How authorities are targeting the 'freedom convoy' money via the Emergencies Act

Costanza Musu, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

 

Patrick Leblond, CN-Paul M. Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa - 

The Conversation

The Canadian government gave itself extraordinary powers for a 30-day period to end the “freedom convoy” occupation of Ottawa by invoking the Emergencies Act.

The situation was especially difficult in Ottawa, where trucks occupied the downtown core and Parliament Hill for weeks. Tensions with residents came to a breaking point after three weeks of incessant noise, shuttered businesses, harassment and disruption of normal life.

Two types of emergency measures were adopted.

First, the Emergency Measures Regulations prohibit public gatherings that could “lead to a breach of the peace.” The regulations also ban travelling to such gatherings, as well as providing any type of property in support of them.

Second, the Emergency Economic Measures Order is aimed at starving the convoy of money and deterring people from supporting its activities. It deprived convoy participants of the ability to pay for gasoline to keep vehicles and generators running, food, hotel rooms, bouncy castles, fireworks, etc. The goal was to end the convoy’s activities so that the city of Ottawa could get back to normal without any need for a violent crackdown.

How did the federal government take away the convoy’s financial resources to force them to end their activities? It did so in two ways: by stopping new money from being sent to convoy organizers and participants, and by blocking access to funds already in their hands.

Crowdfunding played a big role

Stopping the flow of new funds means preventing donations from reaching the convoy’s organizers or anyone associated with them. Crowdfunding platforms have been the main vehicle for channelling donations to the convoy.

Until the Emergencies Act was invoked, the only way to stop donations from reaching the convoy was by appealing to the goodwill of crowdfunding platforms, as occurred with GoFundMe, or by seeking legal injunctions against them, as with GiveSendGo.

In GiveSendGo’s case, the crowdfunding platform refused to abide by the judge’s ruling. It claimed that the Ontario court did not have jurisdiction over its operations since it’s based in the United States.

Furthermore, even if GiveSendGo had respected the injunction, donations to the convoy would have just moved to another platform. That’s what happened after GoFundMe froze the funds destined to the convoy; donors moved to GiveSendGo and other platforms, including ones collecting donations in cryptocurrencies like Tallycoin.

The emergency economic measures now require domestic and foreign crowdfunding platforms to register temporarily with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

This means they must provide FINTRAC with information about donations sent to the convoy (or similar activities being organized), no matter the amount. That’s because the convoy is now considered akin to a terrorist organization.

According to Barry MacKillop, FINTRAC’s deputy director for intelligence, crowdfunding platforms were not under FINTRAC’s regulatory purview until the Emergencies Act was invoked.

Why such platforms were not already covered by existing rules is unclear, since they are in the business of remitting or transmitting funds. In any case, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland plans to introduce legislation so that crowdfunding platforms continue to register with and report to FINTRAC after the emergency ends.

Once FINTRAC receives information on convoy donations from crowdfunding platforms, it analyzes the information and passes it on to law enforcement agencies like the RCMP. Law enforcement authorities are responsible for freezing the funds associated with these donations, not FINTRAC.

What happens to the seized funds depends on the legal proceedings that follow, but convoy donors could lose their donations forever. This possibility is aimed at deterring new donations.

Will foreign platforms comply?

What isn’t clear yet is whether foreign crowdfunding platforms are complying with the new requirement to register with and report to FINTRAC (if they collect donations for the convoy), and, if they don’t, how they’ll be sanctioned.

For this reason, blocking access to financial services used by the convoy’s organizers and associates has probably been more effective at starving the protests of funds. The emergency economic measures require financial institutions, payments platforms, funding platforms, digital currency exchanges, etc., to stop doing business with anyone directly or indirectly associated with the convoy.

This includes freezing their accounts for the emergency’s duration. The measures also cover those who provide in-kind contributions to the convoy, like food or gas.

Fear of losing access to their money, even if only for a few weeks, should keep people and businesses away from the convoy and its activities. But law enforcement authorities must play their part.

First, they must collect the names of people and companies associated with the convoy and pass them on to entities providing financial services in Canada (so accounts can be frozen). Second, they need to ensure that sanctions are imposed on anyone in the financial system who does not abide by the Emergency Economic Measures Order.

After that, the only way for the convoy movement to survive would be to conduct its entire business in cash. But with accounts in Canada frozen, where would the cash come from? It isn’t likely to come from converting Bitcoins collected for the convoy into cash because it’s too difficult to do without going through traditional financial institutions.

Cash would have to come from abroad, especially the United States, where accounts cannot be frozen. Already, anyone bringing more than $10,000 in any form into Canada must declare it. And border officials have likely been extra-vigilant about cash entering the country in the past few days.

The backbone of the convoy’s activities was its access to a steady flow of financing from donors both domestic and foreign. By deterring convoy supporters and participants, the federal government made it easier for law enforcement to bring a relatively peaceful end to an unprecedented crisis in Canada.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:

The end of the ‘freedom convoy’ in Ottawa: Why rejoicing when occupiers get arrested isn’t the answer

Anti-vax protest or insurrection? Making sense of the ‘freedom convoy’ protest

Patrick Leblond is affiliated with the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations (CIRANO).

Costanza Musu receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. (SSHRC)

Most bank accounts frozen under the Emergencies Act are being released, committee hears

Peter Zimonjic - cbc.ca

More than 200 bank accounts worth nearly $8 million were frozen when the federal government used emergency powers to end a massive protest occupation of downtown Ottawa.


© Scott Olson/Getty Images

A Department of Finance official went before a House of Commons committee to explain the financial measures deployed against convoy protest organizers under the Emergencies Act.

Federal officials report most of the accounts are now in the process of being released, a parliamentary committee heard Tuesday.

Isabelle Jacques, assistant deputy minister of finance, told a committee of MPs that up to 210 bank accounts holding about $7.8 million were frozen under the financial measures contained in the Emergencies Act.

"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."

Jacques said that because accounts are being released now, the number of accounts affected and their total dollar value continues to decrease by the day.

She also said the fact that more than 200 bank accounts were frozen did not necessarily mean that more than 200 people lost access to their funds. Jacques said that individuals may have held more than one account affected by the measures.

Some Conservative MPs have said constituents have reported that their bank accounts were frozen after they made donations to the convoy protest through one of its crowdfunding campaigns.

In a statement released Monday, the RCMP said it only provided banks with the names of convoy organizers and the owners of trucks who had refused to leave the protest area. The RCMP said it did not release an exhaustive list of every donation made.

"At no time did we provide a list of donors to financial institutions," the statement said.
Small donors unlikely to be affected: official

Jacques said that the financial measures in the Emergencies Act came into force on Feb. 15 and were specifically designed to apply enough financial pressure to convince protest organizers and participants to go home.

"Based on the knowledge that I have, I think it would be unlikely that someone who gave … $20 three weeks ago, or even $20 post Feb. 15, that they would have been captured by a freeze," she said.

"It's not impossible in view of the order, but in view of the exchange of information and the focused approach that was taken to stop the illegal funding of these activities, it would appear to be unlikely that this occurred, but not impossible."

She said the measures should not affect anyone who provided financial support to the convoy before Feb. 15. Jacques said that anyone who saw their account frozen and who subsequently left the blockade area should expect to see the account unfrozen in the coming days.




Since the Emergencies Act was invoked, the Liberal government has been asked to explain what specific powers the act provides that did not already exist under conventional Canadian law.

Jacques told MPs that before the Emergencies Act was invoked, FINTRAC — Canada's financial intelligence unit — could not police the movement of money through some crowdfunding websites and some payment service providers.

She also said that while the federal government does have the power to freeze bank accounts in certain limited circumstances without using the Emergencies Act — in cases of suspected terrorism or financial crimes, for example — it did not do so in this instance.

"There's no other venues to freeze the accounts in view of the … illegal blockades that were ongoing," she said.

EDCNS board member donated to 'Freedom Convoy'


The release of donors to the controversial truck convoy protests indicates about two dozen North Simcoe residents donated to the cause.

Included in the list obtained by MidlandToday are ShopCity entrepreneur Colin Pape, who donated $25 with the note 'Go truckers, go!' and Adrian Sauvageot, one of six community representatives on the Economic Development Corporation of North Simcoe (EDCNS) board of directors, volunteering since May of 2020 for the role.

The not-for-profit EDCNS organization advocates for business attraction and retention in the towns of Penetanguishene and Midland and the townships of Tay and Tiny.

On February 5, Sauvageot donated $32 to Freedom Convoy 2022 through the GiveSendGo crowdfunding platform website, a fundraising campaign which was publicly exposed by hackers earlier this week to reveal the names, postal codes, email addresses, and donation payments and methods of donors to the cause.

During the pandemic lockdowns of April 2021, Sauvageot advertised a Penetanguishene rental property on Airbnb, asking visitors on his Facebook page: “Are you looking for a weekend getaway where you can discover what it's like to live in a communist country?”

As recently as December 21 of last year, Sauvageot’s social media included a Facebook post stating, “This new round of lockdowns will be the final nail in the coffin for many businesses, both small and large. RIP Canadian Business…” A post made a day earlier stated, “Justin Trudeau is a criminal who should be charged for his crimes against Canada.”

MidlandToday reached Sauvageot by phone for comment.

He confirmed that the $32 USD GiveSendGo donation – a doubled amount from his previously-cancelled $20 CAD GoFundMe donation – was never hidden, and he had donated to the cause of “ending government mandates by removing their overreach."

“I’ve been public about it since the beginning and all I’ve had is a lot of support from a lot of locals,” said Sauvageot, adding that “the community that rallies around the freedom convoy is being distorted by legacy media” in coverage.

When asked of the role of community representative for the EDCNS, Sauvageot responded: “Our role is to promote businesses and try to find investments both national and international to come into the area.”

Of Penetanguishene being within a communist country, he felt the comment didn’t reflect his EDCNS position. “It’s a joke made out of a jest against the current government and their policies.

“I believe the Prime Minister has broken several laws, and while I don’t believe in overthrowing the government by any means, I think he needs to be held accountable for the several laws he has broken since he has been in power,” providing the 2019 corruption scandal involving SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. as one example.

Sauvageot noted that the views of the EDCNS didn’t impact his own personal views.

“EDCNS is a grouping of a lot of individuals with different views, and we constantly have debates within EDCNS which creates for a very good, strong democratic approach to how we can improve our economy locally. And I would hope that the federal government could learn something from how municipalities act in the democratic process to better themselves,” Sauvageot replied.

MidlandToday contacted EDCNS director Sharon Vegh and Pape for comment, but didn't receive a response in time for publication.

Recently, the tangible metrics of the EDCNS were brought to the interest of Midland council during their ask for approximately $169,000 in the 2022 draft budget discussions, approved by council on the praise of several members who promoted the organization; a similar request for financial records was made a year prior.

Derek Howard, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, MidlandToday.ca

TEXAS NORTH; ALBERTA, USA

Look West: Criminal anthropologist says Alberta at heart of unrest, protests

CALGARY — A criminal anthropologist suggests looking to the West to find the heart of protests and blockades that gripped the nation for more than a month.

Alberta appears to have been the epicentre of unrest that started with truckers over cross-border vaccine mandates, but quickly attracted other groups with their own agendas. Most prominent were demands to lift all pandemic public health measures, complaints about the federal Liberal government and rallying cries for freedom.

Two people arrested for leading the noisy three-week standoff in downtown Ottawa call Alberta home. A third is from Saskatchewan.

There are 13 people with alleged violent motives facing serious charges in relation to the southern Alberta border blockade at Coutts. Four are accused of conspiracy to commit murder of RCMP officers.

Another convoy destined for Ottawa originated in northern Alberta, but was turned away at the Manitoba-Ontario boundary in recent days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.

Cathy Prowse, a criminal anthropologist as well as a 25-year Calgary police veteran, said Alberta's economy and way of life have been hit hard by COVID-19, which has created a wellspring of dissent.

"We've had trouble getting oil to market. We've had farmers that haven't got enough feed for their cattle," said Prowse. "Displacement is huge here. Probably as bad as, if not worse, than any part of the country."

Prowse added there are other pockets in Canada, such as Quebec, that are seeing similar swells of discontent.

She said there are three camps participating in what participants are calling "freedom convoys."

The least harmful, she said, are people who see freedom as the right to choose whether to be vaccinated and to bypass restrictions based on faith or personal beliefs. The second group, often termed extremists, seeks freedom from government and the rule of law.

But, Prowse said, possibly the most dangerous are those who have been socially isolated during the pandemic and are connecting with others through participation in the protests.

"There's some in there who ... are going to crave this affiliation. They're going to want more," she said.

"There's always a potential for spillover into more extremist groups."

A review of donations made through a crowdfunding website to support the convoys shows some of the most common words used by supporters were "freedom," "God" and "tyranny."

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has said the arrests at the border protest in Alberta speak to a larger problem in Canada. Some people who were in Coutts have strong ties to a far-right extremist organization led out of Ottawa, he said, although he did not name it.

Emily Laidlaw, a Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law, said the demonstrations show the slow burn stoked on social media by misinformation — which can be partially true — and disinformation, which is more intentional in nature.

"It just veers off into territory that is just having such widespread influence," said Laidlaw. "That's when you lose control of it and ... you see movements like this."

She gave as an example a video circulated online that shows a police officer giving an incorrect interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which people then view as fact.

There are also conflicting videos and photos from the protests on social media. Some show peaceful demonstrations, while others reveal criminal behaviour or hateful symbols, including the Nazi swastika and Confederate flag claimed by extremist groups.

An RCMP raid in Coutts seized long guns, handguns, a machete, a large quantity of ammunition and body armour. Two confiscated tactical vests had badges related to a neo-fascist movement and another possible hate group.

"What we're seeing now is the undermining of trust in the institutions that we would normally turn to for information and, so, there's no sense of what's true anymore," said Laidlaw.

Social media pages under the same names as several of the accused in Coutts have shared conspiracy theories, complaints about the government and inaccurate COVID-19 information.

Laidlaw said, from a legal perspective, Canada is entirely dependent on social media platforms to self-regulate. But despite efforts, that type of information continues to spread.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 23, 2022.

— With files from Bob Weber in Edmonton

Alanna Smith, The Canadian Press

Homelessness set to soar in England amid cost of living crisis

Rise in number of sofa surfers expected to drive the increase as councils warn of ‘tidal wave’ of need

More than 66,000 more people will become homeless by 2024, according to the housing charity Crisis. 

Photograph: Maureen McLean/REX/Shutterstock


Robert Booth 

Social affairs correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 22 Feb 2022 

The number of people homeless in England is predicted to jump by a third by 2024 as councils warn of a “tidal wave” of need caused by benefits freezes, soaring food and energy bills and the end of Covid eviction bans.

More than 66,000 more people will be homeless by 2024, with the bulk of the increase being among people forced to “sofa surf”, according to annual forecasts by the housing charity Crisis and Heriot-Watt University. There will be 8,000 more people rough sleeping and 9,000 people forced into unsuitable temporary accommodation.


One pay packet away from the streets: the workers who became homeless in the pandemic

The chief executive of Crisis, Matt Downie, described the findings as “a huge cause for concern”, as a survey of 155 English councils also found that nine out of 10 town halls expect to see an increase in evictions from private rented homes over the next year. Eight out of 10 fear increases in homeless children.

“We are expecting a tidal wave, to put it mildly,” an official at one council in southern England told the researchers. “It is going to be a very, very busy couple of years.”

Councils in London, where living costs are highest, are predicting the biggest surge.

The bleak projections come as government measures to prevent homelessness during the pandemic unwind. Core homelessness in England – a concept which captures the most acute forms of homelessness – is estimated to have totalled 203,400 in 2020, down 5% on 2019 levels.

This was primarily due to the widely praised “Everyone In” initiative during the pandemic which saw rough sleepers housed in hotels. But this measure is now predicted to rise to 270,000 by 2024 and reach close to 300,000 by 2036, unless further countermeasures are taken.

Evictions slumped during the pandemic, as ministers paused court proceedings, but are now increasing again. There were more than 14,000 possession claims between October and December last year, a 42% rise on the previous quarter.

Energy price rises this spring forecast at over 40% will hit single-adult households on low incomes hardest. They could be forced to spend 54% of their income on bills compared with 6% for a middle-income family, according to estimates by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” said Downie. “The protections put in place during the pandemic helped thousands of people off the streets and prevented many more from facing homelessness. It would be shameful for this progress to unravel before us, at a huge human cost and a financial one for the local councils left to foot the bill.”

In December, the government announced a £316m homelessness prevention fund for councils for the next financial year that it said would protect tens of thousands of people from homelessness. It was welcomed by Crisis and the founder of the Big Issue, John Bird.

But Crisis is calling on the government to further increase the Local Housing Allowance – the amount the state will pay to cover rent for people on benefits – so it truly covers the cost of rent across the country. The allowance was rebased at 30% of market rents in spring 2020 but was frozen from April 2021.

It also repeated its call for more social housing to be built. Only 5,955 new homes for the cheapest social rents were provided in England 2020/21, down from nearly 40,000 a year a decade ago.

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “Government interventions have prevented almost 450,000 households from becoming homeless since 2017.

“This year, councils have been given an extra £65 million to support low income households with rent arrears.

“We’re also banning no-fault evictions, and a £316 million homelessness prevention grant will help people who are homeless or at risk of losing their home to find a new one, get help with evictions or move into temporary accommodation.”

#ABOLISHICE
Toyota and Yamaha are developing a hydrogen-fueled V8 engine

Anmar Frangoul - 

Yamaha Motor says the 5.0-liter V8 engine will be developed for automobiles and based on the one used by the Lexus RC F coupe.

Yamaha Motor President Yoshihiro Hidaka says the firm has "a strong passion for and level of commitment to the internal combustion engine."

While there is excitement about the potential of hydrogen's use in cars, high-profile figures within the industry such as Elon Musk have taken a different view.


© Provided by CNBCA Yamaha Motor Co., V8 hydrogen engine displayed in Japan, on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021.

Toyota has commissioned Yamaha Motor to develop a hydrogen-fueled engine, with the president of the latter stating that his company was committed to the internal combustion engine.

In an announcement toward the end of last week, Yamaha said the 5.0-liter V8 engine would be developed for automobiles and based on the one used by the Lexus RC F coupe, with alterations made to its cylinder heads and injectors, among other things.

According to Yamaha, the unit is able to deliver as much as 450 horsepower at 6,800 revolutions per minute. The company said it had been working on a hydrogen engine for automobiles for roughly five years.

Yamaha Motor President Yoshihiro Hidaka said that while his company was aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2050 it also had "a strong passion for and level of commitment to the internal combustion engine."

"Hydrogen engines house the potential to be carbon-neutral while keeping our passion for the internal combustion engine alive at the same time," Hidaka went on to say.

Last week's statement builds on one from Nov. 2021 when Yamaha Motor, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Toyota, Subaru and Mazda released details of what they described as a "challenge to expand fuel options for using internal combustion engines." It was at this announcement that the V8 engine developed for Toyota was shown to the public.

The notion of powering an internal combustion engine with hydrogen is not a new one. Toyota has already developed a GR Yaris which has a 1.6-liter ICE and uses hydrogen as its fuel.

According to the company, the GR Yaris uses the same powertrain as a hydrogen-powered Corolla Sport. The firm has labeled both of these vehicles as "experimental."

Firms such as BMW have also produced vehicles such as the BMW Hydrogen 7. According to the German automaker, the Hydrogen 7 used an internal combustion engine and was able to run on gasoline or liquid hydrogen. Production of the vehicle began in 2006 and a limited run was made.

Using hydrogen to power an internal combustion engine is different to hydrogen fuel cell technology, where gas from a tank mixes with oxygen, producing electricity. As the U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center notes, fuel cell vehicles emit "only water vapor and warm air."

By contrast, hydrogen ICEs do produce emissions. "Hydrogen engines release near zero, trace amounts of CO2 … but can produce nitrogen oxides, or NOx," Cummins, the engine maker, says.

Hydrogen ICEs are also "less efficient" compared to fuel cell electric vehicles, according to the Alternative Fuels Data Center.

While there is excitement about the potential of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and companies such as Hyundai, BMW and Toyota have all developed cars based on the technology, others within the industry have taken a different view.

In June 2020, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted "fuel cells = fool sells," adding in July of that year: "hydrogen fool sells make no sense."

In February 2021, the CEO of Germany's Volkswagen Group also weighed in on the subject. "It's time for politicians to accept science," Herbert Diess tweeted.

"Green hydrogen is needed for steel, chemical, aero … and should not end up in cars. Far too expensive, inefficient, slow and difficult to rollout and transport. After all: no #hydrogen cars in sight."

An ex-Trump aide said a White House gathering with Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, was 'the craziest meeting I've ever been to'

John L. Dorman

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, arrives to watch Judge Amy Coney Barrett take the constitutional oath on the South Lawn of the White House on October 26, 2020. 

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

An ex-Trump aide called a meeting between the former president and Ginni Thomas as the "craziest" meeting he'd ever attended.

Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a longtime conservative activist.

As Trump sought to court the justice, Ginni Thomas saw her opening, per a NYT Magazine report.

An aide to former President Donald Trump described a 2019 White House gathering with the then-president and Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, as the "craziest" meeting he'd ever attended, according to The New York Times Magazine.

Ginni Thomas — an attorney and conservative activist — has been in the political trenches with right-leaning leaders for decades. Her influence is so valued among conservative activists — and Justice Thomas — that she even came to the White House for what was supposed to be a private lunch between Trump and her husband, according to the magazine.

Leonard Leo, the former executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society, told the magazine that Trump sought to cultivate a relationship with Justice Thomas once he realized the immense popularity of the jurist among the Republican base, creating an opening for Ginni Thomas with the then-president.

The magazine also detailed newly-reported ties between Ginni Thomas and organizers of a January 6, 2021 rally in support of Trump, along with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, in which Joe Biden oust the former president in a decisive 306-232 Electoral College victory.

According to nine former Trump aides and advisors, who spoke to the magazine anonymously, the ensuing meetings with Ginni Thomas created a sense of confusion among the staffers.

Several of the staffers were unsure of Ginni Thomas' role and wondered if she was speaking as an activist or as a paid consultant, while also highlighting her insistence on promoting far-right candidates for positions within the Trump administration, per the magazine.

"Here's what the peeps think," she stated in the meetings of the GOP base, according to an aide. "We have to listen to the peeps."

Ginni Thomas' hard-driving style alienated several of the aides so much that they assembled an opposition report on her, with one of the staffers describing her as a "wrecking ball."

In January 2019, Ginni Thomas met with Trump at the White House alongside select members of her conservative group, Groundswell, where a Trump aide described the nature of the conversation in unflattering terms.

"It was the craziest meeting I've ever been to," he told the magazine. "She started by leading the prayer."

Later, the aide said that conservative attendees spoke disparagingly of "the transsexual agenda" and parents "chopping off their children's breasts."

According to the aide, Trump "tried to rein it in" but "it was hard to hear" because members of the group were praying out loud during the conversation.

Later, some key details of the White House meeting leaked, and Ginni Thomas' advocacy against transgender rights made headlines.

In the past, she has used inflammatory language against transgender Americans, saying the country is under threat by the "fascist left," which she said includes "transsexual fascists."

In the meeting, Ginni Thomas and other attendees also lamented that several conservative candidates to their liking had been stymied from assuming several roles, while advocating for the Trump administration's personnel office to be swept of "Never Trump" Republicans.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; PHILANTHROPY

Fixer tells of meeting with Prince Charles’s aide to discuss Saudi honour


Prince’s Foundation middleman says in 2014 he attended talk about award for billionaire donor

Clarence House has said Prince Charles had no knowledge of allegations of offers of honours.

 Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/AFP/Getty Images

Jon Ungoed-Thomas
Sun 20 Feb 2022

A businessman involved in arranging donations for Prince Charles’s charitable ventures has confirmed how a 30-minute meeting at Clarence House helped secure an honorary CBE for a Saudi billionaire, which is now at the centre of a police investigation.

Michael Wynne-Parker, who acted as a middleman for donations for the Prince’s Foundation, attended a meeting in September 2014 with Royal aide Michael Fawcett. A key topic of the meeting was the ambition of securing an honour for the Saudi billionaire and charity donor Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz.

Wynne-Parker, 76, said he entered Clarence House, the official residence of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, by a rear entrance and was ushered into a small office for a meeting attended by Fawcett, then chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation.

William Bortrick, a society fixer who was helping Mahfouz, and an official at Dumfries House, a historic country house in Scotland which is one of Prince Charles’s key projects, were also at the meeting.

The agenda was forging the links between Mahfouz and Dumfries House, part of the Prince’s Foundation, according to notes of the meeting revealed last year by the Sunday Times. It was also a logistics meeting on how best to secure an honour for Mahfouz, who was a major donor for Dumfries House.

Within six months, a nomination was submitted to the Foreign Office for the honorary award for a foreign national. In November 2016, Mahfouz was given the honour in a private investiture at Buckingham Palace.

“It was amazing,” said Wynne-Parker. “I was shocked when I suddenly saw the reality later. They acted very quickly, as always is usual with Fawcett. I wasn’t surprised in one sense because of what seemed like Fawcett’s magical powers.”

Clarence House has said Charles had no knowledge of allegations of offers of honours on the condition or basis that donations were made to his charitable projects.

Dumfries House in East Ayrshire, part of the Prince’s Foundation. 

Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

In August 2017, Fawcett wrote to an aide of Mahfouz offering to try to help him secure a knighthood and British citizenship, in addition to the award he had already received. The letter said the assistance was being offered “in light of the ongoing and most recent generosity of His Excellency”.

The meeting at Clarence House, the subsequent arrangements around the awarding of the CBE and the offer to try to secure a knighthood are likely to form key parts of the investigation announced by the Metropolitan Police last week into alleged offences under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.

Wynne-Parker said there was a long tradition of charitable donors receiving honours. He said he was not aware and had no knowledge of Mahfouz being offered an honour on the condition of giving donations.

He said: “There was nothing inherently wrong with what happened. If people have got spare cash and they want to give it to a charity and they get a gong, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Christopher Sallon QC, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, said an offence would be committed under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 where there was a formal agreement or an understanding between the parties that an honour would be provided in exchange for a donation. The maximum sentence under the act is two years’ imprisonment and/or a £500 fine.

He said there was a high evidential bar for a successful prosecution. He said: “There must be an agreement or understanding between the parties or at least an attempt by one party to obtain a reward in exchange for an honour or an offer by another part to give such an award.”

Norman Baker, the former Liberal Democrat MP, whose complaint in September last year triggered the police inquiry, said he considered there was a prima facie case to be investigated based on the August 2017 letter which was first revealed by the Mail on Sunday. He said: “The whole honours system now needs to be tightened up.”

Fawcett resigned last year as chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation. An independent investigation commissioned by the charity found evidence that co-ordination took place between Fawcett and others regarding honours nominations. It said there was no evidence trustees were aware of these communications.

The Prince’s Foundation said last week it was inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation, but it was reported that a source close to Prince Charles said he would be happy to help with the police investigation if asked.

Meta must act quickly against risks of metaverse harassment

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of a harmonious online community faces a test

 Updated: 22 Feb 2022

Parmy Olson


Virtual worlds must assure everyone safety at their very inception


When Mark Zuckerberg described the metaverse last year, he conjured an image of harmonious social connections in an immersive virtual world. But his company’s first iterations of the space have not been very harmonious. Several women have reported incidents of harassment, including a beta tester who was virtually groped by a stranger and another who was virtually gang-raped within 60 seconds of entering Facebook’s Horizon Venues platform, as alleged. I had several uncomfortable moments with male strangers on social apps run by both Meta and Microsoft in December.

These are early days for the metaverse, but that’s the problem. If safety isn’t baked early on into its design, it’ll be much harder to secure down the line. Gaming firms like Riot Games, for instance, have faced an uphill battle trying to rescue a virtual community from toxic behaviour. Facebook also knows this problem well: It struggled to put the proverbial toothpaste back in the tube with covid vaccine misinformation, as highlighted by a whistleblower last year.

Mark Zuckerberg’s control of Facebook is unlikely to reduce

Nick Clegg appointed president of global affairs at Meta

It turns out Facebook has grappled internally with building safety features into its new metaverse services. In 2016, it released Oculus Rooms, an app where anyone with its headset could hang out in a virtual apartment with friends and family. In 2017, it built Oculus Venues (now Horizon Venues), a virtual space where it would show films or sports games in the hope that visitors would mingle and make connections. It was a big shift, but also open to new risks.

The firm began holding meetings to discuss how they might design safety features into Venues, recalls Jim Purbrick, a former engineering manager at Facebook involved with its VR efforts, which they hadn’t done when designing Rooms. Managers did pay attention to safety, he tells me. For instance, people had to watch a safety video before entering Venues. He says he warned engineers early on that VR avatars should fade out and disappear if they got too close to another user. They liked the idea, he says, but it was never implemented. A spokeswoman for Facebook didn’t say why the firm had not implemented a fade-to-vanish feature, and instead highlighted its new ‘personal boundary’ tool, which prevents certain avatars from coming within a radius of two virtual feet of your own.

The boundary tool can backfire, Purbrick says, pointing to how similar features have been misused in gaming. “You can end up with gangs of people creating rings around others, making it difficult for them to move out," he says. “If there’s a big crowd and you have a bunch of personal boundaries, it makes navigation harder." Meta said avatars would still be able to move forward with the boundary tool.“Oculus definitely cared about people having good experiences in VR and understood that a bad first experience could put people off VR forever, but I think they underestimated the size of the problem," Purbrick adds.

He believes Meta should make safety features easier to find, like a fire extinguisher, and get volunteers to monitor behaviour. The gaming industry has some templates for this sort of governance. Until now, Meta has centralized the task of moderating content on Facebook, but it will struggle with such an approach in a new virtual world.

The company has “the most centralized decision-making structure" ever for a large company, according to one early backer, a description underscored by Zuckerberg’s control of 57% of the company’s voting shares. But virtual worlds are human communities at their core, which means people will want more of a say in how they are run. Relinquishing some of that central control could help Meta mitigate harassment.

Educating visitors about what constitutes potentially criminal behaviour would, too. Holly Powell Jones, a criminologist, has found that an alarming number of children and teenagers shrug off harassment or the sharing of indecent images because they have no idea that they are criminal offences. People have “almost certainly" been harassed at a criminal level in virtual reality already, she says. “Harassment in digital spaces is nothing new, and it’s something we and others in the industry have been working to address for years," Meta’s spokeswoman said.

With the police already stretched from social-media cases and the offline world, tech firms should try more radical solutions to address harassment in the metaverse before it’s too late. The dearth of women in the development process for virtual reality certainly isn’t helping and could be fixed.

Microsoft last week announced a more drastic move to combat harassment: It was shutting down several of its social platforms, including Campfire, muting all attendees when they joined an event and activating ‘safety bubbles’ as a default. Meta should take a cue from that. Else, its metaverse dream may fade away.

Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology.

Meta is down $500 billion since changing its name from Facebook

No longer a top ten company

By Rob Thubron


In context: Mark Zuckerberg has really gone all-in on the metaverse. So convinced is the CEO that virtual, shared worlds are the future of tech, he changed Facebook’s corporate name to Meta last year. But what has happened since that rebranding? The company has seen $500 billion wiped off its market value.

New York Mag reports that Meta’s half-a-trillion-dollar decline since the rebranding has resulted in a drop from its lofty position as the sixth-largest company in the world by market capitalization to 11th position, replaced by the likes of Nvidia and Tencent.

A lot of Meta’s problems don’t stem from the new name but are a result of Apple’s privacy changes introduced in iOS 14 that allow users to opt out of targeted ads and prevent apps from tracking cross-app behavior. Meta said the change would put a $10 billion dent in its ad revenue this year—an announcement that wiped $232 billion off its market cap in a single day.

Google is introducing similar privacy measures with its Privacy Sandbox for Android, though its implementation isn’t as extreme as Apple’s, and it won’t arrive for at least two years.

Then there’s Facebook. The social media platform had an unwelcome sight in its most recent earnings report: the fourth quarter saw its daily user numbers decline for the first time, plunging its share price 20%. Moreover, the AR and VR division (Reality Labs), an important part of its metaverse plans, made a $10.2 billion loss in 2021.


Another problem for Meta is that while many companies are looking to jump onto the metaverse idea, most consumers are apathetic towards what some consider a VR version of Second Life. The metaverse, Web 3.0, and NFTs might excite firms looking to capitalize on them, but the buzzwords leave many people apathetic at best, hostile at worst—a patent hinting at metaverse eye-tracking ad tech certainly hasn’t helped.

Meta still has a market cap of $561 billion. It made $33.76 billion in revenue during Q4, up 20% year-on-year, and the overall number of daily active users across all its apps grew slightly, so it certainly isn’t in trouble. But maybe the metaverse, at least Meta’s interpretation of it, isn’t going to be as revolutionary as Zuckerberg thinks.


Related Reads

Facebook takes the 'news' out of News Feed, figuratively speaking

Meta says it is not threatening to pull Facebook and Instagram from Europe

AUSTRALIA

Anti-vaxxers and Facebook have found a way to co-exist

This week: the stalemate between anti-vaxxers and Facebook, shark attack videos, and pictures of Scott Morrison's feet.


CAM WILSON
FEB 22, 2022

ANTI-VAXXERS AND OTHER PROTESTERS MARCHING ON CANBERRA, AND IMAGES OF SCOTT MORRISON ON HIS WIKIFEET PROFILE (IMAGES: SUPPLIED, WIKIFEET)

Trending

The anti-vaccine, anti-government “Convoy” protests in Australia and Canada were mostly organised on Telegram and Facebook, two very different tech platforms. The former is a company with 30 employees, founded in Russia, that largely doesn’t do any content moderation despite having more than 500 million users.

The latter? Well, the US-based, highly profitable company’s problems with misinformation are well documented. Incredibly, it was only in 2019 — when Facebook earned US$70 billion from their 2.5 billion users after 15 years of operation — that the company said it would stop recommending anti-vaccine pages and groups, and taking money to promote anti-vaccine content through ads. Since then, the company, now rebranded as Meta, has tightened the rules a few times further after facing increasingly intense scrutiny. Throughout this period, it’s felt a lot like whack-a-mole: major Facebook pages and groups were often banned. Sometimes they’d spring back up, but sometimes they’d go elsewhere.

Recently I’ve noticed a lot of the major anti-vaccine groups and creators have all found ways to evade bans and continue to exist on the platform. In October last year I wrote about how Craig Kelly, Pete Evans and Australia’s biggest anti-vaxxer groups were able to avoid Facebook bans. Many of the major groups and figures promoting this week’s protests are all on Facebook. Four of the top five pieces of content about the protests, as measured by Facebook engagements, are pro-Convoy to Canberra, and are largely being shared by anti-vaccine groups.

THE TOP FIVE PIECES OF WEB CONTENT ABOUT THE CONVOY TO CANBERRA BASED ON SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENTS (IMAGE: BUZZSUMO)

How are they doing it? Perhaps the biggest change I’ve seen recently is the way that anti-vaccine actors have learned to weave their messages through platforms and mediums in a way that evades Facebook’s ban. They’ll post YouTube videos (around three-quarters of the Convoy to Canberra content was hosted on YouTube) featuring claims that would get them banned on Facebook. They link people to their Telegram channel where they can say whatever they want without repercussions. Or they’ll host livestreams of rallies and interviews that seem largely unmoderated too.

And there’s also just an increased wiliness: everything from avoiding the word “vaccine” to calling anti-vaccine groups “dinner parties”.

Whatever the reason, it feels as though we’ve gotten to an impasse. Facebook has set rules to stop medical misinformation (even though it’s still all over the platform). Anti-vaxxers are able, with a few limitations, to use the world’s most popular social media platform to spread their misinformation further.

In fairness to Meta, it’s not like it invented anti-vaxxers. The pandemic has made it a salient issue that was played up by even mainstream political actors. Plus anti-vaccine content is all over other platforms too, particularly YouTube, Instagram (owned by Meta), TikTok, Twi- well, I guess most of them. Meta certainly seems to do more than YouTube or TikTok.

But it all boils down to this: Meta is a private enterprise. It makes an insane amount of money. It decides who’s allowed on its platform. And at the moment it’s allowed a situation where anti-vaxxers are still able to make Facebook their home.

Fake, international Facebook accounts behind the Convoy to Canberra protests

I spotted some unusual accounts behind some of the groups being used to promote and organise the Convoy to Canberra protests. Why were these international accounts doing this? Not sure! But there’s a few reasons people might want to. (Crikey)

Leaked data from Canadian convoy protest fundraiser reveals hundreds of Australian donors

Aaaand here’s why some people want to give money to these protests. (ABC)

Former SAS officer Riccardo Bosi leading dangerous anti-vax revolution across Australia

A deep dive into one of the leading online conspiracy figures in Australia who has in the past called for politicians and media to be hanged. Worth noting, this piece was posted without a byline. (The West)

Sick, paranoid, poorer and disorganised: the aftermath of the Convoy to Canberra protests An estimated 10,000 protesters, with a grab-bag of grievances, made up the Convoy to Canberra. It didn't take long, however, for the movement to fall apart.

Content Corner

There is a popular website that most journalists dare not speak about, fearing repercussions from the shadowy cabal of elites who pull the strings from behind the veil. But I am not most journalists. Without further ado, presenting: WikiFeet.

Called the encyclopedia for foot fetishists, WikiFeet has run for 14 years entirely off the back of volunteers who upload, curate and rate feet of notable people. It’s played a role in politics before. In 2019, the website was crucial in debunking a fake nude image of Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

With a federal election looming, I wondered what the feet of our political elites would tell us. My first search was of course for our dear leader, Scott Morrison.

THE ENTRY FOR SCOTT MORRISON ON WIKIFEET, AN ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR THE FEET OF FAMOUS PEOPLE (IMAGE: WIKIFEET)

What I found was that, much like the polls, our prime minister had middling support at best — a measly 2.57 out of five rating from 19 images. Interestingly, his votes were almost entirely either five stars or one star, suggesting strong feelings either way. The website’s algorithm told me that people who liked Morrison’s feet also liked Pierce Brosnan’s, Tom Selleck’s and Kevin Spacey’s. No comment.

When I looked up Anthony Albanese? No images have yet been uploaded. Same with Adam Bandt and Clive Palmer. The only other Australian politician I could find who had a profile was Pauline Hanson (three stars, “ok feet”).

What does this tell us about the upcoming election? Not much, if I’m being honest. Do the polarised scores of Morrison’s feet reveal anything about the intensity of his supporters? Need more data to make such a conclusion. Is the absence of Albanese’s page indicative of his lack of public profile? I don’t know that you can draw that connection.

But if you have a spare moment, I know a website that’s looking for volunteers and has a big hole in its #auspol section.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cam Wilson is Crikey's associate editor. He previously worked as a reporter at the ABC, BuzzFeed, Business Insider and Gizmodo. He primarily covers internet culture and tech in Australia.

What Happened to Netscape Navigator?

Ericsson admits it may have paid off ISIS terrorists

Share price down after word of 'unusual expense claims' emerges

Jude Karabus

Wed 16 Feb 2022 

"Unusual expense claims in Iraq, dating back to 2018" triggered a review that led Ericsson to suspect it paid the self-styled terrorist group Islamic State while doing business in the country, the Swedish giant said last night.

Ericsson's statement comes a day after CEO Börje Ekholm gave an interview to Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri revealing the existence of a "previously completely unknown internal investigation [where] Ericsson identified such serious shortcomings in Iraq that they suspect [intermediaries] of having paid IS terrorists to get through transports" (translated from the Swedish).

In other words, Ericsson may have indirectly paid off ISIS to get equipment shipped through the terrorists' roadblocks in Iraq.

According to Ericsson, it "uncovered compliance concerns," and "investigations of these concerns led to a subsequent and detailed internal investigation that was undertaken by Ericsson in 2019, supported by external legal counsel." The company's share price dropped 12 per cent on NASDAQ after the admission.

The investigation probed Ericsson employees, vendors, and suppliers in Iraq covering a period stretching from 2011 to 2019, and "identified evidence of corruption-related misconduct."

As listed by the vendor itself, this included: making a monetary donation without a clear beneficiary; paying a supplier for work without a defined scope and documentation; using suppliers to make cash payments; funding inappropriate travel and expenses; improper use of sales agents and consultants; violations of Ericsson’s internal financial controls; conflicts of interest; non-compliance with tax laws; and obstruction of the investigation.

Crucially, investigators also identified payments to intermediaries and the use of alternate transport routes in connection with circumventing Iraqi customs, during a period when various terrorist organisations – among them Islamic State aka Da'esh – "controlled some transport routes."

Ekholm told the paper the firm's investigators "could not determine the ultimate recipients of these payments."

The firm stressed that the probe had not identified any Ericsson employee as being "directly involved" in financing terrorist organizations, adding that as a result of the investigation, "several employees were exited from the company and multiple other disciplinary and other remedial actions were taken."
The cost of doing business

Ericsson is the second-biggest network gear maker in the world due to its dominance in 5G telecoms contracts. The Nordic biz said it planned to continue the Iraq country business, albeit with "enhanced training and awareness activities, policies and procedures, and third-party management processes."

It's not great timing for Ericsson, which has been undergoing a restructure, but beat fourth-quarter earnings expectations when it reported yearly revenues several weeks ago. According to industry research firm Dell'Oro, Huawei is the top global radio access network vendor by revenue year-to-date, followed by Ericsson, which is gaining ground outside of China, along with the third of the Big Three full-stack networking solutions sellers: Nokia.

This has been helped along by US sanctions restricting Huawei's access to chip supplies but probably more so by the rip and replace mandates for Huawei radios in national rollouts of 5G networks in the US (whose FCC has designated it a national security threat and excluded it from carrier rollouts) and allied countries.

Huawei has always denied any claims its kit is insecure or that it is beholden to the Chinese state.

Sweden was the second country in Europe (after the UK) to issue a ban and a rip-and-replace order on Huawei kit. The Chinese tech behemoth initiated arbitration proceedings against Sweden after it instituted a ban on Huawei hardware in its national 5G rollout in October 2020. At the time, a backlash in China saw Ericsson's revenues plunge 74 per cent in the Middle Kingdom.

Nonetheless, the firm reported networks sales grew organically by 3 per cent for its in Q4 ended 31 December 2021, "despite considerably lower volumes in Mainland China." It reported sales of 71.3 billion SEK ($7.69bn) for the quarter and net income of 10.1bn SEK ($1.09bn) up from 7.2bn SEK ($780m) in Q4 2020.

The Swedish firm talked up its November purchase of cloud firm Vonage for $6.2bn in its full-year results for 2021. Vonage will be run as a separate segment reporting directly to the CEO, and the Ericsson boss said at the time it would gain "1 million developers" by swallowing the cloud platform. ®

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