https://ift.tt/a5qbMmP finance minister hints at making the recent financial surveillance laws permanent.

The emergency act invoked by Canada’s government is taking a turn for the worse as far as financial surveillance is concerned. During a press conference, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that the government is reviewing making the surveillance over financial transactions brought by the act permanent. Cryptocurrency platforms would be affected by the matter, and many Canadians are taking to the ownership of bitcoin to have more control over their wealth. Earlier, a court froze $20 million donated to the trucker in cryptocurrencies.

The Canadian government imposed surveillance to prevent funding for the trucker convoy.

The trucker convoy protest in Ottawa led to the government imposing surveillance to prevent funding for the protest. This includes regulating crowdfunding platforms and cryptocurrencies under the Terrorist Financing Act. Related payments providers were also commanded to register under FINTRAC. The move understandably resulted in a lot of condemnation, with critics saying that the move was undemocratic. Several accounts were frozen, and large crypto donations are now under scrutiny from law enforcement officials. The trucker convoy has been proposing anti-vax propaganda and causing trouble for the government and people. 

Cryptocurrency holders express concern over surveillance. 

Crypto has long been touted as an asset that is considered out of the controlling hands of a government. The recent acts in Canada seem to serve as another example of that. More proof comes in the form of the fact that Canadians are withdrawing money from banks in staggering numbers. That move was planned in advance, and even Kraken’s CEO Jesse Powell said that Kraken might be asked to freeze assets by police. He said that the exchange would be forced to comply and that citizens would have to turn to decentralized platforms to ensure ownership of their funds.