Honestly that's the next step. Hoping to not have to involve lawyers. I know Patrick posts on HN a lot, so this is kind of my last hope to getting this done quickly.
Even if you know you've done nothing wrong (but of course audit your transaction history to make sure), you'll want to have an appropriate lawyer ready.
And you can be held in jail before a trial anyway, so the comparison just isn't relevant.
No argument to your larger point though: freezing funds can be devastating and applied carelessly!
Both this and CAF violate basic constitutional pillars like not depriving you of life/liberty/assets without due process.
You'd be right if corporations decided to do that on their own, but the anti-money-laundering law says that corporations have to do that.
Read enforcement actions by the government. There will be a financial institution with tens or hundreds of thousands of customers and the government will use them failing to find three suspicious customers as a basis for enormous fines (https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement_actio... is a good example). Another thing you'll find if you read enforcement actions is that the government barely even cares what was illegal or not - they fine institutions for not reporting "suspicious" activity (without themselves investigating whether it was legal or not).
The government could care less if you lost access to your money if it means they have more control over the financial system. The tiniest gain of control is worth it for the bureaucracy even if it means locking hundreds of thousands of people out of their savings.
The question that naturally comes to my mind is, shouldn't corporations who are acting on behalf of government be bound by the same rules as government.
And there is plenty of legal precedent (and justification) for freezing funds in advance of charging.
This line of argument is a dead end.
Allowing access to those funds for your defense is not automatic.
Sometimes a judge will partially ease restrictions. And of course a lawyer will be provided for you. :-/
It's reasonable on the surface of things, but mistakes can be devastating. The US legal system often fails to handle the "mistake" case well, despite some intended protections.
The government is welcome to charge and deprive, then provide a speedy trial to that end.
That’s not what is happening though and you know it, they know it, their collaborators know it. Everyone involved here deserves jail time, and in a just world they will see it.
If the extinguisher did not work, and you tried 5min, these 5min are lost.
One letter can become several with a multitude of billable hours and services.
OP said: > Honestly that's the next step. Hoping to not have to involve lawyers.
My understanding is that OP was hoping to communicate with support and get access to their accounts without paying for a lawyer - as that would be preferable with a cost of ~0$
All three of us appear to agree - If that doesn't work definitely time for a lawyer