In August, 1984, Armen Condo, Founder of Your Heritage Protection Agency (“YHPA”) was being prosecuted by the Federal Government under numerous tax related statutes, as well as other collateral charges such as mail fraud.
The YHPA is still (the record holds to this day), the largest organized tax protester group to ever have existed in the United States (with respectful deference to our Founding Fathers and innumerable fellow unsung “tax protester” patriots living and laying their lives on the line in the 1700s for our benefit today). In its heyday in the 1970’s/1980’s, the YHPA’s dues-paying membership reached well into the 20,000 to 30,000 range, before it was ultimately brought into a state of non-existence through the intervention of strongly persuasive federal influences.
The YHPA published a fairly thick newspaper, and continued on in their efforts for several years, with their primary focus based upon the illegitimacy of Federal Reserve Notes, contending thereon that receipt of said Federal Reserve Notes did not constitute “income,” therefore, no one receiving said notes was liable under federal income tax statutes. Although additional proprietary “tax protester” positions were routinely addressed, the YHPA’s primary focus remained centred around Federal Reserve Notes.
Curiously, as a side note, individuals choosing to join the YHPA (usually in the context of a dinner/seminar setting), were guided through a “joining process” at the conclusion of the seminar, where dual ID photos were taken (the YHPA kept one photo, and you received the other, using a dual-photo camera similar to the dual-photo cameras used at your local Department of Motor Vehicles or local passport photo vendor) and slick, professional looking “ID cards” were processed on the spot and given to each new member at that time.
In hindsight, the stated reasons given at these dinner/ seminars with respect to the “necessity” of having/ creating a photo ID card were rather specious at best, and in fact, there was some additional hindsight talk that perhaps the YHPA was a Federal “Tax Protester” Sting Operation all along, designed to attract and then identify. [For example, in the U.S.S.R., the KGB is known to have secretly “created” (sponsored is more like it) — various protester groups for the sole purpose of throwing out some attractive philosophy designed to attract a certain type of individual, and then having “extracted” those individuals from society, and having thus identified them — then shutting down the organization and arresting the members. This practice is a utilization of the principle known as the “Doctrine of False Opposition.”