Foreign money funding ‘extremism’ in Canada, says hacker
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Exclusive: leak shows more than half of donations to convoy protest through GiveSendGo came from the US.
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Foreign money funding ‘extremism’ in Canada, says hacker.
The names and addresses of almost 90,000 people who donated money to the Canadian trucker convoy protest were hacked by a hacker, who said it revealed how money from abroad had sponsored "extremism" in the country.
The hacker told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that Canada was "not protected from foreign political manipulation." "You see a tremendous quantity of money that isn't even coming from Canada - that's plain as day," the hacker, who is a member of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, claimed.
According to the stolen data, over 90,000 donations were made through GiveSendGo, with the majority of money coming from Canada and the United States. Individuals from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Denmark also donated, according to the data.
Foreign parties funding extremism
Amarnath Amarasingam, a professor at Queens University in Canada who specializes in extremism and social movements, tweeted that "51,666 (56%) came from the United States, 36,202 (29%) came from Canada, and 1,831 (2%) came from the United Kingdom." According to him, US donations totaled US$3.62 million, while Canadian donations totaled US$4.31 million.
The hacker claimed that the large number of donations coming from Canada demonstrated that some Canadians have aligned themselves with what they saw to be American-style radicalism.
“Up here in Canada, we kind of lied to ourselves,” the hacker said. “[We were saying] ‘It couldn’t happen here, there’s no way it could happen, we are better.’ And now people are kind of faced with the reality that no, actually, we have much more in common with our neighbors to the south than we wanted to admit to ourselves.”
According to the data, approximately a dozen donors used .gov email addresses in conjunction with gifts, implying that part of the money came from US government workers. Accounts from the US Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and a state transit agency were among those involved. One Canadian government email address was also included in the data.
"If you're doing some fascism and domestic extremism kinds of movements... [then] you're not going to have a nice time because hacktivists have been focusing more and more on combating domestic extremism because we're fucking mad," the hacker added when asked what the release meant to the public.
'GiveSendGo' fund
On Sunday, GiveSendGo’s web domain was redirected to a page featuring a video clip of the animated film Frozen with a message to convey supporters. “Attention, GiveSendGo grifters and patriots,” it read. “You helped fund the January 6 insurrection in the US, you helped fund an insurrection in Ottawa. In fact, you are committed to funding anything that keeps the raging fire of misinformation going until that [sic] it burns the world’s collective democracies down."
“On behalf of sane people worldwide who wish to continue living in a democracy, I am now telling you that GiveSendGo itself is frozen.”
After another crowdsourcing company, GoFundMe, stopped money transfers, GiveSendGo became the main site for donations.
On Monday, although the hackers’ message no longer appeared on the landing page of GiveSendGo, the site remained down.
Canadian police arrested 11 people
The violence and extremism were being contained by the police. According to authorities, police in the Canadian province of Alberta broke up a gang that was allegedly planning to use violence to support a truckers' blockage at a border crossing with the United States.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 11 persons were arrested and 13 long guns, as well as handguns and a substantial amount of ammunition, were recovered. According to the police force, those arrested had "a propensity to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disturb the roadblock."
