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

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

#441

Post by JamisonM »

visiblink wrote: post #359

I don't generally agree with these protestors, but the government's approach to shutting them down is a major threat to freedom in Canadian society. Freezing their bank accounts when they have not been proven guilty of any crime is an abuse of power. Interfering with the social funding drives of a political resistance movement sets a precedent that might affect all political protest in the future. I don't know what t…

Freezing bank accounts when you have not been convicted of a crime happens all the time and is the way things have to work. If you let money flow freely in the banking system contingent on criminal convictions any old drug cartel could pay you a million bucks after you serve your time to let 100 million flow through your accounts or whatever. If you can't freeze accounts without an arrest that is already too slow. It is the way the banking system already works.

There is no "staged media campaign" to smear people, the media was reporting on the fact that having kids in the red zone had become illegal with the emergency orders. Kids come to protests all the time, it is not a big deal, but when the cops hand out flyers telling you that you have to leave and you don't, keeping your kids there with you, you are going to get some extra attention - it is not remotely comparable to church, women's centres, or union picnics. If you brought your kids to walk the line with you on a wildcat strike that might be comparable.. if the cops had handed you a flyer saying they were going to forcibly remove your picket line soon.

I agree that early enforcement may have made a difference - but it is clear from the reporting that towing vehicles at the outset was never an option - the towing firm that moved a shack /at the request of the protestors/ received a huge amount of harassment. In other cities pre-emptive measures were successful - sometimes by the police and sometimes by citizens. In my most generous moments I sometimes can forgive the OPS for thinking that this wasn't that big a deal at the start.

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

#442

Post by pkd »

ta_abcd wrote: post #374
ripley12 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think those things are true, and I live in Canada. I strongly support Trudeau's actions on this, and I'm sad that the government took so long to crack down on the "truckers". It's deeply damaging to civil society when a few extremists can shut down a city without consequences.

As a resident of the city in question, lets talk facts(whatever that means) if you care to read on.. Almost nothing was shut down as a result of this protest. You could travel over 99.5% of the city and forget a protest was taking place. Almost anything that was shut down, was shut down voluntarily. Only the 3-4 blocks immediately adjacent to the Parliament buildings (where else do you go to protest your federal gove…

There are many many low income housing buildings in Centerrown. It's interesting to me that you characterize the condo inhabitants as rich people while it's actually cheaper to buy a condo downtown than to buy a house in Barrhaven in the suburbs! All the rich people are actually living in mansions away from Centertown.

The injunction worked for 2 days, but the lack of enforcement meant that it was blaring horns again in no time. I'm glad your children enjoyed the brief trip. I think a lot of people there were actually just curious spectators there for a few hours to party. I live about a kilometre from the parliament and I could still hear the honking. A friend of a friend had to arrange for their kid to relocate because it was impossible to sleep.

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

#443

Post by LegitShady »

ta_abcd wrote: post #374
ripley12 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think those things are true, and I live in Canada. I strongly support Trudeau's actions on this, and I'm sad that the government took so long to crack down on the "truckers". It's deeply damaging to civil society when a few extremists can shut down a city without consequences.

As a resident of the city in question, lets talk facts(whatever that means) if you care to read on.. Almost nothing was shut down as a result of this protest. You could travel over 99.5% of the city and forget a protest was taking place. Almost anything that was shut down, was shut down voluntarily. Only the 3-4 blocks immediately adjacent to the Parliament buildings (where else do you go to protest your federal gove…

bravo for being open minded enough to go check it out for yourself.

There are a lot of people who do nothing but read headlines or watch mainstream news who don't have any understanding of what was going on there.

There is a heavy attempt by political opposition to cast the whole thing as a US-Style January 6th when it was nothing of the kind.

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

#444

Post by busymom0 »

pkd wrote: post #427
busymom0 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you listen to the next question, it seems like he was talking about people in the U.S. donating to the movement.

Why would he be talking about US people? He has zero jurisdiction over that. And even if he were talking about US people, that still wouldn't make such comments okay.

Canadians donate to US protests all the time and vice versa.

Plus, the Deputy Director of Intelligence for Canada's financial intel agency (FINTRAC) said there is no evidence of suspicious transactions around the freedom convoy:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/no-spike-in-suspicious-trans...

So what exactly is his point?

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

#445

Post by pkd »

mythrwy wrote: post #397
catgary wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ, just go look at the Ipsos/Nanos polls. Do you think CNN made that up out of thin air? Those are reputable polling agencies. Barely 50% of CPC voters supported the convoy protestors methods.

Could be. Doubt "reputable polling agencies" in general though and CNN completely.

Who do you trust?

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

#446

Post by busymom0 »

defaultname wrote: post #432
busymom0 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

[flagged]

> If you dislike democracy because your guy isn't in charge, you don't like democracy and should just accept that fact and save the rhetoric.

You think the war measures act like the Emergencies Act is "democracy"?

Blacks, indigenous and hispanics have the lowest rates of vaccination in both Canada and US. If you think they are all "attempting an insurrection with daily QAnon rallies", you are living in alternate universe. I was there at the protest for 3 weekends and many of the people I met were vaxxed but opposed mandates. My buddy I was there with was also vaxxed but he took it because of coercion from the federal government because he works for them. There were nurses who took care of COVID patients for 2 years, gained natural immunity from infection and then were fired for not taking an unnecessary shot. There was even a vaxxed lady whose grandmother is 108 years old, had been given 4 shots and yet the nursing home isn't allowing them to meet in person due to COVID. These aren't political points which you are trying to make.

The second part of your comment tells me you aren't able to have a civil dialogue without ad-hominem attacks. Please read HN's guidelines before making such comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#447

Post by naasking »

mardifoufs wrote: post #243
throw0101a wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who is applauding this, just imagine the opposite political party in power using this against you or organizations you support. It was the opposite political party, the Conservative under PM Brian Mulroney, who wrote the Emergencies Act in the first place. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act#Legislative_hi...

That's a bit misleading, considering it was replacing the War measures act that was even worse. Mulroney's government didn't "create" the law, they just toned down the original (which is also why we don't call it "martial law" anymore but it's in the same vein). And IIRC, the only two PMs in Canada's history that actually enacted the war/emergency measures act outside of an actual war are... the two Trudeaus. Actuall…

A "worse" law can be better because there would be less temptation to use it.

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

#448

Post by onionisafruit »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #415

I don’t know how Trudeau/Freeland could possibly be this idiotic. The protestors played it smart - they were peaceful yet strategic in blocking major import/export roads so the government actually felt the pain. Instead of even talking to them, the government permanently damaged a large number of peoples trust in any financial institutions. As a practical matter, how do I begin to move towards unseizable assets? Cryp…

What about offline wallets?

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

#449

Post by bally0241 »

bugbuddy wrote: post #58
jakobdabo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision. Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is tha…

Driving is also easier and more convenient than walking but it would be absurd to suggest that everyone should have a car available for them to drive as a constitutional human rights. Another counter point is that cash is arguably easier and more convenient in some aspects for some people.

5th amendment: "...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." Pretty sure freezing someone's bank account based on some suspicion alone, is depriving them of their property without due process, and not remotely equivalent to driving without a license (or a duly revoked license), so your comparison is really off base.

Maybe you could possibly argue this way if upon freezing their accounts they called them up and said "Hey, your account is closed, come pick up your cash", but I'm pretty sure that is not the case here, and it is rather more like a civil-asset-forfeiture situation, where they'll likely need to go to court to regain access.

Now, all that being said, this is Canada, so I don't honest know whether there is an equivalent to the 5th amendment in their charter of rights, or whether there is some legal weasel word (e.g. "reasonable") that somehow provides a loophole for all this.

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

#450

Post by theptip »

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…

Hangon. The reason this shitstorm kicked up in the first place, and was getting retweeted by PG, Sam Altman, and lots of reasonable people (not to mention provoking the libertarian wing to frothing at the mouth), was that the deputy PM said:

"The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen."

https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1494381498555781122

And this story was run in Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/police-be...

So I think it's not fair to dismiss this as fake news coming from "unsubstantiated claims by a Conservative MP" as your comment seems to do. The story came from the government's own deputy PM!

In the video, the deputy PM sounded like she was being vague, either obfuscating or because she was out of depth on the specifics. So if this statement wasn't true as-quoted (maybe she mis-spoke or wasn't precise), then that's great news.

So, maybe it is actually true that they did not share names with the banks. But I think it would be quite naive to take the latest claim at face value, after all they did make a contradictory claim previously. This is the sort of thing governments lie about and try to spin their way out of all the time. It's entirely plausible that they did share the info, did not expect the blowback they got, and are now in damage control mode trying to walk this back and pretend it didn't happen.

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