FBI RAIDS
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By
Jon Christian Ryter
November
17, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
A dozen FBI agents staged a raid on the
Liberty Dollar's
Liberty Dollar was founded as the National
Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue
Code [NORFED]. Von Nothaus caught the eye of the
federal government which launched an investigation of the Liberty Dollar in
1999. At the time, Liberty Dollars were largely paper silver certificates with only a limited amount of
coins in circulation. In 1999 the Secret Service, the investigative arm of the
US Treasury investigated the Liberty Dollar certificates and determined that
while the company might be a thorn in the side of the government, the
certificates they peddled as barter currency could not be construed as
"counterfeit money" or a scam since NORFED had sufficient silver on
deposit to redeem the certificates they issued. A statement to that affect was
issued by Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the US Bureau of Engraving and
Printing at the time. She said, "There's nothing illegal about this. As
long as it doesn't say legal tender, there's nothing wrong with it." The
term "legal tender" means that the monetary unit must be accepted by
all people as money to repay all forms of debt in the
That changed when von Nothaus
began the mass coining of his Libertys rather than
printing them—and when he began to refer to them on his website as "real
money" or as "the second most-popular currency."
After coming under scrutiny again from the
US Treasury in September, 2006, which presented NORFED with a cease and desist order, von Nothaus
dissolved NORFED as of January 1, 2007, announcing it would distribute Liberty
Dollars without a political agenda. In March, 2007, von Nothaus
filed a lawsuit against Henry M. Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, then
In its initial warning to NORFED, the
government argued that Liberty Dollar was marketing privately-produced gold and
silver "Liberty Dollar" medallions as a form of money—a privilege
exclusively and constitutionally reserved for the federal government. Article
I, Section 8, subsection 5 provides that Congress alone possesses the exclusive
franchise to coin money and regulate its value. By law (31 USC § 5112[a]),
Congress directs the US Mint to mint coins—and to establish the values of those
coins. Congress places the responsibility to control the minting and
distribution of coinage to the Secretary of the Treasury (31 USC § 51131).
Accordingly, only the US Mint has the constitutional authority to issue
"legal tender" (i.e., real money). Under 18 USC § 486, it is a
federal crime to utter or pass, or attempt to utter or pass, any coins of gold
or silver intended for use as "current money." Liberty Dollar was on
safe ground with barter certificates. However, when they decided to mint coins
with an intrinsic value far greater than the fiat coinage created by the US
Mint, NORFED started building a house of cards that was doomed to fall.
Web advertisements, the US Mint argued,
referred to the
The US Mint told Sen. Bill Nelson [D-FL]
in a letter referencing a constituent of Nelson's, Albert Wagner, who
challenged the US Mint classification of the Liberty Dollar, advising
Nelson that NORFED's "...website and promotional
materials refer to the medallions as 'real money' and 'currency,' and claim
that the 'Liberty Dollar' medallions are 'legal' and 'constitutional.' the
medallions," the letter said, "bear inscriptions and designs similar
to those found on United States coinage, which may lead unwary merchants or
consumers to accept the medallions as legal tender by mistake."
Sadly for NORFED, even after the US
Treasury filed their initial cease and desist warning against them, the company
continued to refer to the Liberty Dollar—both paper and coin—as a private,
non-government form of currency even though it has had a disclaimer on its
website since 2004 stating that gold and silver Liberty coins are neither
"legal tender" nor "current money." Nor, the websie claimed, did the coins resemble or appear
"...to be coinage minted, issued, authorized, or approved by any
government agency." Further, the coins carry the website address and phone
number to identify them as advertising specialty items and not legal tender.
Since 1998, NORFED has more than $20 million in Liberty Dollar coins and
certificates in circulation. Approximately 2,500 merchants nationwide accept
Liberty Dollars for goods and services.
The US Mint told the Washington Post in
October, 2006 it acted only after federal prosecutors around the country began
forwarding inquiries about the coins, and realized the medallions had become a
problem.
According to a US Mint spokesperson,
NORFED encourages users to "do the drop." Doing the drop means the
Liberty Associate should drop one of the coins into the hand of the merchant so
he can feel the weight of it, which is either solid silver or solid gold.
Clearly, the minting of solid silver or solid gold—or solid
platinum—commemorative coins are legal. And clearly, anyone with a decent pair
of eyes can see that the coins are not the currency of the realm—regardless
what the NORFED website claimed prior to that entity's dissolution on January
1, 2007. The production, sale and possession of Liberty Dollars as a barter
coin is not illegal. As the US Mint noted to both the
Washington Post and Sen. Nelson, there is a comparative similarity in the fact
that NORFED used the phrase "Liberty," the Liberty image and the
phrase, "In God We Trust" (which the US government is now attempting
to remove from our currency because the phrase is offensive to Muslims) to make
its medallions resemble the coins of the realm.
In the search warrant presented to the
employees at
In addition to the inventory of coins and
silver certificates, the agents seized all precious metal shipping and
receiving invoices, as well as the Sunshine Mint records. Sunshine Mint is NORFED's repository in
This reporter
asked von Nothaus earlier if there was any chance
that the gold and silver used to support the Liberty Dollar certificates—which
have been ruled to be lawful—will be returned. Von Nothaus
said he had posted a link on his website,
http://www.libertydollar.org/classification/index.php, for people holding
Liberty Dollar certificates to join a class action lawsuit to demand redemption
for their certificates. Von Nothaus pointed out that
if the supporters of the Liberty Dollar don't join the class action lawsuit,
they will not get their money back. The Federal government will simply keep it
as they do with the ill-gotten gains of drug dealers and other criminals, or
white collar criminals charged with RICO violations. But, it appears to day,
that even if von Nothaus escapes prison, the Liberty
Dollars still in the possession of its adherents will be nothing more than momentos of a failed movement to restore the
© 2007 Jon C.
Ryter - All Rights Reserved
[Read "Whatever Happened to
America?"]
Jon Christian Ryter
is the pseudonym of a former newspaper reporter with the Parkersburg, WV
Sentinel. He authored a syndicated newspaper column, Answers From
The Bible, from the mid-1970s until 1985. Answers From
The Bible was read weekly in many suburban markets in the
Today, Jon is an advertising executive
with the
E-Mail: BAFFauthor@aol.com
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