Western Standard - WATCH： Citizen journalist covering Freedom Convoy has accounts frozen

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Melanie Rizdin with the Western Standard. Thanks for joining us this

00:00:12.320 evening and tonight we're going to be talking with Andy Lee who is a citizen journalist and

00:00:18.120 Andy was sort of boots on the ground in Ottawa during the freedom convoy that was basically

00:00:26.680 dismantled over the weekend. And Andy has come home from Ottawa and has found her bank accounts

00:00:35.860 have actually been frozen. Now we'll get into that. Andy, thanks for joining us. I just want

00:00:41.720 to talk a little bit about what you do and why you were in Ottawa. So I joined the convoy when

00:00:50.260 it initially rolled into Ottawa and that was before sort of anybody was covering it. It was

00:00:56.000 still fringe movement of a dozen truckers so I thought that I would join up at the rally points

00:01:01.520 and sort of you know see for myself what was going on and I you know I saw the opposite of what was

00:01:06.640 being displayed in MSM it wasn't a small movement it was a large movement you know it was very

00:01:12.500 powerful movement it was gaining traction so I sort of ended up following them out to medicine

00:01:18.320 hat and then I came home and I flew back out to Ottawa and you know I sort of met up with the

00:01:25.100 main convoy as it rolled into Kingston about a month ago so it was there for that you know I

00:01:31.440 spent some time with the convoy I came home and then I sort of went back out because I had heard

00:01:36.340 that there was a large crackdown coming which obviously happened so I flew out the past weekend

00:01:42.780 in Ottawa to sort of document that that crackdown and try to try to fairly look at what sort of

00:01:49.780 happened there so yeah so i've just got home my bank account was for whatever reason frozen we

00:01:56.900 don't know if that's related to sort of maybe my perceived involvement in the freedom convoy but

00:02:04.420 there's certainly uh some of that going around so yeah there definitely is we've got a few stories

00:02:11.060 that uh we've been actually covering uh our reporter um we have a reporter amber up in

00:02:17.460 Edmonton who just covered a story about a Saskatchewan farmer who donated $500 to the

00:02:24.180 convoy and has since had his bank accounts frozen. I also found, yeah sorry go ahead.

00:02:33.300 Oh yeah no no it's so I also donated to the convoy that was before they sort of transitioned

00:02:40.820 over to the uh the give send go i don't know related to the initial sort of movements so

00:02:49.380 yeah we've got uh i've got some some uh tweets actually from some conservative mps speaking

00:02:55.940 about uh people constituents in in their area that are also uh dealing with frozen bank accounts uh

00:03:03.940 looks like Marilyn Gladue, Conservative MP for Serena Lambton, she tweeted that a lady in her

00:03:12.580 constituency donated or actually bought a Freedom Convoy t-shirt for $20 and now her bank account

00:03:22.420 is frozen. Also another tweet from Mark Strahl, MP out of Chilliwack, Hope, BC, tweeted about a

00:03:30.260 a single mom in Chilliwack, Brianne, who donated $50 to the convoy like you when this was not

00:03:37.220 deemed an illegal act. And she too has had her bank accounts frozen. We're hearing more and more

00:03:43.540 of these stories. So first of all, Andy, tell me a little bit about your citizen journalism. How

00:03:49.980 long have you been doing that type of coverage? So only for just over a year. So, you know, I just

00:03:59.540 sort of started uh during the lockdowns i started sort of reporting this isn't usually what i do i

00:04:06.140 don't usually cover really domestic affairs i do more international affairs i look at corporate

00:04:11.240 foreign interference uh you know in our in our government and sort of you know maybe foreign

00:04:16.860 influence in our government so that's sort of where i specialize um i did trigger one investigation

00:04:22.160 in the house of commons already that was on the chinese takeover of a canadian lithium mine asset

00:04:28.640 uh francois philippe champaign it has been questioned in the house of commons as to why

00:04:34.400 that asset was sold off in direct contravention to a uh you know agreement that we signed with

00:04:43.440 the united states government that was the joint agreement of critical minerals it was an agreement

00:04:49.120 that we were to stockpile critical minerals uh and so for whatever reason we are allowing sort

00:04:54.800 of mining assets to be sold off to Chinese state entities and we're contravening our part of the

00:05:01.360 bargain there so you know that's sort of what I usually do so this was outside of my you know my

00:05:08.240 sort of comfort zone but again I wanted to just I wanted to cover it because I felt that it had the

00:05:13.600 power to you know become a very strong movement and that there was a lot of backing and that again

00:05:21.120 it was very much dismissed by mainstream media and i think that that's part of the problem is

00:05:27.280 that because it was dismissed nobody was really prepared for what happened when you know a couple

00:05:33.120 of thousand trucks rolled into ottawa with 10 000 people behind them that wasn't what was being

00:05:38.560 reported it was being reported it was a fringe minority it was a couple of trucks uh you know

00:05:44.720 these were unacceptable people with unacceptable views and then obviously it ended up blowing up

00:05:50.960 into something that you know our government enacted uh invoked an act that's never before

00:05:57.280 been invoked that's actually meant for for wartime measures to quell this protest so you know it it

00:06:05.040 it sort of defied everything that our government and a lot of legacy media said that it was going

00:06:10.240 to be right against all odds and so we we saw this awful crackdown come down using this this

00:06:18.880 emergency measures acts which sort of gives our government uh you know extraordinary powers and

00:06:24.320 extrajudicial powers and so now we're seeing sort of those maybe extrajudicial powers being used

00:06:32.240 in the form of seizing bank accounts and whether my account was seized by the government i can't

00:06:36.160 say right now i haven't been into my bank yet i just got home but we do know that some people's

00:06:41.360 banking accounts are being seized uh and it's a bit of a bizarre situation because christian

00:06:48.160 freeland went on camera and she said that she very clearly said that uh the rcmp was giving

00:06:58.240 banks names for uh to freeze accounts to freeze bank accounts to stop this protest

00:07:06.320 but then the rcmp also issued a statement yesterday directly contravening that saying

00:07:12.000 that they had not done that and now there's news coming out that they're working with bank accounts

00:07:17.360 to unfreeze bank accounts so it's very very bizarre because you've got you know the deputy

00:07:24.160 prime minister of canada saying that the rcmp is giving bank accounts names of of you know

00:07:31.920 individuals or you know corporate donors or political donors to freeze their bank accounts

00:07:37.520 and stop the influx of funds to this movement and then you've got the rcmp saying something

00:07:42.640 completely different and issuing a statement that's uh you know contradicting the deputy

00:07:47.360 prime minister of canada and now we've got you know people coming out saying that yes bank

00:07:52.880 accounts are being unfrozen so it's like why were these accounts frozen in the like in the first

00:07:58.800 place regardless if it was mine or if it was somebody else why were they frozen in the first

00:08:03.200 place what authority did they act upon if it wasn't from the rcmp and where did they get this

00:08:09.760 information from is this from an illegally hacked donor list right was this from the give send go

00:08:16.800 hacked list and did the government give the banks authority to sort of freeze these accounts that

00:08:24.160 now are apparently being unfrozen i mean and even even even the concept of the hacking even the

00:08:32.240 concept of the hacking of those accounts would typically be looked at as a an illegal act well

00:08:41.200 exactly i mean that's interesting as well and nobody actually you know donated most of these

00:08:47.600 people donated to the convoy when it was 100 legal to do so these people didn't do anything illegal

00:08:54.560 by donating yeah yeah it sounds like the uh the the circumstances around the the cases that i was

00:09:02.000 talking about um were such that uh this this happened before the emergencies act was brought

00:09:08.400 forward uh and and therefore you know donating fifty dollars to a freedom convoy that you

00:09:15.840 support or you believe in um from sort of your side of the fence uh wasn't at the time

00:09:23.120 constituted as something illegal so so you're correct in in the sense that there is some

00:09:30.480 extraordinary powers being um given to the government right now uh and you know some

00:09:37.360 would argue an extraordinary overreach um but you know andy let's i wanted to talk to you a little

00:09:44.320 bit about sort of how involved you were with the convoy um and co and the coverage of it tell me a

00:09:53.200 little bit about the coverage of it i know that you were saying that your your twitter was recently

00:10:00.000 shut down let's talk about what kind of led up to that what were you what were you uh putting out

00:10:06.080 on twitter at the time sure sure well like i said my my initial contact with the convoy was uh you

00:10:13.120 know i go on the cb radio when i was in edmonton i sort of followed them up to calgary and i went to

00:10:19.120 the rally point because i wanted to see how big this was i wanted to see if it's a dozen trucks

00:10:23.120 or 100 trucks um and so i joined up with him there uh you know and i sort of started documenting

00:10:30.720 what was going on and you know um you know not i mean i i did support what they were doing because

00:10:40.080 they they got some things done that that i wanted i want freedom right i want my kids

00:10:45.360 to go to school without masks on i'm vaccinated i supported our vaccination movement wholeheartedly

00:10:51.680 the entire way but does that mean that you know i i want to be constantly signing up for more

00:10:58.640 inoculations and updating a vaccine passport so that i have freedom of movement no that's not what

00:11:04.880 i signed up for right i made a personal medical decision um so there's a lot of ways that i got

00:11:11.440 behind it so i did support but i also tried to be objective like i was monitoring for uh how's the

00:11:17.760 convoy traveling is it safe are they blocking emergency vehicles are they you know obstructing

00:11:24.560 traffic um are they doing anything illegal as they sort of make their way to ottawa

00:11:30.560 so i was really happy with the you know the first leg and and how actually the the convoy traveled

00:11:36.560 to ottawa for what it was it was a huge movement with big rigs uh you know that i mean one one

00:11:43.920 you know semi has the ability to block off a street so you know they weren't doing that

00:11:50.400 until they hit ottawa they were very much just going from point a to point b

00:11:55.440 and and trying to sort of you know participate in this protest and so i was happy to to go along

00:12:01.600 with them so yeah and then my twitter account got shut down it got shut down on february 12th

00:12:08.560 so the last thing that sort of somebody sent me was that um there was a convoy headed towards the

00:12:16.640 british columbia border and so they sent me a picture of a truck that was heading there it was

00:12:21.520 a truck sort of that was painted in a military style uh you know outfit and had a canadian flag

00:12:27.360 draped across the front of it and somebody said you know this this bc convoy is heading to shut

00:12:32.800 down the border so i tweeted that out i said you know the bc border is about to be shut down

00:12:38.320 um and i i'm not advocating for the bc border to be shut down i'm just pointing out that the bc

00:12:43.600 border is going to be shut down and that was what happened um and so that locked my count

00:12:51.280 and my account was suspended after that um you know just simply for pointing out that this was

00:12:58.000 going on as far as i could tell it was interesting because that truck ended up being involved it did

00:13:04.560 end up breaching police barricades that went over top of them so i don't know if i was sort of you

00:13:11.840 know maybe taken as advocating for this sort of behavior i was always very cooperative to police

00:13:20.720 whenever i interacted with them and i tried to interact with them frequently on a on a good

00:13:25.440 basis um you know and and tried to be sort of a liaison where there there wasn't a liaison because

00:13:32.480 you know nobody was talking to the convoy organizers and nobody was getting any mediators

00:13:38.880 and our mainstream legacy media of course chose to dismiss villainize dehumanize the people who

00:13:47.600 were involved in this protest so you know instead of sort of being that bridge that they should have

00:13:54.320 been uh that's not the route that they chose right they chose to mock these people and and not listen

00:13:59.680 to them uh and the media's job is to be a voice of the people but that's not that's not what we saw

00:14:07.360 here we saw that the media it was a voice of the government yeah i um coming from uh mainstream

00:14:14.800 media i can relate to that for sure uh one thing i was going to mention too you had said your twitter

00:14:21.440 following had had grown quite substantially over the last year i think you had mentioned you were

00:14:26.000 up to about 30 000 followers when your twitter account got shut down yes and your and your

00:14:32.480 handle was uh hannah bananas and uh looks like uh even jordan peterson jumped to your defense uh

00:14:40.560 when it looked like uh what you were tweeting out was was being suppressed and and censored

00:14:48.160 looks like uh yes did you see that did you see him i did your defense a bit there yes so uh yeah

00:14:57.160 so some people made some some videos in my defense uh and uh yeah a lot of the accounts

00:15:03.240 jordan peterson was one of them uh lori goldstein as well uh you know from sun also said you know

00:15:10.620 why was she suspended and of course we haven't heard anything from twitter yet um it's sort of

00:15:17.080 funny i put up uh something earlier saying you know twitter's twitter safety and they say that

00:15:23.260 the you know our platform depends on transparency and i was like well you know i've been i've been

00:15:30.360 asking you for over 10 days now i email you every day as to why you took my countdown

00:15:35.740 and uh you can't sort of answer me or you won't answer me uh so you know it's looking that it's

00:15:44.420 very much their intention not to you know answer me at all and I have a very ridiculous handle

00:15:51.800 I started out anonymously because I used to actually do some sort of work

00:15:58.660 tracking Antifa and extremist groups and things like that and I had some threats sort of put

00:16:05.980 against me you know there was a YouTube channel that was sort of created dedicated to tracking

00:16:13.640 me down they did track me down and you know they put up all my personal information they put up

00:16:19.000 information on my my family they put up information on my children and so um you know i sort of

00:16:28.200 outed myself and said okay this is my real name my handle stuck even though it's ridiculous

00:16:35.880 it's a funny handle but i never changed it now you had speaking about uh about um

00:16:43.080 you know sort of strange activity not only did you mention that when you got home you discovered

00:16:48.520 your bank account was frozen and i believe you said the bank had had mentioned to you something

00:16:54.840 about some fraudulent activity but you still don't have answers but you also mentioned that

00:16:59.960 you're getting messages from hackers or what's what's the circumstances there yeah so because my

00:17:09.560 my twitter accounts and yeah because a lot of people uh liked my twitter account and you know

00:17:15.640 i'm not really worried about the following but i had a lot of research on there and i was really

00:17:20.280 fluid when i researched like i would put up a tweet and i would think about it and i would

00:17:23.960 research it and then i would end up getting these massive threads and they would end up being my

00:17:28.120 research and so some of my threads were like 50 almost 60 threads long by the time i got to the

00:17:33.720 end of it um so you know a lot of people have a vested interest in seeing that account activated

00:17:41.320 or uh not reactivated so i've sort of had hackers on on both sides uh contact me saying you know

00:17:50.360 if you give me x amount of dollars and it's not like a hundred dollars it's thousands of dollars

00:17:55.080 I can reactivate your account. Or if you don't sort of pay me, I'll deactivate your account

00:18:05.840 permanently. So if Twitter ever hears your appeal, they'll go to open your account and there'll be

00:18:11.400 nothing left. So there's a really interesting underbelly going on there in the cyber world

00:18:19.780 that i didn't really know existed um so you know i've got these two sides one side saying i want

00:18:26.260 to open your account another side saying we want to close down your account permanently

00:18:30.980 um you know if you don't pay us and so obviously i don't have any funds because my funds are frozen

00:18:35.780 so i wouldn't tell you anyways but i'm like even if i wanted to you have to understand

00:18:41.220 my son right have you heard anything else from the bank on that i mean i know you had said

00:18:46.660 they had made a comment about fraudulent activity any other information at this point yeah so all

00:18:52.500 i've got is is you know if i call them i just get a message saying you know your uh your account's

00:18:58.420 been deactivated for fraudulent activity and so i have to go into my bank so i don't know why i

00:19:04.740 don't know if it's government related i don't know if it's related to you know maybe these hacking

00:19:10.180 attempts that are being made it could be either i think regardless again it doesn't really matter

00:19:18.100 there's you know there's a lot of really strange things going on right now and like i said i think

00:19:22.020 that the big thing right now is is that for whatever reason uh you know there's a backtrack

00:19:29.140 happening uh and and it looks like accounts that were frozen for whatever reason and maybe

00:19:36.260 mine's among them and maybe maybe it's not uh are being unfrozen all of a sudden and you know that

00:19:44.580 sort of contravening what our government has said will happen and what the ottawa police chief said

00:19:51.060 would happen as well i interviewed him i was there at this media scrum i asked the question you know

00:19:58.500 i said uh if protesters leave and go home at this point uh because that's what you're asking them

00:20:04.980 to do you want them to go home so i just said if these people go home at this point are you going

00:20:09.060 to be sort of retroactively pursuing them and pressing charges and what's your plan and he was

00:20:15.540 very clear that he intended to apply financial sanctions against any protesters who had left the

00:20:23.860 protests retroactively and that's pretty dangerous territory to to fall into for any democracy

00:20:30.900 because these people did what you asked they went home right you asked them to clear the streets

00:20:37.620 they left the streets but you're saying that you're still going to sort of relentlessly pursue

00:20:42.500 these people you could financially sanction them you know extra judicially under this emergency act

00:20:50.480 that's been enacted so i mean and the government says well it's going to be 30 days maybe or it

00:20:57.400 could be longer or it could be less well I mean you know we hear this all the time you know we've

00:21:04.120 heard this and it's sort of the ever moving goalposts is why people are mobilizing people

00:21:11.040 don't want to hear maybe or in the future or if you do this we'll do that what people want are

00:21:17.140 is sort of a firm plans to you know for our government to lay out saying this is how we're

00:21:23.820 going to move forward well and even even to have yeah to have things set where once this is done

00:21:31.700 you know once this is achieved we will reach this and I you know even when we're speaking about

00:21:37.820 you know more than two years of a pandemic that kept shifting and moving and the goals

00:21:44.140 posts kept changing and the you know there never really was an end to there was you know

00:21:51.400 once you're vaccinated this will be this will be the circumstances and we never really hit those

00:21:58.200 circumstances so I yeah I can understand people's frustration now Andy you were in Ottawa over the

00:22:05.440 weekend correct when did you when did you get back so I just got back late last night so yeah

00:22:11.460 so I arrived in Thursday I went because uh you know I was suspecting with the enactment of the

00:22:16.680 Emergency Act, there would be a big crackdown. Tell us a bit about what you saw while you were

00:22:21.780 there through the crackdown that started heavily Friday. But, you know, there were a few of the

00:22:29.480 organizers that were taken into custody Thursday evening. Tell us a bit about what you saw while

00:22:34.460 you were there. Yeah, well, it was, you know, it really sort of progressed. So Friday, I went out.

00:22:43.400 um you know i i talked to the officers a bit um you know i went right down that sort of there's

00:22:50.340 a line i've got a video up so there was a a line of police and a line of protesters

00:22:55.380 you know and the police weren't weren't armed at that point they were very relaxed and i actually

00:23:01.540 walked down the middle of that line and you know just showed sort of what this standoff looked like

00:23:08.180 um you know and so that was day one and so it was a little more relaxed but

00:23:13.760 you know the next day it was sort of baton throughout yeah you had mentioned you you

00:23:20.020 were pepper sprayed at what point yeah and so i was pepper sprayed so there's that you know

00:23:26.960 there was sort of uh people put up a viral video and that was when the the mounted police sort of

00:23:33.260 took their horses through the crowd and you know some people were trampled and some people were

00:23:39.260 injured so i was recording that at the time and then yeah i was unfortunately pepper sprayed and

00:23:46.700 i had to sort of pull away but we do know that that was sort of you know a shameful moment

00:23:54.860 uh you know there's the rcmp chat that came out uh where people say that you know some of the

00:24:01.180 rcmp unfortunately have said that that was that was awesome right they said that that was really

00:24:07.180 awesome what you did with the horses um oh watching and they needed to i believe i saw uh something

00:24:14.380 in there they needed to um master that maneuver or yeah along those lines uh yeah i think i think

00:24:22.140 some disturbing some disturbing uh communication between officers in that leaked conversation for

00:24:30.140 sure we do have that on our website as well yeah yeah and so uh you know having having witnessed

00:24:36.940 that i i can say it was it was not awesome uh it caused a speed it caused panic i think that that

00:24:44.380 was the real turning point between the crowd and the people because that was one of you know there

00:24:51.020 was some footage of arrests where there was you know some kneeing and maybe some excessive police

00:24:56.780 force used police brutality perhaps and some people taken away at gunpoint so i think that

00:25:04.060 that was really the the turning point where the crowd turned against the police because you know

00:25:09.740 they had sort of lashed out and you know not just use normal advancement techniques where you sort

00:25:17.420 of put pressure on and that's a very standard technique is you know you form a line and you

00:25:23.580 slowly put pressure on the crowd and get them to move back um but this was using you know

00:25:30.620 i mean what's a horse i mean a horse is like using a weapon right this is

00:25:37.500 you know this is uh you know a very very powerful uh you know creature that that can do a lot of

00:25:45.260 damage and did do a lot of damage and hurt people and you know and it's created a lot of division

00:25:51.660 as well even with the responses because i've seen responses that have said um you know the rcmp needs

00:25:57.500 to be investigated for this this is this is a tragedy this is you know um a massive overreach

00:26:04.780 of power but then you've got the other people who say uh sort of tweet their responses like

00:26:10.940 they shouldn't have been there they should have left when they were told to

00:26:13.900 uh you know so it's it again just keeps creating and and contributing to that uh real divide in

00:26:22.300 in our communities and and with people uh supporting the the convoy and what the convoy

00:26:28.140 was was aiming to achieve you know um i've i've heard a lot of people reference it as

00:26:35.740 you know an anti-vax protest when when i you know i've heard from many who who were

00:26:42.300 affiliated or or participating and they are fully vaxxed they're not anti-vax at all they're they're

00:26:49.200 more pro-freedom so um so it's kind of yeah it's it's created a very strange perception i think

00:26:57.140 you're right a lot of people struggle to see the truth uh and to to hear the truth when it comes to

00:27:04.120 what is being heavily reported. And so, you know, independent journalists such as yourselves

00:27:12.200 and media that work free of the, you know, government funding, I think is, it's imperative

00:27:19.920 right now because, you know, it's an accountability piece that I think is, has been lacking in the

00:27:28.780 legacy media arena for for quite some time yeah i mean it was really sad to sort of um

00:27:39.340 to be witnessing one thing and to see you know our mainstream media reporting a completely

00:27:45.020 different thing like you know they had a lot of suspicion over one tent and this was sort

00:27:50.860 of the operations tent and it was supposed to be stockpiling cans of gas and things like that

00:27:56.460 well i mean i just walked up to the tent and walked in and there was no jerry cans it was a dj

00:28:04.380 right and so there was a lot of suspicion and there was photographs of police sort of helping

00:28:09.260 them set up this tent this operations tent well i mean this was just sort of the main stage where

00:28:15.740 speakers would come up and where they would play music at night uh you know so it was sort of

00:28:23.100 it was bizarre to see live sort of this you know this narrative that's pushed out basically these

00:28:31.720 are direct PMO talking points and to witness something completely different on the ground

00:28:37.720 and I mean were there were the mischievous characters was there bad characters was there

00:28:42.620 rowdy activity yeah absolutely it was a massive street party right there were firecrackers going

00:28:48.480 off in the streets there were people drinking you know absolutely all that happened but i mean did

00:28:54.320 i witness anything that was legitimately violent until police moved in no like i really didn't see

00:29:01.920 anything that that was i would say you know that made me feel unsafe until those last days and yeah

00:29:09.920 i was in the crowd you know i got pepper sprayed for videotaping i had you know sort of a you know

00:29:15.520 a police officer wearing a gas mask uh waving a baton on my face and i was within the red zone

00:29:23.360 as well i was staying within the red zone so that's the zone that was all chained off right

00:29:28.320 and uh you know the last day i didn't even come out of my hotel room because

00:29:32.880 people were reporting that if you go out you know you don't like to take pictures and things

00:29:37.360 so the last time i went out was um sunday during the day i went out i didn't go to

00:29:44.400 out at all monday until i left my hotel and i asked to leave sort of the red zone

00:29:49.680 but i mean that night when i went into my hotel like i was escorted out of that red zone by you

00:29:54.640 know two police with with guns i was told i couldn't take any any pictures of what was going

00:30:01.680 on in in that secured perimeter um so i mean that's pretty wild i mean i've got credentials

00:30:09.520 right like i've got a free press pass i'm just like can you point me to the nearest exit right

00:30:14.880 and they're like no no we have to escort you out of this you're in a secure area right so and i

00:30:21.040 mean is this what's what's sort of in the future of canada what point are we going to open up

00:30:25.040 parliament hill right and is this going to be used against future protests i mean we have a protest

00:30:30.560 building we've got you know freedom march we've got the soldier who's marching across canada right

00:30:36.080 now yes we do we're uh we're going to be covering that for sure yeah and i think he's going to get

00:30:42.320 a lot of support behind him and i think that he's going to end up getting a network and probably

00:30:47.760 people are going to end up crowdfunding his movement and a lot of people who got behind

00:30:53.200 the the trucker convoy are probably going to get behind this soldier who's decided to

00:30:57.840 march across canada for freedom so it's like you know is this emergency act going to be used

00:31:03.920 against this individual as well right yeah i mean we've we definitely have uh we definitely have

00:31:14.320 some coverage in store for sure uh you know of of how things are going to to roll out with this

00:31:21.120 emergent these emergencies act uh that's going to be affecting each and every one of us uh in

00:31:26.880 this country until it's lifted uh Andy what's next for you then are you are you going to continue

00:31:34.720 with your support of these movements what's next for for you yeah well I mean they can't really do

00:31:42.800 anything else right I mean I've been deplatformed um you know maybe my bank keys have been seized

00:31:50.640 in you know in sort of retribution so I mean at this point you know unless they're going to come

00:31:58.380 and arrest me as they say that they're going to retroactively do for supporters and that's a very

00:32:04.080 broad sort of statement to put out you know there's no definition as to what involvement

00:32:09.520 or participants are at this point so you know do I fall under that I don't know right am I

00:32:17.320 to get a call or a knock on my door potentially but i mean i'm going to keep on doing what what

00:32:22.440 i'm doing you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna stop or i'm not gonna be sort of cower in the

00:32:27.240 face of this regardless and i do intend to go and meet up with the soldier and uh and talk to him

00:32:35.160 as he makes his way to ottawa and uh you know get his story and maybe that's going to be the

00:32:41.160 the next movement right and is the government going to try to shut it down well we'll see right

00:32:47.080 they where do you put your where do you put your coverage andy where where do you where are your

00:32:51.240 stories where can people find you because twitter shut me down i opened a getter account so all my

00:32:57.320 stuff is on my getter right now i'm at the andy lee my name is the real andy lee because there's

00:33:03.320 some fake accounts that have popped up under my name and so we're about to get this shut down

00:33:08.520 and i just have a website it's called andyleevna.com uh you know i've got uh some stories on sort of

00:33:16.280 corporate and foreign malfeasance within our government uh you know some sort of chinese

00:33:21.800 communist party influence in our government is is what i specialize in uh you know i'm married 0.59

00:33:27.800 a hong konger my children are chinese so i have uh um you know i've got a lot invested uh you know

00:33:36.600 in you know hoping to see a free china uh you know and and uh you know free hong kong and

00:33:43.080 free time on and things like that so you know that sort of topic is is is really personally

00:33:48.760 close to my heart uh because of course what i've reported means that um i can probably

00:33:54.520 no longer safely visit hong kong or or china um as i used to um because of you know what what i sort

00:34:01.960 of uncovered so that's really sad that i can never take my children to see you know sort of

00:34:08.440 where they came from it's but that's that's the state so um so yeah so that's where you

00:34:15.000 guys can find me and i'm going to keep on writing and i'll keep on reporting we'll see what twitter

00:34:20.600 has to say there's still an appeal in the works and maybe they'll do the right thing and unleash

00:34:26.360 my account right yeah well i guess we will see uh maybe keep me posted let me know and let me know

00:34:32.600 if you when you get a little bit more information into what's happened with your accounts and

00:34:38.200 why they've been frozen maybe we'll touch base with you again here soon Andy and thanks very

00:34:43.560 much for joining me and and us and filling us in on you know some of those last days in Ottawa

00:34:50.200 and just sort of speaking to to your experience as a citizen journalist covering this and perhaps

00:34:57.160 the ramifications that you're facing for doing so but you know let's hope that's not going to

00:35:02.520 be the case and uh at least not for not very long lived yeah well i mean like i said i think we're

00:35:10.440 seeing them backtrack right they're very quickly saying that they're unfreezing accounts so it

00:35:16.200 didn't take them very long to to roll back those measures so uh you know the popular opinion is

00:35:22.600 that i'm going to go into my bank and show my id and my account will miraculously be unlocked

00:35:28.840 without explanation so we'll we'll see we'll see i'm gonna try to get in there i've got like about

00:35:34.840 an hour to get in there before it closes so thanks all right thanks for joining us that's

00:35:41.720 andy lee uh she's a citizen journalist and uh we were just checking in on her her experience

00:35:47.560 in ottawa covering the the the convoy the protests that were happening there over this last weekend

00:35:53.960 and thanks for joining us.

00:35:56.980 We will obviously have more coming

00:35:59.280 with how the Emergencies Act is going to unfold in Canada

00:36:03.840 and just keep it here.

00:36:05.540 We'll have all the news for you.

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Western Standard - February 23, 2022

WATCH： Citizen journalist covering Freedom Convoy has accounts frozen

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