Your isp emails you that they are terminating your account.
You phone gets disconnected.
You call them and helpdesk doesnt have a clue why.
You try to sign up for new services and they refuse and wont say why.
All because a politician has decided it 'reasonable' to disconnect you from the internet; and he can order complete secrecy and there's no judicial oversight.
Perhaps you showed up at the wrong protest? Note how they seized the bank accounts of protestors and even an entire small bank only a few years ago.
Let me remind everyone this again. Democracy is not an autocracy with time limits and turns. It's not a system where you elect a few individuals and hand them the power to rule over you for a few years. They are supposed to be your representatives who raise your concerns and protect your interests in a forum that takes decisions that affect all of you. Legislation like these are the small steps that convert the latter into the former. Democracy is fragile. Just electing a candidate periodically is not enough. It depends on the constant effort, vigil and activism from the citizens to safeguard it. It wont survive your apathy. As idealistic as it sounds, this burden is the true cost of living in a democracy. This is a harsh lesson that's recorded in history again and again.
Always take legislation like this seriously and hold your representatives responsible for it. Let them know that their political career in your constituency is finished for good if they support such moves. Let their political party know that they're not winning your constituency again until the damage is reversed. There's no room for subtleties and pleasantries when they're clearly showing you that they don't value your autonomy or the checks and balances on their abuse of power.
> Always take legislation like this seriously and hold your representatives responsible for it. Let them know that their political career in your constituency is finished for good if they support such moves
But it isn't. I've gone the route of writing my representatives but when most people support the measures or at least don't oppose them they can easily laugh in your face or outright lie to you, claiming that protests aren't banned when they are (e.g. covid times) and things like that.
Most people here probably called me some government/media pushed negative label just for protesting to uphold freedom/constitutional rights/human rights.
It's not that easy to advocate effectively once you realize gov/media funded propaganda permeates really well.
That was a bold statement that the children on here will no doubt downvote into oblivion as will mine. I'm tired of having this same argument over and over--just having the ability to vote for draconian shit doesn't mean you get to lord over everyone else! The power mongers in control of most Western governments are insane lunatics who use fear against hapless, low-information fools. They seem hell bent on eliminating every single basic freedom we ever had? Why? I keep hearing "neo-feudalism" but that's just a label, it's not the why. Also, why not just eliminate voting completely? Well, I mean, it's nearly a formality in many places these days already, but they like that little semblance of false legitimacy, I guess.
Is this about Canada or the US? Either way, you can either defend and demand for the democracy, or give up and stop claiming democracy altogether. This is a problem with democracies everywhere. I don't know about you, but I'm not too enthusiastic about a future that resembles the dark ages.
What say does the average poor person in your town have? To endorse someone they cant control? To choose from amongst the few candidates that the big interests have developed and then cross their fingers??
Letting individuals control production creates a divided society, one of workers and one of owners.
Where one has unequal leverage over the other but are supposed to (on paper) exist on the same democratic level.
Mom and pop shops may come your mind, or someone who owns a franchise or small business, the truth is that even small business owners are nearly wholly beholden to large capital and huge finance capital.
What say does a walmart employee have compared to the owners of walmart?
While you were learning about what the hell the electoral college is, some others were being trained on how to lobby effectively.
Mass democracy threatens the status quo almost entirely.
There does not exist a party for the people. And if it were to exist it would be outlawed and threatened like they have been in the past.
Would you suppress a peoples party if you had billions on the line?
Exactly. We are designed so that those with more power can play their games in DC and through out all the public offices in these states.
There is a reason why labor movements have been nearly completely wiped out from collective history.
Those who don't take this govts anti-socialist stance seriously must realize that the history of modern warfare and the history of anti-socialism share way too much space.
You can't look at California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts--states who have these very long-term Democrat majorities, and tell me we have a representative anything! Those places will likely never turn back to any kind of balanced representative rule. They pass whatever the hell they want and the only pushback is through our Federal courts who often take years to produce meager relief.
No, a representative democracy allows the majority to choose their representatives. And the majority chose one party in those states. That is what democracy is.
What you're asking for is rule by minority. At an extreme, an autocracy.
I didn't even notice until later, the final word of that comment. WTF indeed. This is absolutely not okay on HN, and we have to ban accounts that do it repeatedly.
The guidelines have been in place since soon after HN started, and have always been clear that kindness and curious conversation are what we're aiming for here.
In the case of this comment "wtf are you talking about?" may be at the milder end of the spectrum of abuse, "moron" certainly isn't.
Democracy is fake; it's the rule of whoever controls the money, influence, media, and pulls the proper manipulation tactics to manipulate the public through fears. It was funny watching the digital ID in the UK, how they were using "porn and kids" for the left-leaning crowds, and "immigrants" for the right-leaning ones, but ultimately the result of both is the same: more control, more surveillance, and decaying freedom.
While I agree with most of this and oppose this bill, your last two lines are a mischaracterization. There is judicial oversight, but only after the order is implemented. Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors, as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today. In general, protests do not engage in torturing the local populace with 95db of air horn for 16 to 20 hours a day. The account seizure also required emergency powers.
There is not judicial oversight. You never know there was an order.
If you get into that scenario, you suspect the government cut you off, but you go to a lawyer and have literally nothing. The court will not take the case.
>econd, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors,
They seized hundreds of accounts; later had the banks terminate the bank accounts.
In fact, not only protestors but people who donated to the protest got their bank accounts seized.
>as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today.
Protesting the government, in front of parliament is mischief? Political prisoners.
>n general, protests do not engage in torturing the local populace with 95db of air horn for 16 to 20 hours a day. The account seizure also required emergency powers.
Which was found to be unconstitutional.
But Bill C8 wont be abused by this same government? How about abuse in the future by other governments?
You have to go back to figure out how the government knew what bank accounts to seize. They didnt go up to each person and ask to see their debit card. Police dont have a ready list of bank accounts to seize.
The source of the seizures was the gofundme leak by a hacker. Who has since been arrested, convicted, and is in prison for a separate hacking incident. Canada gave him immunity to his crimes during freedom protest. They took the donor list and seized from there.
>The source of the seizures was the gofundme leak by a hacker. Who has since >been arrested, convicted, and is in prison for a separate hacking incident. >Canada gave him immunity to his crimes during freedom protest. They took the >donor list and seized from there.
That's not true, the fundraising platforms raising funds for the convoy had to register with FINTRAC and failing that, the banks can track who is sending money to those platforms for those accounts. It even says so in the article you linked. What's the source that the government used the leak to find the accounts?
Why is this question somehow a non-sequitor? Many court proceedings are now mandatory zoom meetings. How do you participate in a zoom meeting when the state has barred you. It's a clear catch-22 and the refusal to address it beyond "thats not the intention" is beyond galling.
> Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors
Wrong. Many people whose accounts were frozen were family/friends who were not even at the protest.
Court found:
> The judge said the economic orders infringed on protesters' freedom of expression "as they were overbroad in their application to persons who wished to protest but were not engaged in activities likely to lead to a breach of the peace." He also concluded the economic orders violated protesters' Charter rights "by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts."
> Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors, as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today.
"There were arrests, therefore this was not a valid protest" is a very dangerous argument to be making, and I furthermore strongly doubt that you would apply this standard consistently to causes you endorse.
> There is judicial oversight, but only after the order is implemented
In the sense that you can sue to have the order challenged? How's this different than what Trump's doing, where the government does something illegal (or at least legally dubious), and there's "judicial oversight" because aggrieved parties can sue the government?
> Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors, as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today.
Were the bank accounts seized before or after the conviction?
> In the sense that you can sue to have the order challenged?
That's a good question. The article doesn't say and I haven't read the bill.
> Were the bank accounts seized before or after the conviction?
Before, of course. That was one of the justifications for invoking the emergency powers, and it wouldn't have been controversial otherwise. This is a digression, though, as there is no mention of any legislative changes to bank account seizures in the article.
>It's in the article. I'm happy to read the bill and watch your linked video once my workday is over.
You misunderstand. After it's done, only then could you sue and get judicial review. But it's all in secrecy, so you dont know what or who you need to sue. So you cant get judicial review.
> In the sense that you can sue to have the order challenged? How's this different than what Trump's doing, where the government does something illegal (or at least legally dubious), and there's "judicial oversight" because aggrieved parties can sue the government?
Umm,that's how court systems work in general. You sue when someone wrongs you. I'm not sure how else it could possibly work.
> Were the bank accounts seized before or after the conviction?
This is a different topic, but there were 2 different bank account freezes. Some were frozen due to a contempt of court order (this didn't involve the government, a private citizen brought the lawsuit). The more controversial was the emergency powers seizure. Arguably the protestors were engaging in manifestly illegal conduct. Personally i think its akin to how you can arrest someone before conviction, but opinions vary. As far as i know, the bank accounts were only frozen while the protestors were engaging in illegal action and were released once the situation was resolved.
Your isp emails you that they are terminating your account.
You phone gets disconnected.
You call them and helpdesk doesnt have a clue why.
You try to sign up for new services and they refuse and wont say why.
All because a politician has decided it 'reasonable' to disconnect you from the internet; and he can order complete secrecy and there's no judicial oversight.
Perhaps you showed up at the wrong protest? Note how they seized the bank accounts of protestors and even an entire small bank only a few years ago.