Citizen journalist covering Freedom Convoy returns home to frozen bank accounts
"Calgarian Andy Lee returned home Monday night from covering events in Ottawa to find her bank account and credit cards frozen due to “fraudulent activity.”
I highly recommend watching the 22nd February interview of independent citizen journalist, Andy Lee of Calgary by the Western Standard’s Melanie Risdon, herself a former legacy media reporter.
This is part of the description published by the Western Standard:
Citizen journalist and Calgarian Andy Lee returned home Monday night from covering events in Ottawa to find her bank account and credit cards frozen due to “fraudulent activity.”
Lee spoke with the Western Standard about her time in Ottawa covering the protests, her thoughts on coverage from the mainstream media and why she believes her Twitter account with 30K+ followers was “permanently suspended.”
Under the username @Hannah_Bananaz, Lee said she received a message from Twitter on February 12 advising her account had been permanently suspended. Dr. Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology and social media commentator, took to Lee’s defence.
You censorious bastards. Suspend me me, you treacherous, back-biting, ideologically-possessed, good-thinking short-sighted, sanctimonious weasels! @Twitter, aren't you a communication platform? What are you doing! Bring back @Hannah_Bananaz! I want to hear what she thinks!Has @Hannah_Bananaz been cancelled by Twitter @Twitter ?Dr Jordan B Peterson @jordanbpetersonLee also questioned the government’s freezing of bank accounts and how there seems to be a different story being reported by RCMP and the feds.
Under the Emergencies Act invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 14, the federal government has been given extraordinary powers including the ability to freeze bank accounts of those in support of the Ottawa protests and other blockades across Canada, now deemed to be “illegal activities.”
The law also allows banks to target donors of the GoFundMe and GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said she wouldn’t get into the “specifics of whose accounts are being frozen.”
Last Thursday, Freeland, who is also the finance minister, said the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies have been gathering intelligence on protesters and those who’ve supported the Freedom Convoy and have shared that information with financial institutions to restrict access to cash and cryptocurrency.
As of Tuesday, the government had frozen more than 200 bank accounts worth nearly $8 million, according to Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance Isabelle Jacques, most of which she said were now “in the process of being unfrozen.”
Jacques also implicated the RCMP for sharing donor information with financial institutions.
“Information was shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and we were informed yesterday by financial institutions that they were unfreezing the accounts,” she said.
“The vast majority of accounts are in the process of being unfrozen, subject to any new information that the RCMP may have.”
However, in a statement released on Monday, RCMP said, “At no time, did we provide a list of donors to Financial Institutions.”
Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standard
mrisdon@westernstandardonline.com
The following is an excerpt from my blog, Emergencies Act Vote in Canada published 22 February 2022:
How many people who innocently donated to support the truckers and their families will be subject to Freeland et al’s totalitarian “tools”?
Please note the RCMP statement issued yesterday on the freezing of assets.
(End of excerpt.)
With Trudeau’s revocation of the Emergencies Act last night, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the following during the press conference:
“The process of unfreezing accounts has already begun as the RCMP announced. The RCMP has already asked banks to begin unfreezing bank accounts because these bank accounts were frozen to convince people who took part in the occupations and the illegal blockades to listen to reason [!!!]. As the Prime Minister said, after the Governor General signs the Revocation of the Emergencies Act, the situation will end.
”I’d just like to address that there are bank accounts that will remain frozen but not because of the Emergency Measures. There will be other court orders, and because of these court orders, the bank accounts will stay frozen.”
I will be posting more about Justin Trudeau’s about-face with regard to his revocation of the Emergencies Act and the potential reasons for this, in a separate post.
It's very important for people who are going to store bitcoin to use a node from home. A very cheap and small computer (like a raspberry pi) to conduct peer to peer payments. After payment is sent and received it can be transferred onto gift cards to purchase at Amazon, Walmart, all the big box stores and so on.
Once you have bought bitcoin on your trading account (Coinbase, Binance and Kraken etc.) Make sure to buy a Trezor cold wallet (similar in look to an USB stick) and you will have total control over your money. Keep up the good work.