Last time, we were previewing former Hollywood producer and former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Aaron Russo's new documentary, "America, Freedom to Fascism." The film argues it's enough to set us free, for citizens and jurors simply to ask of those enforcing the personal income tax, "Show us the law."

I fear it's not.

High-ranking Treasury officials and congressmen won't show the law to -- won't engage in a public, methodical, videotaped examination of the tax code and related court decisions with -- well-educated members of the tax education movement. They've promised to do so on many occasions, but they always back out, instead relying on surrogates to ridicule the questioners (though never under oath and cross-examination), often rebutting an assertion never made (that being that the Supreme Court has outlawed the income tax).

We have a right to ask why.

It's not far-fetched to conclude this is because they can't successfully answer the proper chain of questions they would open up once they specified which law they're going to cite. Who says so? Former IRS special agents Joe Banister and Sherry Jackson, who are featured in this film, to name just two. When Banister asked the director of the IRS, in writing, to answer some basic questions about the law -- why Americans don't have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on their tax forms, for instance -- Banister was simply invited to resign.

But the amateur juror -- or whoever -- who's going to make this demand needs to be educated enough to knowledgeably discuss Supreme Court rulings, including Doyle v. Mitchell Brothers ("We must reject ... the broad contention submitted in behalf of the government that all receipts, everything that comes in ... are income ... ") and Conner v. United States ("Congress has taxed income not compensation").

He or she must be able to grasp:

-- Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, in which the court said: "The 16th Amendment as correctly interpreted, is limited to indirect taxes and for that reason is constitutional ... "

-- Stanton v. Baltic Mining: The 16th "prohibited the ... power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged ..."

-- Eisner v. Macomber, confirming the 16th Amendment granted no new taxing authority, that it "must be construed in connection with the taxing clauses of the original Constitution."

He or she must then be able to relate that to what the court said about direct taxes not apportioned in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust ("The Constitution prohibits any direct tax, unless in proportion to numbers as ascertained by the census ... [and] ... prohibits Congress from laying a direct tax on the revenue from property of the Citizen without regard to State lines ... "), an 1895 decision which the high court subsequently and repeatedly found not to have been overruled by the adoption of the 16th Amendment.

"The 16th Amendment does not extend the powers of taxation to new or excepted subjects," the high court ruled in Peck v. Lowe, for example. "Neither can the tax be sustained on the person, measured by income. Such a tax would be by nature a capitation rather than an excise."

In other words, an income tax is perfectly legal and constitutional, but it must be either an avoidable excise on a privileged activity (trading one's labor for compensation is a right, not a privilege; wages are not "income," according to the high court in Stapler v. U.S.) or else it must be a direct tax, capitated and apportioned among the states, as these are the only two types of federal tax allowed by the Constitution, a situation unchanged by the 16th Amendment.

Can the G-men show jurors a law that says everyone who owes the tax has to file? Of course. But who owes the tax?

A less arrogant judge or IRS man might respond by showing them a part of the Internal Revenue Code that says every individual who earns any income, from any source, owes the tax. And that's where most common, decent folk who don't think like federal lawyers are likely to shrug and say, "Well, OK then, they showed us the law."

But at Title 26, chapter 21, subtitle C, Section 3121(e)(2) the law declares that, for purposes of the specific Social Security statute used to number taxapayers, "The term 'United States' when used in a geographical sense includes the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa."

Such wording may SOUND as though it means "as well as the 50 states." But in Hassett v. Welch, 1938, as well as in Gould v. Gould, the Supreme Court ruled any tax statute must be read in the most restrictive way possible, to benefit the taxpayer and not the government, which means if they'd meant to include "and the 48 contiguous states and Alaska and Hawaii," they would have had to actually add that.

Why didn't they? Because the law is constitutional as currently written, the tax skeptics argue, since the Congress has plenary authority in the territories (see Hooven v. Evatt; Downes v. Bidwell). It would only be unconstitutional if it said the income tax could be enforced as it currently is (as a direct tax against the person, but not capitated and apportioned) in a geographic region "including the following 50 states: Alabama, Alaska ..."

So the law was written in a way that makes it perfectly legal -- if you read it closely enough. Could that be why the familiar IRS Form 1040 bears OMB approval control number 1545-0074, indicating it's actually a work sheet to be attached to the proper form for "individuals" to use in filing an income tax return, that being OMB control number 1545-0067, designated form 2555, headlined "Foreign Earned Income"?

It takes a brave and well-informed juror to stand up to a stern-voiced judge as His Highness intones, "We don't have that here. That doesn't apply here. You'll apply the law as I explain it to you. I don't have to show you no stinking statute book. You're not allowed to discuss any Supreme Court rulings here."

Remember, the transcript of Irwin Schiff's recent federal trial here in Las Vegas, prominently featured in Mr. Russo's film, reveals Judge Ken Dawson shouting, "Irrelevant! Denied!" when Mr. Schiff tries to cite these Supreme Court rulings.

I dare say Mr. Russo would argue the kind of detailed, legally rigorous film that would properly prepare a citizen juror to stand her ground in such a confrontation would run for many hours, and put many viewers to sleep.

He'd probably be right. The federals have had 90 years to weave their tangled web. Just properly explaining their arrogance and their deviousness takes longer than most modern government-school graduates can sit still and focus.

Mr. Russo would doubtless argue a two-hour entertainment neither can nor should constitute a rigorous, footnoted legal filing. All he can accomplish here is an emotional "wake-up call."

"America: Freedom to Fascism" is that wake-up call. But it should be accompanied by a reading list. This film provides audiences with some truths too long obscured, and with a little knowledge. Truth, of course, can set us free. But too small a dose of knowledge can also be a dangerous thing.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of "Send in the Waco Killers" and the new novel "The Black Arrow," which has made the short list of nominees for both the 2005 Prometheus Award and the 2005 Compton Crook Award.