Hackers take down $8.6M GiveSendGo set up for Freedom Convoy

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is reportedly considering invoking the country’s Emergencies Act, which grants powers that have been used only once before in peacetime, to initiate a federal crackdown on Freedom Convoy demonstrators.

Trudeau in a rare Monday meeting with his Liberal Caucus said he planned to invoke the act, but denied having any plans to deploy the military, sources familiar with the matter told the CBC.

Through protesters have been cleared from the key Ambassador Bridge, where about 30 protesters were arrested on Sunday, large demonstrations continue to paralyze the streets of Ottawa and protesters are blockading several border crossings in western Canada. 

The 1988 Emergencies Act allows the federal government to override the provinces and authorize special temporary measures to ensure security during national emergencies anywhere in the country. 

The legislation, previously known as the War Measures Act, has been used only three times in Canadian history: during the two world wars and in 1970 by Trudeau’s father, the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, after militant Quebec separatists kidnapped a British diplomat and a provincial Cabinet minister. 

Meanwhile, hackers knocked the fundraising site GiveSendGo offline in an attack targeting a campaign that raised at least $8.6 million to support the Freedom Convoy demonstrations.

The attack on Sunday night redirected visitors to a taunting video from the Disney film Frozen, and a message slamming the Freedom Convoy as an ‘insurrection’ led by ‘known extremists.’

The hackers claimed to have stolen the list of donors who contributed to the campaign and provided the information to a third-party website which is now offering to share it with ‘journalists and researchers.’ 

Trudeau had claimed at least half of all donations supporting the protests came from foreign sources, including the US. 

Trudeau planned to meet with provincial premiers on Monday to discuss the ongoing protests and blockades, and is expected to alert them of his plans to use the Emergencies Act.  

It came as the key Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit with Windsor, Ontario was re-opened to traffic on Monday after protesters blocked it for nearly a week. 

Police in Windsor arrested some 25 to 30 protesters who refused to clear off the bridge, and they now could face up to a year in jail and $100,000 fines under Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s emergency decree. Windsor cops say seven vehicles were towed and five seized as officers cleared the last demonstrators

But a larger protest in the capital, Ottawa, persisted on Monday as city residents seethed over authorities’ inability to reclaim the streets. 

The demonstrations in Ottawa have now continued for more than two weeks, with truckers and their supporters blockading the streets around Parliament Hill to protest vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions. 

Ottawa’s mayor said Sunday that demonstrators had agreed to clear off residential streets and confine their blockade to Parliament Hill, but protest leaders denied such a deal had been struck. Ottawa’s city council planned a special meeting on Monday to address the demonstrations.

As of Monday morning, the GiveSendGo website appeared to be offline. Visitors to the website were met with the message that it was under maintenance and ‘we will be back very soon.’ 

A message seeking comment from the site’s operators was not immediately returned early Monday. 

The US-based Christian fundraising site became the main conduit for donations to support the Freedom Convoy after GoFundMe buckled to pressure to shut down another fundraiser that had raised some $10 million.

A Canadian court ordered the GiveSendGo funds to be frozen, but the website defied the order and said that the court did not have jurisdiction in the matter. 

The Daily Dot first reported that the site suffered a hack overnight Sunday and had its front page briefly replaced by a clip from the movie Frozen and a manifesto accusing it of supporting ‘an insurrection in Ottawa.’

The leak site Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS) claimed to have 30 megabytes of donor information from people who contributed to the Freedom Convoy, including names, email addresses, zip codes, and internet protocol addresses.  

DDoS said that, because the donor information contains sensitive personal information, it would not be making the data available publicly but will instead be offering it to ‘journalists and researchers.’

DDoS describes itself as a non-profit devoted to enabling the free transmission of data in the public interest. The site frequently disclosed hacked information targeting supporters of right-wing movements.

The funding of the Canadian protests has emerged as a key point of interest as authorities in Ottawa and elsewhere try to get a grip on the rallies, which have been blockading cities and border crossings across Canada with demands that include the deposition of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

GiveSendGo became a prime conduit for money to the protesters after mainstream crowdfunding platform GoFundMe blocked donations to the movement.

The Ambassador Bridge, North America’s busiest trade link, reopened for traffic late Sunday evening, ending a six-day blockade, Canada Border Services Agency said, after Canadian police cleared the protesters fighting to end COVID-19 restrictions.

The crossing normally carries 25 percent of all trade between the two countries, and the blockade on the Canadian side had disrupted business in both countries, with automakers forced to shut down several assembly plants.

A steady stream of trucks as far as the eye could see were making their way across the Ambassador Bridge at dawn Monday, their lights shining bright on the dark morning hours after the reopening.

Authorities set up jersey barriers along Huron Church Road to keep local traffic back and prevent protesters from attempting another blockade. Police cars lined all intersections leading up to the bridge, with officers threatening to arrest anyone who breached the route.

A few hearty protesters stood on a mound of snow in shopping plaza a half block away at 6am, waving the Canadian flag and still shouting out ‘freedom’ as the temperature hovered around 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

‘It is a little upsetting because we did work really hard to secure Huron Church,’ one of the protesters, Tristan Emond, 22, told DailyMail.com, his voice hoarse. ‘It’s pretty sad how the government can shut down the economy for two years and small business completely lose their livelihoods, but the second we start affecting the government and the big businesses and big corporations is when they put their foot down and when they start having issues.’

‘It’s freezing out here, but we got to deal with it if we want any change,’ said Emond, a native of local Windsor. ‘This is not over. his will not be over till we get our rights and our freedom back here.’

After a weeklong blockage, police cleared the roadway early Sunday. Then in the afternoon, a moving line of officers, supported by an armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police tactical unit, pushed protesters back to expand the exclusion zone and arrested about two dozen people on mischief charges.

‘I was standing there waving my flag and a couple RCMP officers came right behind us and grabbed the one guy who was with me by the back of the neck, lifting him up then slamming him onto the ground,’ said Emond. ‘The other RMP officer tried to grab me, but I had already gotten too far away from him.

‘I’m absolutely disgusted with the way police have treated us,’ he said. ‘We have done nothing but peacefully protest.’

Across the street, Mason Hill, 32, was grabbing coffee at a Tim Horton’s, seeing dozens of emergency vehicles blocking access to Huron Church. The barriers were preventing him from bicycling to his job at a nearby retirement home.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Hill told DailyMail.com. ‘I understand this is cause and effect of the protest. I am happy to see the trucks moving away. At the same time, what they’re doing right now with the lights and blocking all the side roads off, it seems too excessive.’

Ben Skill, 23, was grabbing a breakfast sandwich. A day earlier, he was among the protesters.

‘I guess that things had to get moving at some point,’ said Skill, a toolmaker. ‘The police are doing their jobs. As protesters, we were doing our job too. We have been directly affected by the closure of the bridge, too, but it’s still for a good cause.’

Barry Brugge, 44, who was getting hot coffee for his wife, said he was happy to see the bridge reopened, especially because it means his daughter could return to work at a local McDonald’s, which was forced to close during the blockage.

‘It’s nice to see traffic going again,’ Brugge said. ‘I kind of understand the message the protesters were trying to make, but it was getting way out of hand.’

Police in Windsor, Ontario, said earlier in the day that more than two dozen people had been peacefully arrested, seven vehicles towed and five seized as officers cleared the last demonstrators from near the bridge, which links the city – and numerous Canadian automotive plants – with Detroit.

Demonstrations against COVID-19 restrictions and other issues have blocked several crossings along the U.S.-Canada border and hurt the economies of both nations. 

They also inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

Police in Windsor, Ontario, arrested 25 to 30 protesters and towed several vehicles Sunday near the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor – and numerous Canadian automotive plants – with Detroit. 

The bridge reopened to traffic late Sunday night, a spokeswoman for bridge owner Detroit International Bridge Co. confirmed. Canada Border Services also confirmed that the bridge is open.

After protesters began blocking bridge access February 7, automakers began shutting down or reducing production – at a time when the industry is already struggling with pandemic-induced shortages of computer chips and other supply-chain disruptions.

‘Today, our national economic crisis at the Ambassador Bridge came to an end,’ said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens. ‘Border crossings will reopen when it is safe to do so and I defer to police and border agencies to make that determination.’

About 470 miles northeast of Windsor, the protest in Ottawa has paralyzed downtown, infuriated residents who are fed up with police inaction and turned up pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A senior government official said Trudeau will meet virtually with the leaders of Canada´s provinces on Monday morning. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The city had appeared to have reached a deal in which protesters, who have jammed downtown streets for more than two weeks, would move out of residential areas, but those prospects soon faded.

Mayor Jim Watson said Sunday that he agreed to meet with demonstrators if they confined their protest to an area around Parliament Hill and moved their trucks and other vehicles out of residential neighborhoods by noon Monday. 

He shared a letter from one of the protest’s organizers, Tamara Lich, in which she said demonstrators ‘agree with your request’ to focus activities at Parliament Hill.

But Lich later denied there was an agreement, saying in a tweet: ‘No deal has been made. End the mandates, end the passports. That is why we are here.’

In a letter Watson wrote to protesters, he said residents are ‘exhausted’ and ‘on edge’ due to the demonstrations, and he warned that some businesses are teetering on the brink of permanent closure because of the disruptions.

In Surrey, British Columbia, police arrested four demonstrators Sunday, and officers in Alberta said they intercepted and disabled three excavators that were being brought to a border blockade in the town of Coutts.

While the protesters are decrying vaccine mandates for truckers and other COVID-19 restrictions, many of Canada’s public health measures, such as mask rules and vaccine passports for getting into restaurants and theaters, are already falling away as the omicron surge levels off.

Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter in Canada than in the U.S., but Canadians have largely supported them. The vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated, and the COVID-19 death rate is one-third that of the United States.

A judge on Friday ordered an end to the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency allowing for fines of 100,000 Canadian dollars and up to one year in jail for anyone illegally blocking roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Sunday acknowledged the resolution to the bridge demonstration, which it said had ‘widespread damaging impacts’ on the ‘lives and livelihoods of people’ on both sides of the border.

The Windsor protest began to dwindle Saturday after police persuaded many protesters to remove vehicles blocking the road to the bridge. But in Ottawa, Saturday’s crowd swelled to what police said were 4,000 demonstrators, and a counter-protest of frustrated Ottawa residents attempting to block the convoy of trucks from entering downtown emerged Sunday.

Clayton Goodwin, a 45-year-old military veteran who was among the counterprotesters, said it was time for residents to stand up against the protesters.

‘I´m horrified that other veterans would be down there co-opting my flag, co-opting my service,’ said Goodwin, who is the CEO of the Veterans Accountability Commission, a nonprofit advocacy group. ‘It´s a grift. The city was free. We’re 92 percent vaccinated. We’re ready to support our businesses.’

Colleen Sinclair, another counter-protester, said the demonstrators have had their say and need to move on – with police force, if necessary.

‘They’re occupiers,’ she said. ‘This is domestic terrorism and we want you out of our city. Go home.’

Trudeau has so far rejected calls to use the military, but has said ‘all options are on the table’ to end the protests. Trudeau has called the protesters a ‘fringe’ of Canadian society. Both federal and provincial politicians have said they can´t order police what to do.

Major-General Steve Boivin, commander of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, said Sunday that two of his special forces soldiers were supporting the protests in Ottawa and were in the ‘process of being released’ from service. Boivin said the activity goes against the military’s values and ethics.