Comment by Baloo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Baloo | Hacker News Reader

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I think that it is extremely dangerous to start freezing every single financial provider; banks/credit cards/investment firms/crowdfunding/crypto/insurance, for anyone directly or "indirectly" supporting the protests. That is insanely ripe for abuse, whether you agree with the current situation or not.

If laws are being broken, arrest the perpetrators and charge them with a crime. Follow the judicial process. What is happening here has very little oversight and seems to be an entirely disproportionate response.

You say that institutions have the right to 'not do deals with you', but that's not what's happening. Business is being explicitly instructed not to do business with them, what if they want to offer their services?

It's not simply the 'ability to exercise rights', it is denial of a fundamental aspect of living; being able to transact with your peers. Historically this wouldn't have been such an issue, but as 'non-custodial' money is fast disappearing, it poses risks for all of us.

If being able to transact with your peers is a fundamental right, what do you do when people sit in trucks and prevent you from doing exactly that?

As TFA says, you arrest them and give them due process, and hold the state accountable for any mistakes in the process.

Are you suggesting an 'eye for an eye' penal code? e. g. you would suggest punishing an arsonist by burning their house down?

(Of course not but I guess anything is ok when you disagree with the protest to begin with)

I'm suggesting the government of a country ought to be able to act in defense of its citizens before charging and convicting the perpetrators.

As I said in another comment, this is the expectation in other areas of law enforcement, so it makes sense to apply that here.

A bit disingenuous as I don't believe (limited knowledge of the protest) they're stopping people from transacting, at least not at the same level/significance as freezing peoples finances.

However I did already answer this, you arrest people that are breaking the law and charge them with a crime. Unless we're now happy enough to simply let politicians be judge, jury and executioner; targeting citizens as and when they see fit?

Pretty sure blocking major transit substantially prohibits commerce, and the degree to which that is true is not really relevant. They're doing it, and you think it's a fundamental right.

And do you think literally nothing negative should happen to you at the hand of the government until you're convicted of a crime? Should police refuse to use force against someone actively breaking into a home, just because the burglar is just a "suspect"?

Courts will be involved if a crime is being committed, but more importantly a right (you believe in) is being violated. The government is, in every other situation, expected to step in to provide immediate relief to the physical violation of the right to conduct commerce (again, the right you believe in) of the Canadian citizens. This is no different.

I'm sure you'll likewise approve when the next conservative administration uses these emergency powers to deprive Black Lives Matter protesters (or indigenous rights protesters or whatever they have up there) and anyone who supports them of their access to banking and insurance, right? Because the BLM protests were a hundred times more disruptive to commerce, which appears to be of paramount importance to people like you.

> Should police refuse to use force against someone actively breaking into a home, just because the burglar is just a "suspect"?

No, the government is empowered to arrest the trespasser based on reasonable suspicion that a crime is taking place. And that's what they do.

> Courts will be involved if a crime is being committed

No, the role of the court is determine whether a crime has been committed.

> This is no different.

Which is exactly why the twitter thread points out that the only correct course of action in a country with a functional rule of law is to arrest the protesters/trespassers, remove their vehicles from the streets, charge them, and follow the established due process under the law to determine their guilt and punishment. It appears the first step of this process is underway as we speak.

> I'm sure you'll likewise approve when the next conservative administration uses these emergency powers to deprive Black Lives Matter protesters (or indigenous rights protesters or whatever they have up there) and anyone who supports them of their access to banking and insurance, right? Because the BLM protests were a hundred times more disruptive to commerce, which appears to be of paramount importance to people like you.

I have no problem whatsoever stopping any protestors who are doing what this group is now doing. Their message does not matter.

> No, the government is empowered to arrest the trespasser based on reasonable suspicion that a crime is taking place. And that's what they do.

Exactly, and there's a reasonable suspicion of a crime taking place here, so we're in agreement.

> No, the role of the court is determine whether a crime has been committed.

Semantics. The role of the court is to sort out what happened later, not to immediately intervene in a given crisis situation.

> Which is exactly why the twitter thread points out that the only correct course of action in a country with a functional rule of law is to arrest the protesters/trespassers, remove their vehicles from the streets, charge them, and follow the established due process under the law to determine their guilt and punishment. It appears the first step of this process is underway as we speak.

Yes, and part of that first step is to deprive them of resources they would use to resist, which is exactly what is happening.

> part of that first step is to deprive them of resources they would use to resist

Right, this is the Chinese "social credit" concept of justice. In the US, this concept finds its most widespread application in civil forfeiture (which I'm guessing you also support), where is is said to justify the theft of peoples money and assets in the absence of any charges or due process.

In this particular case, the Canadian federal govenrment is looking to prohibit companies from providing any financial services-- including bank accounts, tansfers, loans, mortgages, insurance, etc.-- indefinitely, to any designated person, who the regulations define as those who are "directly or indirectly" participating in a "public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace". This explicilty includes "indirect" supporters, so anyone who donated a few bucks is now in the crosshairs of a martial law action which has never been used in Canadian history up to this point. And nothing in the regulations states or implies that these measures are temporary.

Defending this action puts you solidly in the authoritarian camp. Wind back a few decades, and it was people like you who defended the government's relentless extrajudicial pursuit of civil rights movement leaders, who arguably did far more damage to the "commerce" which you hold so dear.

There is a human right to assemble and protest. This does not mean that people can break the law doing so, but there is a fine line and pretty much most protests involve some level of disruption. As said a few times now, if people are actually breaking the law (blocking highways is normally illegal) then they should be arrested and charged with a crime using appropriate evidence to assure conviction.

Nothing "negative" should happen until you're convicted (perhaps inconvenience), in that you should be considered innocent until proven guilty. If you are a burglar caught in someone elses property there is reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed, however force should not be the first response; if the burglar is cooperative when caught then why should the police use force? If you've been wrongfully arrested and held, compensation should be available. Courts are involved to prove that the accused committed a crime, until judgement is passed the suspect is innocent.

More importantly, how does a financial institution measure the evidence? How do they assure that the individual is involved in the protest? What happens if your money is frozen and you're innocent, if you were wrongfully flagged? Who gets to decide what is considered a level of participation worthy of having your assets frozen?

The crazy part is, even traditional criminals are not treated this harshly. If I was arrested for selling drugs, the only assets that are frozen are those linked to crime. If I have legitimate funds, they're not frozen if I can prove where the money came from. Proceeds of crime are frozen, but regular income is not. You traditionally cannot freeze money or other assets unconnected to a crime. Yet here we are, people are supporting freezing assets regardless of due process or if it is actually linked to or derived from crime. Unbelievable.

There is not a human right to assemble and protest if that assembly and protest infringes upon the human rights of others.

And if you're using legitimate funds to infringe upon the human rights of others, the government has every right to stop you from doing that.

We take the perfectly legal crowbar out of the robber's hands when they use it to pry open home doors, so we also take the money out of the protester's bank accounts when they use it to infringe on the rights of others.

> if you're using legitimate funds to infringe upon the human rights of others, the government has every right to stop you from doing that.

They have a right in what sense? I've never heard of a government doing that. The fact that they had to use an emergency order to do so suggests that they do not have the right.

In what sense are the truckers 'using money' to infringe on rights? The money doesn't seem critical to the movement to me. You can just as easily say they are 'using food' and mandate that they should be starved.

The money may not seem critical to the movement to you, but it is literally the only way they've been able to continue the blockade for as long as they have.

And yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to blocking access to food from these truckers until they moved their trucks, that makes sense to me. Their decision, at that point, would be to starve themselves by not going to where food is available to them, but otherwise it makes perfect sense to prevent access to necessities to people who are infringing on the rights of others, while they're actively infringing on those rights and can stop at any moment.

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