Tax standoff reveals new tactics

Patience replaces pressure, officials say
By Margot Sanger-Katz
Concord Monitor
Feb. 06, 2007

Ed Brown first became suspicious of the federal government when he saw news coverage of the standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the early 1990s. The bloody incidents, in which federal agents clashed violently with extremists, colored his view of the government's relationship with its citizens, he said recently, and led to his involvement in the militia movement.

Nearly 14 years after the conclusion of the Waco siege, Ed Brown believes he may be in the early stages of a similar confrontation.

"This looks like it 'might' turn into another Waco and we may be burned out or killed," he wrote in an e-mail shortly after abandoning his federal tax evasion trial to hole up in his fortified Plainfield home Jan. 12. He was convicted of three felonies in absentia and has a scheduled sentencing in federal court in April.

Though Brown, and his supporters, who have also invoked the specter of Waco in their communications, may be spoiling for a shootout, they may have to wait a long time. Since Waco, the justice department has rethought its approach to potential standoffs with extremists, and patience has replaced pressure as the primary tactic.

"If you look back at the history of Waco and Ruby Ridge, which may be a decade ago in some people's minds, I think in law enforcement's mind it's not that long ago," said Robert Trestan, civil rights counsel at the Anti-Defamation League in Boston, which trains police officers in how to communicate with political extremists. "There was a substantial loss of law enforcement and civilian life in those cases. They had to take a look at how they approached those cases."

Stephen Monier, the U.S. Marshal in New Hampshire, has emphasized consistently that he has no interest in a siege. He said he has dispatched no marshals to the Plainfield property, is enforcing no restrictions on who visits the house and has limited communications with Brown to a daily phone call from one of his officers.

"We are keeping an open line of communication with him," Monier said Friday. "Our conversations are amicable."

Scholars and retired federal agents said that Monier's approach is consistent with the way the government has responded to potential standoffs in the years since Waco. In cases without hostages or attacks on law enforcement figures, the new conventional wisdom is to avoid military tactics and confrontation.

"The only thing that does stay consistent in all of these cases is we try mightily to resolve them in a completely peaceful fashion without any violence," said Dave Turner, a spokesman for the marshal's federal headquarters, who said the agency did not wish to comment on any historic standoffs in detail.

In 1996, marshals trying to arrest leaders of a group called the Montana Freemen waited 81 days outside their Jordan, Mont., compound. The Freemen, like Brown, had challenged the legitimacy of the federal government and refused to pay income taxes. They were wanted for threatening federal judges and financial fraud when they retreated to a farm, which they said was outside federal jurisdiction. Ultimately, all of the freemen surrendered without violence.

"We waited 81 days before the freemen decided to give up," said Bob Bryant, a former FBI deputy director who worked on the Freemen case. "We used various negotiators and just kept talking with these people. As long as they don't use deadly force, you've got to just be patient."

Chip Berlet, who studies extremist psychology and interviewed Brown in the 1990s for a book, said that marshals are particularly wise to be patient when dealing with a figure such as Brown, who already anticipates a bloody end.

"When you're dealing with these people who have this conspiracist and apocalyptic world view, the worst thing you can do is put pressure on them," Berlet said. "Because they see that as proof that some violent cabal is out to get them."

But there are costs to the patient approach. In one case in Texas, a sheriff has waited more than five years to arrest an armed man who retreated to his rural home with his family, leading some to the impression that he is above the law. And in Ed Brown's case, Brown has used his freedom - and celebrity - to speak extensively on talk radio. His inflammatory comments, which often include veiled threats against the judge and prosecutor in his case, have called on others to espouse his views on taxes and resistance to federal jurisdiction.

Some of those messages have reached like-minded extremists who have traveled to Brown's home, bringing weapons and provisions. When Brown first abandoned his trial, he was alone and unarmed.

"By not escalating the confrontation, they are heightening the risk factor," said Daniel Levitas, whose book The Terrorist Next Door chronicles the militia and tax protest movements, which he said got a big boost in membership after Waco. Levitas said that Brown's home now may be more dangerous for civilians and law enforcement than it was before Brown's supporters arrived.

"They're giving the impression that they're willing to ignore the rule of law, which carries with it its own consequences," Levitas said.

Though Ed Brown has said he doesn't want to die, several of his supporters have explicitly called for his martyrdom. When pressed, Brown acknowledged that he believes his stand will ultimately end in his death.

But Brian Levin, the director of the center for the study of hate and extremism at the California State University in San Bernadino, said that Brown's zeal may fade as his cause wears on.

"He's not the martyr he makes himself out to be," Levin said. "He's just a pathetic guy, stuck in his house, who's accused of financial crimes."

In the long run, several experts said, Brown's supporters are unlikely to pose much of a threat. They're likely to grow bored if the advertised siege doesn't come soon.

"These people aren't staying" said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, including militias and tax protesters. "They've got jobs; they've got children to go home to. And it may be a fun vacation, but they have to go home eventually."