The staffer offered me the choice of picking it up in person or having it mailed to me, with signature-on-delivery confirmation. I opted to pick it up in person.

If I don’t make it down there during their opening hours, it’ll have to wait until after the new year.

As far as I know, the issuance of this document means that I became a stateless person on 8 December 2008, that having been the day I swore the Oath of Renunciation and surrendered my US passport.

For more exciting bureaucracy, stay tuned to this channel!

How can you sleep at night?

Merry Christmas, you fucking tool.

Audio, direct from Radio Slovakia International, unedited, 12.3MB, 26min 52sec (my segment begins around 15:00): streaming MP3 — downloadable MP3 (no longer available)

Google Video, trimmed to just my segment (11min 2sec):

TRANSCRIPT

Commentator: On the eighth of December, 2008, there was a press release that was different from the rest. A 36-year-old American, Mike Gogulski, started a process to become a stateless person and renounced his American passport and citizenship. This is not an everyday thing, so we talked to him on his feelings about the US and soon being a person of no state. Christopher George met him in our studio.

Christopher George: Before the interview, I must state that Radio Slovakia International, as an institution, does not share the ideas and ideology of Mr. Gogulski, but feel he has the right to express his own opinion via our broadcasts.

Mike Gogulski: My name is Mike Gogulski, I’m 36, a former American living here in Bratislava.

CG: How long have you been here?

MG: I’ve been legally resident for about two and a half years, and I’ve been visiting the country since about 2004… mid-2004.

CG: When did you start the process of becoming a person of no state?

MG: Well, in very real terms, the process only began a couple of weeks ago when I first visited the American embassy here in Bratislava…

CG: A few weeks ago?

MG: Two weeks ago, to actually start filing the paperwork. The mental process is one that started quite a long time ago… I suppose — really about ten years — when I first had this idea that said, “I want to leave America, go live somewhere else.”

CG: What is your idea of the US government… or the US in general, as an American?

MG: Well, the …

CG: …as an ex-American…

MG: …as an ex-American? Well, like every government, the United States government in my view is a criminal organization, it just happens to be one of the most powerful ones in existence today. So, where I see American politicians talking loudly about ideas of freedom and democracy and free markets, the reality, I think, is rather different.

CG: Do you believe in the system? Do you believe in American politicians when they go electioneering and so on? Do you believe that … they’re a politician and they have a set of beliefs that they will follow?

MG: With respect to politicians there’s a couple of important things that I believe. The first is that the desire for power over other human beings really ought to be considered a sort of mental illness. The other is that politicians, especially at the national level… they don’t hold the real power in the system. The real power is held by what you could call plutocratic interests… the politicians are the instruments for the implementation of their policy.

CG: Do you think this is problematic in the system in that most politicians are sponsored by various companies and lobbyists and so on before they even get into office, and when they are, they…?

MG: Well, yes, sure, there are any number of cases that you could look back on and see politicians taking campaign contributions from certain industries or from certain companies then later repay the favor by sponsoring or signing on to legislation that favors those entities, even when those acts of government are contrary to the interests of the people. So, sure.

CG: Your attempt to become a person of no state in relation to Slovakia… is this a place where it is possible and easy to fulfill this goal?

MG: From my reading of the law and the treaties regarding statelessness and stateless persons, I believe that in Slovakia it is possible to become a stateless person, if one thinks that’s desirable. Is it easy? I don’t know yet. I’m just beginning a bureaucratic process with the Interior Ministry, by way of the Aliens’ Police, to become documented as a stateless person. Slovakia is signatory to one UN treaty on the status of refugees and two on the treatment of stateless persons which set up a number of conditions that give congruent rights to stateless people legally in the territory as are enjoyed by citizens and legal residents with citizenship.

CG: I have here in front of me a scan of your trvalý pobyt, which means your residence permit…

MG: My residence permit.

CG: And it says that it expires on the 21st of the fifth [sic], 2010…

MG: Correct.

CG: Do you see this as problematic? What is the process? You’ll have to go there and renew it, of course…

MG: My understanding right now is that… I’ve sent a letter to the Foreign Police saying I forfeited my American passport, which contained my povolenie na trvalý pobyt… na prechodný pobyt, actually, it’s temporary, not permanent…

CG: Oh, it’s not even trvalý…

MG: Yeah. My understanding is that my legal residence here is tied to my person, not to my citizenship. So, I’m still a legal resident by virtue of a file entry having been made at the Foreign Police office. I’m applying now for them to issue a 1954 Convention Travel Document for me as a stateless person and then re-issue the visa sticker.

CG: So, do you see any problems in the future with extending your residency permit?

MG: If the Slovak government decides that I am “undesirable”, for whatever reason, and makes a notation in my residency file with the Foreign Police, the Foreign Police have broad discretion to refuse to renew or grant a residence permit. So it is possible that they would refuse to renew it. What position would that put me in? I’m not exactly certain. I would be a stateless person now no longer legally present in the Slovak Republic. Would I be deportable to America? I’m not quite sure.

CG: And with regards to your application, do you see it being just a formality, and it’ll be accepted?

MG: I hope so. That’s certainly the impression that I got from a letter that I received from the Foreign Police in response to an inquiry about applying for a Stateless Person’s Travel Document, and in which I mentioned that I would renounce my American citizenship. Of course, you know, the bureaucracy likes to answer questions directly, so there may be other factors that come into play when I actually face the application and approval process. But I don’t expect anything dramatic.

CG: So your application went in on the 8th of December, if I remember, right?

MG: Well this was my application to renounce my US citizenship. I haven’t yet filed the application for these other documents from the Slovak government because I am waiting for a certificate from the American government certifying that I’ve actually lost my citizenship.

CG: How have the few days since then been? Has it been a normal average day, normal average week?

MG: Normal average days, normal average week… I go to the grocery store and I buy food and nobody asks me for ID. I go to the bank machine and withdraw cash and there’s no problem. I ride the bus and eat in restaurants and do my work. [ed: my final comment here, stating that my cat doesn't even realize anything has changed, was edited out of the broadcast.]

CG: Do you see this being a long, drawn-out process?

MG: I hope not. What I’ve been led to expect by the American embassy is there will be a period of up to 30 days while they process my application to renounce. By the end of that period I should either receive the Certificate of Loss of Nationality or receive a letter stating that my application has been rejected for some reason, together with my passport returned to me. After that, I will apply immediately to the Foreign Police for this Travel Document and my new visa… my replacement visa. That’s a process which can take up to three months. So, there’s a possibility that it might be March 8 or April 8 before I’m documented again.

CG: So, you obviously don’t see yourself going back to America.

MG: No plans…

CG: And, Slovakia? Are you interested in staying here?

MG: Well, I’ve been here for some time already and I feel quite at home here. My professional work as a translator is connected directly to the Slovak language. I have a small community of friends here. I don’t have any real desire to leave or to go anywhere else.

CG: And to other people, would you suggest this as something to do if they feel that they are against, or that they clash with the system?

MG: Well, it’s a terribly dangerous and risky kind of step to take, I think. I wouldn’t go out preaching that Americans ought to renounce their citizenship as a means of protest. However, if there are some who think they might want to do that, well, they’re certainly welcome to contact me through my website and ask me about my own experience. But there are limitations and restrictions that anybody doing that is going to have to accept.

CG: What about the current change that has been happening in America? Where do you see this, where do you see the new presidency going?

MG: There was a comedian back in the 1980s named Bobcat Goldthwait who once had a great line in one of his stand-up routines that said, “Blaming Ronald Reagan for how screwed up the country is is a little bit like blaming Ronald McDonald when you get a bad cheeseburger. Neither of them really run the show.” Barack Obama, a very charismatic politician who has rode himself into office kind of on a wave of messianic fervor, is already being revealed as a tool of the plutocratic elite that really controls American politics and American policy. So, as far as “change”? Maybe they’ll move some soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan instead.

CG: So no administrative problems, really? Because it seems you have letters from most … embassy, and banks, and … I guess the list goes on. People and institutions that are happy with the situation, really.

MG: There were two main concerns for me in renouncing my citizenship. One is with respect to the identification function that a state passport provides. So, for example, if I walk into Tatra banka, where I’m a client, and ask to withdraw money in cash from my account, they want to see my passport. At the moment I don’t have a passport or a stateless person’s Travel Document, so what I have for this interim period while I’m undocumented, in order to manage the ID function, is, one, this notarized copy of my passport and visa. The second is I executed a power of attorney designating a friend of mine as being able to sign for all legal acts in my name. So, if I needed to withdraw cash from the bank, I would take her along to the bank branch and she would present her ID and sign for me, based on the power of attorney.

The other function of the passport, obviously, was to hold the residence permit sticker. Right now I don’t have that, so I could have a real problem if I were stopped by the police.

CG: If anyone out there wants to visit, or to find out more information about yourself, could you please give them the link?

MG: My personal blog, my website, is www.nostate.com, just n-o-s-t-a-t-e-dot-com.

The Consul, an affable man about my age, did his duty. He made certain all the forms were filled out properly, and discussed with me what I am doing. Part of his job is to advise potential renunciants of the consequences, to make certain that they are not insane, under duress or lacking sufficient knowledge of the law to appreciate their action, and to explore all of the un-thought-of possibilities which might lead one to back away from the decision. We chatted a bit about prior renunciants he is aware of. Apparently there have been a good number of them who renounced back in the Vietnam War era as a political protest, only to regret doing so later on and attempt to reclaim their citizenship via the courts, to little avail. Additionally, and interestingly, there have apparently been cases in which cult leaders induced followers to give up their citizenship as part of binding themselves more closely to the cult. When these become deprogrammed and attempt to put their lives back together, they may find sympathy in US courts voiding their renunciation and restoring them to citizenship status.

Anyway, I jumped all the hurdles and through all the hoops he offered, and he accepted that I know what I’m doing — or, at least, that I am well aware of all the risks. Inquiring as to my motives I told him that I’m after a political divorce, and that, no, it doesn’t matter that Obama won the election, as his administration will no doubt continue doing the real work of the people who actually own and direct the American system. I signed all of the documents, read aloud from the Oath of Renunciation a bit to satisfy a “swearing” requirement, and handed all of it over to him.

The final item, not previously known to me, is to fill in and submit an IRS Form 8854, a delightful document entitled “Initial and Annual Expatriation Information Statement”. The IRS wants a full accounting of my situation for the past five years, a statement of assets and liabilities and an income statement. According to the instructions to the form, because I will answer “no” to the question “Do you certify under penalty of perjury that you have complied with all of your tax obligations for the 5 preceding tax years?”, I will become subject to “section 877″, which among other things will require me to file an updated copy of Form 8854 every year for the ten years following my expatriation. The “Penalties” section of the instructions contains this gem:

If you are subject to section 877 and required to file Form 8854 for any tax year, and you fail to file or do not include all the information required by the form or the form includes incorrect information, you will owe a penalty of $10,000 for that year, unless it is shown that such failure is due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect.

I will have to answer “no” to that question, and thus I will be subject to this penalty, because since 2005 I have not filed a US income tax return. Even though I have had no income subject to US taxation in the last several years, the filing requirement still exists. By the sound of things, and since I do not plan on ever filing an IRS form again after this one, it looks like that by 2019 I will have accumulated $100,000 in penalties, simply for failing to do government-mandated paperwork. A blog doesn’t really allow one to communicate a sense of profound indifference to the fullest extent. Is it possible, grammatically, to be highly willfully neglectful?

So, a bit of weekend work ahead for me as I slog through the 8854 in order to clear the hopefully last bureaucratic hurdle. I have another appointment with the Consul at 2:15pm on Monday, at which I will hand in the Form 8854 and surrender my passport.

From: Mike Gogulski
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 11:27 AM
To: consulbratislava@state.gov
Subject: appointment

Dear Consular Staff,

I visited the Embassy on Wednesday to submit paperwork
to renounce my US citizenship. I was told that I needed
to fill out another form (DS-4079) and contact you for
an appointment with the Consul.

That form is ready, and I would like to proceed. Please
let me know what appointments might be open next week.

Thank you, and best regards,
Mike Gogulski

I don’t know how many of the security cameras disguised as birdhouses around Hviezdoslav Square catch sight of me. Doesn’t matter, really. I also don’t bother with my usual survey of the people around, looking for the undercover secret police and intelligence agents who can sometimes be spotted in the vicinity through careful observation.

Hviezdoslav the bollard, via bratislava-photo.com

I haven’t been to the Embassy since its renovations were completed over a year ago. The visible signs of that renovation included moving the security perimeter of the compound outside the building proper into a small, newly-constructed building dedicated to being an access control choke point. A metal detector was added, supplementing the X-ray machine for visitor baggage. Perimiter fencing was extended to encompass the new man-trap building, and new vehicular denial devices installed at a couple of points. Modifications to the underground parking garage connected with the adjacent Carlton Hotel were performed in order to prevent close access to the Embassy premises by unapproved vehicles. Additionally, a passive cordon consisting of a series of bollards linking areas bounded by long fountains was added to prevent vehicular access from all but approved directions. One of the ironic features of this cordon is that the monumental statue of famed Slovak poet and parliamentarian Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, the square’s namesake, has been incorporated into the bollard lines, thus making a symbol of Slovak cultural identity part of the American Imperium’s local outpost.

A small line of people wait outside the man-trap security building to speak with the woman behind the bulletproof glass. They are all hoping to pick up visas. They present their paper receipts, the woman looks through a box of documents, and to each one says to come back on Friday. A woman next to me asks me, in Slovak, something about Friday. “Sorry?” I say. “Oh, I mean…” she fumbles, switching to English. “Aj po slovensky,” I tell her, indicating that she can continue in Slovak. She asks me what the woman behind the bulletproof glass was telling the others, and I say that I don’t know, but that it appears the folks here must come back for their business on Friday because the Embassy is closing for the day in a few minutes and tomorrow, Thursday, is Thanksgiving, an American holiday.

I’m at the front of the line in about a minute, show my passport and tell the bulletproof lady I’m here to renounce my citizenship. “Okay,” she says, “but very quickly; we are closing.” She tells me to go to Window 5, and confirms that I know where that is.

At right, US Embassy in Bratislava. At left, the man-trap.

I shuffle around and enter the adjacent door as I am buzzed in, passing inside the man-trap. Backpack off and into the X-ray machine, pocket contents into the plastic tray for X-ray as well, and I pass through the metal detector — much less sensitive than those at airports, as my belt buckle and the studs in my shoes fail to set it off. One of the four guards in the room hands me a visitor’s badge and a receipt token for my mobile phone, which must remain at the security checkpoint until I am ready to leave the premises. I reclaim my backpack and pocket contents.

Through another door and out into the small parking area in front of the embassy, surrounded by high metal hurricane fencing. I enter the first door, turn, and find myself in an unfamiliar place. I take a few steps in, up a couple of stairs, and find myself in a small room with another bulletproof box containing a young United States Marine Corps junior officer. “Your badge, sir?” I show my badge, and he tells me I’m in the wrong place. Go to the next door down. Ah, right, the proles’ entrance. This door for ruling class tools only.

Back outside, and through the door that was always the entrance before. The security checkpoint used to be here, but now I just breeze in, turn right, through the door, up a few steps into a waiting room, turn left and into the sound-muffling, heavily camera-monitored room which is the place where petitioners to the almighty American State come to present their pleas, again to women safely ensconced behind bulletproof windows.

I approach Window 5, pull out my passport and all the documents I’ve brought with me, all pre-filled-in and ready for execution. After a few minutes’ wait, a Slovak woman employed by the Embassy comes to the window and asks how she can be of assistance. “Hello, I’m here to file these documents and take the oath to renounce my citizenship.” She pauses a moment, frozen, and then a sly smile steals across her face. “Are you sure?” she asks. “Yes, quite sure.” “And may I ask why?” she inquires. “Political reasons.” “And have you spoken about this with anyone?” Yes, I tell her, I’ve spoken with a great many people about it. “Ah, but anyone here?” she insists. “No, not yet.” “Very well,” she says, and invites me to pass my passport and documents to her through the narrow slot which presents the only opportunity for contact between the two worlds separated by the bulletproof glass. “Please take a seat in the waiting room, and I will call your name.”

I go back into the waiting room, plop my backpack on a chair and head over to a wall to examine a large poster with attached paper addendum laying out the fee schedule for the various “services” performed by the Embassy. A quick scan of the lists shows that there are no fees given for renouncing one’s citizenship. I sit down and pick up a week-old copy of Nový Čas, a trashy daily tabloid paper, and settle in to read a short editorial celebrating the fact that Slovaks no longer require a pre-arranged visa to visit the US as tourists, but doubting that the young people taking the most advantage of the “privilege” of visa-free travel reciprocity today really have any appreciation of how much the world has changed since the 1988 Candle Demonstration, which took place right outside where I am sitting now on Hviezdoslav Square and which was an important event toward the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

“Mister Gogulski,” comes the woman’s voice over the loudspeaker. I shuffle back into the petitioning chamber.

“So,” the woman behind the translucent barrier tells me, “if you really want to do this, we need you to fill out this form, and contact us to make an appointment to speak to the Consul.” Again, the wry smile: in her eyes, perhaps, I am either insane or stupid — or both.

Form? What form? Oh, damnit. It’s the Questionnaire: Information for Determining Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship. I forgot about that one. Nuts. Oh well, another day.

“One more thing,” I ask, packing up my things, “are there any fees for this?” “No,” she tells me.

“Thanks. See you on Friday,” I tell the woman, and leave for home.