KEY POINTS:
Deep in the New Hampshire woods, a man and his wife are holed up, armed to the teeth, threatening to fight United States marshals to the death if they try to capture them and force them to pay income tax they owe.
"Do not, under any circumstances, make
any attempt on this land. We will not accept any tomfoolery by any criminal element, be it federal, state or local," the tax rebel, Ed Brown, shouted from an upstairs window. "We either walk out of here free or we die."
Brown has been convicted in absentia and owes nearly US$2 million ($2.6 million) in income tax. He refuses to pay however, saying: "There is no law. We looked and looked."
His defence has some resonance across rural America, where taxation is always unpopular, especially at a time when incomes are stagnant and living costs always seem to be rising.
The courts were not amused, however, and this week SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams, military and explosives vehicles descended on the tiny town of Plainfield.
Planes flying overhead have been ordered away, and neighbours have been taken from their homes.
Dressed as if for war, in full camouflage, replete with branches and leaves, armed anti-terrorist officers have been seen and photographed crawling through the woods near the hilltop building on the 44.5ha farm.
"If they come in, we're dead. That's it," Brown's wife, Elaine, said. "We will not be arrested. We will not volunteer to go into their prison for a non-crime. We have committed no crime."
It is a return of one of the worst nightmares for federal authorities. Handled the wrong way, the siege has all the ingredients for an explosion of violence and death - one which could trigger a revival of home-grown anti-government terrorism of the sort that brought about the Oklahoma bombing of 1995.
On Monday, the Browns were joined by Randy Weaver, an infamous figure and a hero in anti-government circles. It was his defiance of federal authorities which led to the infamous Ruby Ridge shootout with federal agents, when his wife and son and a deputy US marshal were killed in Idaho in 1992.
"We said, 'This is it, we're not going to take it any more' ... This is serious stuff. Bring it on," Weaver said on the Browns' front porch. "I ain't afraid of dying no more. I'm curious about the afterlife. And I'm an atheist."
His arrival at the farm was a reminder of the botched federal raid which gave an enormous boost to the nationwide patriot militia movement.
Those events led ultimately to the Oklahoma bombing and the deaths of 160 and more than 800 wounded.
Belatedly the authorities cut the phone, electricity and internet service at the fortified compound on Wednesday. But the Browns have solar and wind power generators.
US Marshal Steve Monier seemed to engage in wishful thinking when he said that the wait could take months, and the Browns might consider 2 1/2 years' jail a better option after a summer without air conditioning and a New Hampshire winter without heat.
- INDEPENDENT