved displayed Reichsbürger insignia and Nazi symbols.¹¹³ Additionally, at the end of 2020, German intelligence agents placed a particular group of anti-Covid lockdown protesters under observation due to significant influence from extremists. According to German intelligence, several leaders of this particular protest group were also known Reichsbürger members.¹¹⁴ 

These international trends, coupled with the presence of Boogaloo movement members at many civil rights and anti-COVID lockdown protests, indicate that anti-authority groups are increasingly taking advantage of the current global state of affairs to promote their ideas and beliefs. It also demonstrates the popularity of these ideas across a variety of audiences around the world. A table has been included here to demonstrate this. It lists all the known terrorism incidents by anti-authority groups in the U.S. and Canada that have been linked to the pandemic and civil rights protests during 2020.