fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Justin Trudeau, Safety Totalitarian

In Canada, a preview of how a future American regime is going to attack dissidents
Screen Shot 2022-02-15 at 12.38.40 PM

A preview of what’s to come for us all:

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau has invoked special emergency powers to confront the trucker convoy, which has been blockading major cities and highways in protest against the cross-border vaccine mandate imposed by the Canadian government.

The law, the Emergencies Act, written in 1988, has never before been used. It gives Trudeau’s administration special authority for 30 days to restrict movement, freeze financial accounts (including personal bank accounts and cyptocurrency transactions), and direct citizens to certain actions, such as the forced towing of the trucks.

“The government has invoked the Emergencies Act to supplement provincial and territorial capacity to address the blockades and occupations,” Trudeau said at a press briefing Monday.

After rallying for what they’re calling “medical freedom” in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, the truckers expanded their demonstration to other locations while a cohort stayed behind to keep protesting in the city. Protestors have been erecting tents and camps and picketing with signs to pressure the government to acquiesce.

Some of the departed trucks caused traffic gridlock last week on a busy trade bridge connecting Windsor, Canada, to Detroit, Michigan. About a quarter of goods between the countries are transported over this bridge.

Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland said Monday that the government could use the Emergencies Act to cut off the financial pipelines of those involved in the blockades.

“As of today, a bank or other financial service provider will be able to immediately freeze or suspend an account without a court order. In doing so, they will be protected against civil liability for actions taken in good faith,” Freeland said.

Convoy organizers first had their capital disrupted when crowdfunding platform GoFundMe booted them as a customer, claiming that the truckers had engaged in unruly behavior and violence that violated their terms of service. The protestors then switched to Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo.

Freeland specified that crowdfunding sites and the payment service providers must be approved by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), the national financial intelligence agency. These companies are also required to report large and suspicious transactions to FINTRAC.

“The illegal blockades have highlighted the fact that crowdfunding platforms, and some of the payment service providers they use, are not fully captured under the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act,” Freeland said. “We are making these changes because we know that these platforms are being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity which is damaging the Canadian economy.”

Technically, the government can exercise the Emergencies Act only if there is a crisis that cannot adequately be solved by the local regions of the country or by any existing federal legislation.

“It is now clear that there are serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce the law,” Trudeau added. “This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs, and restoring confidence in our institutions.”

Safety! Of course. Keep this in mind when you see how the young are being taught that an “unsafe space” is intolerable. Whatever you think about the Truckers’ protest, this is going to be the reason that and the means by which a future American regime will use to punish its enemies — especially once we go to a cashless society. From Live Not By Lies:

“China is about to become something new: an AI-powered techno-totalitarian state,” writes journalist John Lanchester. “The project aims to form not only a new kind of state but a new kind of human being, one who has fully internalized the demands of the state and the completeness of its surveillance and control. That internalization is the goal: agencies of the state will never need to intervene to correct the citizen’s behavior, because the citizen has done it for them in advance.”

He is talking about Beijing’s pioneering use of artificial intelligence and other forms of digital data gathering to create a state apparatus that not only monitors all citizens constantly but also can compel them to behave in ways the state demands without ever deploying the secret police or the threat of gulags (though those exist for the recalcitrant), and without suffering the widespread poverty that was the inevitable product of old-style communism.

The great majority of Chinese pay for consumer goods and services using smartphone apps or their faces, via facial recognition technology. These provide consumer convenience and security, making life easier for ordinary people. They also generate an enormous amount of personal data about each Chinese individual, all of which the government tracks.

The state has other uses for facial recognition technology. Television cameras are ubiquitous on Chinese streets, recording the daily comings and goings of the nation’s people. Beijing’s software is so advanced that it can easily check facial scans against the central security database. If a citizen enters an area forbidden to him—a church, say—or even if a person is merely walking in the opposite direction of a crowd, the system automatically records it and alerts the police.

In theory, police don’t have to show up at the suspect’s door to make him pay for his disobedience. China’s social credit system automatically tracks the words and actions, online and off, of every Chinese citizen, and grants rewards or demerits based on obedience. A Chinese who does something socially positive—helping an elderly neighbor with a chore, or listening to a speech of leader Xi Jinping—receives points toward a higher social credit score. On the other hand, one who does something negative—letting his or her dog poop on the sidewalk, for example, or making a snarky comment on social media—suffers a social-credit downgrade.

Because digital life, including commercial transactions, is automatically monitored, Chinese with high social credit ratings gain privileges. Those with lower scores find daily life harder. They aren’t allowed to buy high-speed train tickets or take flights. Doors close to certain restaurants. Their children may not be allowed to go to college. They may lose their job and have a difficult time finding a new one. And a social-credit scofflaw will find himself isolated, as the algorithmic system downgrades those who are connected to the offender.

The bottom line: a Chinese citizen cannot participate in the economy or society unless he has the mark of approval from Xi Jinping, the country’s all-powerful leader. In a cashless society, the state has the power to bankrupt dissidents instantly by cutting off access to the internet. And in a society in which everyone is connected digitally, the state can make anyone an instant pariah when the algorithm turns them radioactive, even to their family.

The Chinese state is also utilizing totalitarian methods for ensuring the coming generations don’t have the imaginative capacity to fight back.

Now the Canadian state is learning from the Chinese … and the American state will learn from the Canadians.

This is why I wrote Live Not By Lies — to wake up Americans who are, or are likely to be, dissidents from the emerging soft totalitarian regime, and show us ways to prepare. Read the signs of the times!

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now