THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

It used to be that the only place you could find American Whackasses was in America. More an more now they are showing up in other countries, primarily Canada and Australia. and they are carrying with them their same insanely deadly anarchistic ways.

The sovereign citizen movement, which has emerged as a key combatant in the battle against domestic terrorism in the United States, continues to swell, with violent incidents erupting on a regular basis. But authorities and experts say the exponential growth of sovereign citizens — their numbers are now estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands — isn’t strictly a U.S. phenomenon any more. The movement’s tentacles, they say, are reaching worldwide.

“It has gone international,” said Bob Paudert, the former police chief of West Memphis, Ark., whose son and another officer were gunned down by sovereign citizens during a traffic stop in 2010. “We know they’ve been in Canada for several years, and now they’re organizing in Australia.

“This is exactly where we were in 2010. We had no idea who they were or what they were, the judges didn’t know, and the officers didn’t know.”

Sovereign citizens are a loose network of individuals whose adherents believe the government is corrupt and out of control; therefore, they do not recognize local, state or federal authority or tax systems. In Canada, they’re sometimes known as Freemen on the Land.

Not all are violent, but in recent years they have come to be considered a top domestic terrorism threat by the FBI and other government agencies.

In the Canadian case, Raddatz was a divorced father of three who had been going through financial difficulties, and his house was in foreclosure.

After he shot the officers, authorities said, the 42-year-old self-employed refrigeration mechanic set his house on fire, then died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the United States, a survey of law enforcement officers published last year found sovereign citizens were perceived as their greatest terrorism concern. Now, authorities are starting to take notice in other parts of the world as well.

Just last month, law enforcement officials in Australia issued a report warning of a growing threat from sovereign citizens.

A confidential assessment by the New South Wales Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command said there were up to 300 sovereign citizens in the state and that the numbers were increasing, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corp., which obtained the document. The assessment said sovereigns had “the motivation and capability to act against government interests and should be considered a potential terrorist threat.”

The quaint anarchic principles of the original movement have been stretched to cover the criminal intent of the new American terrorists and their exports.