Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

thehub.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 849 posts

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#401

Post by agentultra »

As for whether the Emergencies Act is over-reaching, I disagree. We're not talking about a lawful protest here. We're talking about a well-funded occupation of public lands with an indefinite duration to the demonstration. Where those funds came from is going to be really interesting to the courts, as we've seen in the bail hearings today, because if they came from foreign powers with the intent to disrupt economic or democratic processes in Canada -- that definitely pushes the needle away from peaceful protest and towards occupation.

I think people implying that this now gives the government the ability to put down protests by freezing everyone's accounts is misinformed. The Emergencies Act still requires any government action to be bound by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada -- everyone arrested is getting their day in court, those who are not directly involved in the occupation will eventually get access to their funds again, I'm sure. It also require co-operation from different levels of government. It gives the government extra powers to deal with unprecedented circumstances which is exactly what has been happening in Canada.

It was a very targeted response and the most infuriatingly peaceful ones I've seen. Everyone involved in this occupation was given more opportunities to leave than I've seen given to actual, legal protestors in similar demonstrations. The key story seems to be that there was no intention to ever disperse and leave. And the folks organizing this occupation were encouraging more people to stay and were accepting funding to help ensure they could stay.

Is getting your account frozen devastating? Absolutely. No question. Was it the right response for the government to freeze the accounts of people supporting this occupation? Absolutely. Violence wasn't going to solve this and would incite more violence. Most people who donated a few bucks to their fundraising drives will get a shock and life will go back to normal. It's the people who funded this occupation that the authorities are after and it will come to light soon I'm sure.

Cash hasn't gone anywhere yet either. Merchants in Canada are still legally required to accept it and ought to -- I can agree with that.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#402

Post by jltsiren »

JPKab wrote: post #195
adriand wrote: post #57

I agree that this needs to be taken very seriously. However, the author overstates his case significantly when he writes: > Doing this to someone—a small business owner in BC, a public servant in Winnipeg, a student in Halifax—who made a small donation to support the convoy is a clear abuse of power. However: > The RCMP, banking sector and federal government said Monday that account-freezing powers bestowed under the…

I think you are forgetting a few key details: 1.) You are taking a government's word for it. As a US citizen, I can tell you that you should never, ever do this. My attitude with any governing entity is to trust but verify. If they don't provide a way to verify, assume they are lying. I'm a former Department of Defense and intelligence contractor. My experience working with these entities hardened my attitude to neve…

> 1.) You are taking a government's word for it. As a US citizen, I can tell you that you should never, ever do this.

This is a fundamental mistake. Just as you can't take your experiences from (let's say) IBM and assume that Google (or a startup, or a family business) operates in the same way, you can't take your experiences from the US government and assume that every other government works in the same way. As the only (mostly) democratic superpower, the US is a category of its own. It has global ambitions, and its government serves many purposes apart from the interests of its citizens. Other governments exist for other reasons and serve other purposes.

I'm not familiar with Canada. I don't know how its government operates or whether you should trust its word. However, I know that in another country, it's never "the government" that speaks but a specific agency or a specific official. Those all have known reputations and known biases. An informed person can often say with reasonable certainty whether you can take the government's word at face value.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#403

Post by busymom0 »

staticman2 wrote: post #390
daenz wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He was asked directly whether or not people who donate to the movement should be worried.[0] >If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried. Can you understand now why people may be concerned about the scope of who is being…

Well having googled that quote and found nothing by a normal news site I'm not clear why anyone would think the Twitter account you linked to is anything other than pure fiction.

It's a video. Unless you claim the video is somehow deep faked, his words corroborate what the comment says. And if you don't want to trust that, then here's direct link to CTVNews where he says those words at 3:26 mark:

https://youtu.be/Qisd2juHvps?t=206

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#405

Post by busymom0 »

adriand wrote: post #57

I agree that this needs to be taken very seriously. However, the author overstates his case significantly when he writes: > Doing this to someone—a small business owner in BC, a public servant in Winnipeg, a student in Halifax—who made a small donation to support the convoy is a clear abuse of power. However: > The RCMP, banking sector and federal government said Monday that account-freezing powers bestowed under the…

> “At no time, did we provide a list of donors to Financial Institutions,” the RCMP said in a statement Monday. [1]

They don't need to. The list is public. Banks have been given the power already.

Also, trusting anything the RCMP says is like trusting what the CIA/NSA/FBI says.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#406

Post by s1artibartfast »

adriand wrote: post #289
nickff wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you that we shouldn't think in 'red vs. blue' terms, the Emergencies Act was actually written because Justin Trudeau's father had undertaken even more extreme measures in the 1970s, while leader of the same party that Trudeau currently leads. This is a situation where the Liberal party has consistently taken extreme anti-civil liberties positions.

Protesters blocked multiple international borders between Canada and the US, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per day ($300 million/day for the Windsor/Detroit crossing alone). There is no "civil liberty" that protects the right to blockade an international border, just as there is no civil liberty to park a convoy of trucks in someone's neighbourhood and then stay there indefinitely. I have family who li…

The correct solution to Illegal behavior in a healthy democracy is to arrest someone and try them in court. We shouldn't be denying that to to anybody no matter how wrong they are.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#407

Post by deathanatos »

giobox wrote: post #54
henryfjordan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Massachusetts says you owe money, they must accept cash. That's the point of cash being "legal tender", you cannot refuse it if someone is trying to settle a debt. That said, it might be really hard to figure out how to pay in cash.

EZ Pass website says debts can be settled in cash at their service centers. So yes you can settle in cash, but it is likely a massive pain to do as you suggest. Their site also says you can prepay your tolls in cash, to have account in credit, using the same service centers. I suspect almost no one does. "Cash or Credit/Debit cards are accepted at any of our Customer Service Centers." > https://www.ezdrivema.com/ezpa…

… so at the time of the example, I would have needed to travel ~3,000 mi, then.

And… you have to sign up, get a transponder, keep said transponder in your car and allow them to track your movements with it. (Which, admittedly, they can probably already do by reading license plates. Might as well just broadcast it on radio?)

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#408

Post by quadcore »

Ive seen KYC/KYB in action lately - it has long left the financial sector, police is now virtually behing every door.

Policing at every corner benefits a few and seriously treaten equal opportunities.

So I've came to some beginning of a conclusion. The idea would be to have a constitutional right to a grey area. The phylosophical rational would be that it's useful to human life, democracy and equal opportunities. Some extreme policing practice (like KYC, banking and digital policing, even adn in some cases) couldn't be used against you unless you're commiting a very (very) serious crime (5-10+ years of imprisonment for example). That would work with what ive seen lately, that would work against terrorism and money laudering and it would work for those canadian protesters as well. If police would want to catch a 2 year crime, they got to roll up their sleeves or wait for it to be become more severe. Im starting to like the idea a bit more (though its certainly quite a rough diamond if it works at all).

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#409

Post by refurb »

BeefWellington wrote: post #387
refurb wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you just blaming any and all crime that happened during the protest on the protestors and thus inferring the entire movement is violent? I mean the only thing connecting your first link to the protest was it happened in the same part of the city. That's it. No other evidence. If a guy beats his wife at home do you blame that on the convoy too? Seems like a smear campaign.

> Are you just blaming any and all crime that happened during the protest on the protestors and thus inferring the entire movement is violent? This is a pretty useless and disrespectful response for a few reasons. Firstly, it's pretty obvious from the links and the locations things happened that these were directly related to the convoy or at least convoy adjacent. Secondly, I don't doubt that there were nonviolent p…

Please quote the exact "mountain of evidence" in your link about the arson case.

All I see relevant to the convoy is the quote "when a group of men they believed to be convoy demonstrators". Ok, so they believed they were a part of the convoy. That's it?

If there is no other evidence in the arson case, then like I said it's nothing more than a smear campaign.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#410

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN