If clicking on a link brings you to the wrong page of the comment thread, CLICK HERE to get to its current page.
UPDATE December 23, 2017: Please see the following post for the latest information: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2017/12/15/un-human-rights-complaint-quadruples-its-signatures/
UPDATE November 28, 2017:
Also, see MuzzledNoMore’s updated post, United Nations Human Rights Complaint: Seeking Advice and Additional Signatures
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UPDATE November 23, 2017:
UN Complaint Final July 29 2014 – updated links November 23 2017
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UPDATE JANUARY 10, 2017:
From MuzzledNoMore:
Just letting everybody know that we’re still waiting to hear from the UN about the status of our Complaint. With any luck we’ll have the matter taken care of within the next few months by the new Republican administration in Washington. Who knows? Maybe the UN is watching and waiting to see what happens as well. In any regard, the UN has informed us that it can take up to three years for a Complaint to reach the stage at which it will be considered or rejected.
If a “domestic” solution is possible, there will be no need for the UN to address the issue. When we filed the Complaint nearly two and a half years ago we could never have believed that repealing FATCA and switching to residence-based taxation would have made it to the 2016 Republican Party Platform. Now it remains to be seen if the party will follow through with its promises.
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UPDATE MAY 21, 2015:
Today we received official confirmation from the United Nations Human Rights Council that our Complaint has been received and is in the queue pending approval (or not) for admittance into one of the Working Groups. The next session of the Working Group on Communications is scheduled from 17 to 21 August 2015. Further information will be shared with us after that date.
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UPDATE NOVEMBER 6, 2014:
From MuzzledNoMore:
We have finally received confirmation that our Human Rights Complaint against the United States has been received by the United Nations. This is great news! But let’s not pop champagne corks just yet. There is no indication that the Complaint has been read or considered for acceptance into the complaints process in any way. That is all yet to come. But we have made a huge step forward! That deserves a few cheers all round … even without the bubbly!
UPDATE OCTOBER 27, 2014:
Permission has been given a university researcher to access to our UN Human Rights Complaint to analyze ethical assumptions on FATCA. That access will be used for academic purposes, content not to be released (as the UN has not yet acknowledged receipt of this UN Human Rights Complaint).
We view as a significant step that this document will be studied for moral dimensions and ethics. We continue to anticipate the time we will be able to publicly release contents of the Complaint, likely AFTER the next scheduled meeting to review such complaints, sometime in April 2015.
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UPDATE SEPTEMBER 10, 2014:
“JC” commented, and he’s right:
Whenever that text for the human rights complaint comes out that, I believe, will be a big help at raising awareness.
The text of the Human Rights Complaint will be published when we know the UN has received and considered it. There has been no confirmation that our submission was considered for the meeting in August (…our submission was sent just before the August meeting so, just by number of other submissions received before ours, our Human Rights Complaint may not have been considered in the time allotted). It looks like the next UN meeting to consider Human Rights Complaints is scheduled for April of 2015 — that Committee meets twice a year.
In the meantime, our fundraising must be pinned to its stand-alone legal claim and importance which absolutely addresses our human rights issues.
Donate Now: http://adcs-adsc.ca/
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August 7, 2014 UPDATE:
The Human Rights Complaint has been submitted. Thank you to those who worked on the document and made this happen. A very special thank you to all who came forward to put your names on this important document. We had a total of 41 signers, representing the countries of Canada, Germany, Japan, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland and Belgium.
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August 5, 2014 UPDATE:
Note: there is a confidentiality clause in the document that your name / nationality / country be kept confidential. My name and address will be the only one that might not be confidential. I wanted to share with you two notes waiting for me this morning:
Hi Carol,
I am very disappointed that more people did not come forward and sign this document, I do not understand why people are afraid to speak up for what they believe. People are so afraid of the bully acts of the USA, We must stand together, I am asking all people that the US government deem US citizens to step forward and stand up against the US and the Harper government for allowing FATCA into the Canadian banking system.
I am not on facebook or twitter. I give you permission to post this.
Disappointed
XXX
Hi Carol,
I am surprised that so few people have signed. This makes me uneasy. People must be frightened. Do you expect repercussions against the signers? At the moment I don’t have the strength to deal with any more troubles. Would you please put a hold on my name until I can evaluate your assessment of possible repercussions.
Thank you,
YYYY
I answered YYYY:
Absolutely. I can take your name off the list of signers if you are not comfortable with that — you must be OK with your decision. We will probably be sending the Complaint on Thursday, August 7th .
No, we don’t expect any repercussions against any of the signers. We will ask for confidentiality in one of the clauses.
As with everything else of this with this (persons on blogs, getting together for protest, etc.), people are afraid to step forward. The US weapon toward its people always is FEAR. That is what we see here. That is our biggest obstacle and what may defeat us in the end.
Dr. Stephen Kish, Chair of the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty signs his name on behalf of the millions of *US Persons* Abroad who are afraid to sign.
Thanks, YYYY.
FEAR: the most effective tool the USA has at its disposal is at work in all we see regarding US Persons Abroad coming forward in unison to fight the good fight. If anything defeats us, it will be our FEAR.
As you all know, I fear too for my son’s name to be out there as it is my duty as a parent to protect his best interests. Because of my own fear, I went through all the complex back US tax filings through use of professionals in the US compliance industry. That was my choice as I could absolutely not do it myself and I so wanted this behind me, to stop the leak of my hard-earned retirement funds to be passed to the US IRS. I’m still in this game. I replied to a commenter at Isaac Brock yesterday and Stephen Kish picked part of what I said to update the ADCS-ADSC Charter Challenge post yesterday:
UPDATE August 5, 2014 (http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/06/01/its-time/)
Carol, an ADCS-ADSC Board Director, explains why she donated to this lawsuit:
The purpose of the lawsuit, to me, is to stop the obscene injustice of all of this, regain rights waived by the Canadian government’s implementation of the US FATCA IGA, thereby putting the financial institutions before individuals and families who are being criminalized!
I’m in for that just as I’m on this blog, hoping people learn from all of the stupid mistakes I made along the way — I don’t want others to make those same mistakes.
It’s about people getting their lives back, along with their dignity and their mental and physical health and to stop the the handing over to the US a good portion of what they’ve saved for their retirements.
It is about wanting Canada to remain a sovereign country, not taken over by the USA. It’s about what I think is right and not wanting to silently stand by and let this happen. It’s because I believe in free speech and don’t want to be shamed into not speaking out, at this point especially for other families who have a family member with some developmental disability or some other ‘mental incapacity’.
My update for now and my regards to all,
August 2, 2014 UPDATE:
Thank you very much for everyone who has corresponded to me at calgaryfouroneone@gmail.com to request the password and give permission for your signatures to be added. Your supportive emails are wonderful.
He is what we have for signers to the Human Rights Document:
18 – Canada
2 – UK
1 – Australia
1 – Belgium (US/Dutch Citizen)
1 – Denmark
1 – Germany
1 – Japan
1 – Switzerland
Note that one of the Canadian signers is Dr. Stephen Kish (Canadian, US)–signing personally, and on behalf of the “Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty” Board of Directors, and the millions of U.S. persons living abroad who are too frightened to sign this document.
Also waiting to hear back from 4 in Canada (one from Quebec) and one from New Zealand.
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July 30, 2014 UPDATE:
Here is the FINAL Human Rights Complaint, available to those that are considering signing. To access the password for this document, contact and request from calgaryfouroneone@gmail.com.
Each person sending a request will receive a copy from calgary411 “in Confidence” with the CLEAR understanding that it is NOT to be published. For anyone who wants to have another person read/sign the document, that other person also needs to obtain it through the Isaac Brock Society or Maple Sandbox channels. Signatures will only be accepted from those who have gotten the document through calgary411. This stipulation is necessary to keep some lid on the proliferation of this information.
We will announce when we know the timing for the agency committee looking at this document for review. We will update on this post any feedback from the agency as it is received.
This document is the collaboration of contributors to both blogs and took over a month to write, discuss and edit in consensus with a group of 15 who have vetted and approved it in its entirety. It stands as presented to them. Bloggers can have their say but there will be no further changes to the document. It is what the agency says that matters.
Sign if you are in agreement and can do so by providing to calgaryfouroneone@gmail.com your name and your nationality and/or country of residence. The Human Rights Complaint will be submitted electronically. Submitters’ names and nationalities will be typed onto the lines provided on page 1. No physical signature is required.
If you are not comfortable with the document, you do not have to sign.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.
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Two dedicated individuals who participate at both the Isaac Brock Society and the Maple Sandbox blogs have prepared a comprehensive Human Rights Complaint that will be submitted on behalf of all *US Persons Abroad* the world over. Others offered suggestions on how that information should best be presented in the constraint of number of pages allowed for the Complaint. We appreciate the legal eye and suggestions for going forward with this Complaint from Professor Allison Christians.
The document now complete, I have been asked to post an announcement on their behalf. Unfortunately, because of their personal situations, they cannot lend their names to the document and this will be the end of Phase I, produced for all of us, with their great care.
I so appreciate the incredible work that has gone into this on behalf of all of us. Here is what they say:
A group of writers from the Isaac Brock Society and Maple Sandbox blogs has prepared a document that challenges citizenship-based taxation (CBT) as a violation of internationally recognized human rights. This document will be submitted as a formal complaint to a major international human rights organization within the next ten days.
Any readers who would like to support this effort by “co-signing” (having their names added to the list of those filing the complaint) should so indicate by sending an email to: calgaryfouroneone@gmail.com.
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The Canadian writers of the complaint hope to make this a truly international effort. Bloggers from all over the world are welcome to lend their names to this historic document. Signers do not have to be US Persons.****************
Signers should feel comfortable with using their own names (pseudonyms are unacceptable in this instance) and should provide their nationality and/or country of residence as well.
@Muzzled No More
This isn’t a reference to our complaint, but see this from point 5.308 as quoted below re “: “Respect international human rights obligations regarding the right to privacy when…..collecting personal data or requiring disclosure of personal data from third parties.”
quoted from
” 5.308. Respect international human rights obligations regarding the right to privacy when intercepting digital communications of individuals, collecting personal data or requiring disclosure of personal data from third parties (Germany)”
Excerpted from:
http://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/document/united_states/session_22_-_may_2015/a_hrc_wg.6_22_l.10.pdf
linked from the article you mentioned;
‘UN Issues Scathing Assessment of U.S. Human Rights Record’
Jamil Dakwar
Director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program
This could be useful in making the Human Rights complaint re the right to privacy. See this paper :
Solove, Daniel J., ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, p. 745, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565
It delineates details that break down privacy issues into different categories. The author refers to it as a “taxonomy” of privacy – and I think it applies to our situation. It shows that what we lose under FATCA and FBAR is actually far deeper and more complex an injury than what most people (and governments) deflect and dismiss when they pretend that if we had “nothing to hide” we’d have nothing to fear, to lose or to complain about.
See for example, page 758;
”
Information Collection
Surveillance
Interrogation
Information Processing
Aggregation
Identification
Insecurity
Secondary Use
Exclusion
Information Dissemination
Breach of Confidentiality
Disclosure
Exposure
Increased Accessibility
Blackmail
Appropriation
Distortion
Invasion
Intrusion
Decisional Interference
The taxonomy has four general categories of privacy problems with sixteen different subcategories. The first general category is information collection, which involves the ways that data is gathered about people. The subcategories, surveillance and interrogation, represent the two primary problematic ways of gathering information. A privacy problem occurs when an activity by a person, business, or government entity creates harm by disrupting valuable activities of others. These harms need not be physical or emotional; they can occur by chilling socially beneficial behavior (for example, free speech and association) or by leading to power imbalances that adversely affect social structure (for example, excessive executive power).
The second general category is information processing. This involves the storing, analysis, and manipulation of data. There are a number of problems that information processing can cause, and I included five subcategories in my taxonomy. For example, one problem that I label insecurity results in increasing people’s vulnerability to potential abuse of their information.57 The problem that I call exclusion involves people’s inability to access and have any say in the way their data is used.58………………….”
Greetings Isaac Brock People,
Today is July 4th, which means people living in a police state in the middle part of North America are celebrating the events of almost two and a half centuries ago, when the founders of their country fought to become free of the oppressive rule of a faraway country that refused to let them go.
Speaking of which – my own struggle to become free of the oppressive rule of a faraway country that refuses to let me go continues. I applied for a CLN in Vientiane, Laos, on January 15 of this year, and I can no longer even get the US embassy there to respond to my emails. From 1964 to 1973, the US government successfully bombed Laos on average more than 30,000 times every six months, but today, producing a piece of paper within six months seems to be a bit too much for them.
Any way to accelerate this process?
Struggling to be free . . .
KV
KV – Good luck with getting your CLN. It is increasing in value every day. I expect the back log to become huge over the next few years. Hopefully yours is on the way. Keep writing the embassy and maybe even call them. Being persistent cant hurt anything.
@KV, the date you renounced or the past date of your relinquishment is THE date you became a FREE-PERSON.
A CLN is simply a piece of paper, freedom is a state of mind.
The CLN does not grant you your freedom.
@George,
The rights of free people, in the form of banking services, seem to be granted only to those who can *prove* they are free 🙁
Greetings @KV
The wait time for a CLN varies from country to country, consulate to consulate. Yours is our first report from Laos (that I know of) and we’re all wishing that CLN godspeed to your hand. I don’t know which desk at the Dept. of State deals with CLNs from your region but @pacifica777 might be able to give you a phone number to try there. If she misses your comment here, her e-mail is pacifica@isaacbrocksociety.ca or if that doesn’t work try Pacifica.isaacbrocksociety@gmail.com
@EmBee
OK, thanks for the information.
The embassy person seemed mostly reasonable, although he repeatedly referred to the “service”, for which there is a hefty charge; a bit like the charge one has to pay to US mafia groups for the “service” of not burning your building down.
There was a request for additional information some months ago; I am claiming relinquishment in January of 2014, based on an affirmation of allegiance, signed, sworn, notarised, with an accompanying statement of intent regarding retention/relinquishment of US citizenship. (I take it I don’t need to mention what that statement said?) This act satisfies all requirements of INA 349(a)(2); the problem is, it may not satisfy the made-up laws in the state department manual. For this reason, just to be sure, I took the renunciation oath on January 15 of this year. The paperwork documented both acts. I even travelled to the US in June of 2014, using a “foreign” passport; my US birthplace was either not noticed, or ignored, at immigration, which passed quite smoothly – more smoothly then it often was when entering as a US citizen. This use of a “foreign” passport to enter the US was noted in the paperwork submitted.
@KV,
Department of State Telephone Directory
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/112065.pdf
The office in Washington that handles CLNs for East Asia and Pacific Division is on Page OD-17 of the current telephone directory:
Office of American Citizens Services, East Asia Pacific (EAP),
Division Chief(EAP) Tonya Gendin, 202-485-6261
You can also access the Dept of State Telephone Directory through the Sidebar box “Important Information,” “State Dept Forms, Manuals, Contact Info.”
@pacifica777
Thanks!
Left a voice mail, so far the response is the one I was expecting
I will meet with the Irish ambassador soon, but I don’t think the Useless Snakes of America (to whomever came up with that one – my apologies for usurping your creation, but I can’t remember who you are) are afraid of the Irish ambassador.
Good luck @KV. Hope your struggle is over soon and a CLN in your hand.
@George
“A CLN is simply a piece of paper, freedom is a state of mind.
The CLN does not grant you your freedom.”
Try telling that to a bank.
I hope we hear about our human rights complaint lodged at the UN.
This doesn’t relate to our complaint directly, but it is interesting nevertheless. I wonder if the “substantive review” will include all outstanding complaints that reference Canada? If so, would ours be within the scope of the review?
‘Canada’s Human Rights Record Under UN Review For First Time Since 2006’
The Huffington Post Canada | By Zi-Ann Lum
Posted: 07/06/2015 2:10 pm EDT Updated: 07/07/2015 10:59 am EDT
“Canada’s human rights record will be under the microscope at the United Nations this week in the first substantive review since Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power in 2006.
Several of the country’s most high-profile advocacy groups are in Geneva to participate in UN Human Rights Committee hearings over a three-day period. Among them is Canada Without Poverty, an Ottawa-based charity that leans on using human rights and international law to advocate for impoverished and homeless Canadians.
Subject to an on-going political-activity audit for the past three years, the group has been under continuous risk of losing its charitable status. CWP’s executive director Leilani Farha told The Huffington Post Canada the federal government has used the Canada Revenue Agency to act “with a vengeance” against the organization and others similar to it.”…………
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/06/canada-un-human-rights_n_7737376.html
From same article above:
“…Canada’s human rights record was reviewed on an international level in 2005; a final report was tabled by UNHRC in 2006.
A Canadian Human Rights Commission spokesperson told The Huffington Post Canada it could not provide the names of diplomats, ministers, and MPs participating in the country’s delegation because it acts independently from the government and is not privileged to that information.
The UNHRC is scheduled to discuss its findings at a news conference on July 23.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/06/canada-un-human-rights_n_7737376.html
06 July 2015
“…….Joe Cannataci is UN’s first ever Special Rapporteur on Privacy
Professor Joe Cannataci, Head of the Department of Information Policy & Governance in the Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences at the University of Malta, has been appointed Special Rapporteur on Privacy by the UN’s Human Rights Council during its meeting in Geneva on Friday 3 July, 2015. This is the first time that the UN has appointed a Special Rapporteur for Privacy…”……..
…..”Prof. Cannataci has a long and distinguished career in privacy-related issues. Between 1992 and 1998 he was first Vice-Chairman and then Chairman of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on Data Protection. He has held or currently holds research grants from the British Academy, the Council of Europe, COST, UNESCO and the European Commission. He has written books and articles on data protection law, liability for expert systems, legal aspects of medical informatics, copyright in computer software and co-authored various papers and textbook chapters on self-regulation and the Internet, the EU Constitution and data protection, on-line dispute resolution, data retention and police data. His latest book “The Individual & Privacy” was published by Ashgate in March 2015. Since 2011, together with colleagues within the Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences and especially those within the Department of Cognitive Science, Prof. Cannataci has designed and won several bids for privacy-related research projects, attracting over two million Euro in European Union’s 7th Framework and Horizon2020 programme funding to the University of Malta…..”……
http://www.um.edu.mt/newsoncampus/features
See profile and contact information:
https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/josephcannataci
Thanks for these comments and information, badger.
Related:
https://twitter.com/alexneveamnesty
and
https://twitter.com/hashtag/CanadaExposed?src=hash
This seems worthy of support – I’ve signed the petition.
http://voices-voix.ca/en/about
Send Us Facts
Has the government tried to silence you or your organization, or others you know of? Has it targeted you or your organization for speaking up? Has it interfered with your access to knowledge from public institutions?
Disrespect for the rights to dissent and advocacy has serious implications for our democracy, including consequences for free speech, transparency and equality. Help the Voices-Voix Coalition hold the government to account. Send us the facts!
Click on contact, or download the form below and send it to: communications at voices-voix.ca
Note: Submissions are anonymous. We fact-check and edit any information you send. We reserve the right to not publish material that is insufficiently relevant to our mandate.
voices-voix-form.doc
http://petition.voices-voix.ca/en/sign-the-petition
http://voices-voix.ca/sites/voices-voix.ca/files/dismantlingdemocracy_voicesvoix.pdf
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http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/06/12/its-official-second-class-citizenship-goes-into-effect/comment-page-2/#comment-6245902
@ badger
Would you and MuzzledNoMore consider collaborating on sending Joe Cannataci a letter outlining the serious privacy issues of FATCA? I can’t think of two better heads to tackle this one and it would be wonderful to get this man onside.
@Embee, I think that a copy of the materials sent to the UN re the human rights complaint should be forwarded to Cannataci, along with info about the ADCS lawsuit to let him know that this is a serious and significant issue of privacy and human rights – which will be eventually heard by Canada’s highest court. Including the report http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2433198 which Prof. Arthur Cockfield ( http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=117948) was commissioned to prepare by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada https://www.priv.gc.ca/resource/cp/2013-2014/p_201314_02_e.asp would assist in conveying to him the legitimacy and significance of the privacy issues that US FATCA has created for Canada and the rest of the world. Cannataci may be interested in several of the papers by Cockfield that centre on related privacy issues http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=117948#reg
@ badger
Great! Who would you suggest to do this?
…except that the UN confirmation pointed out the *confidentiality* of all that material at this point.
I do think, though, that the subject of PRIVACY as it pertains to Canadian human rights (and the rights of other countries) could be highlighted outside of our UN Human Rights Complaint submission, which is mainly (I believe) a complaint against the US.
@ calgary411
Well maybe Prof. Cockfield could be asked to send his reports to Prof. Cannataci. Could someone on the ADCS board do this?
Finally a chance to chime in here! Thank you all for the suggestions above. I would love to work with you, badger, on sending something to Mr. Cannataci. We can’t send him a copy of the Complaint because of our confidentiality “agreement” with the UN but we could certainly inform him about our case.
I am currently editing a collection of supporting evidence for our Complaint that I will ask Calgary to send off to the UN. It is my assumption that we will receive some sort of “first reading” the week of August 17 although, frankly, the message we received from the UN was confusing. (So what else is new?)
KV, I have added your story about your consulate troubles to the document if that’s OK. The supporting evidence consists entirely of personal stories of ill-treatment such as yours that have occurred since the filing of our Complaint last August.
@MuzzledNoMore
Sure, no problem, feel free to include me. I’m not Canadian (Irish), but we are certainly facing the same issues. Had I known about the human rights complaint last year, I would have been glad to put my name on it.
For what it’s worth, I face something of an additional difficulty – US tax forms are due on April 15. I filed for an extension, so I have until October 15. The forms need to be filled out one way if the state department recognises my INA 349(a)(2) relinquishment in 2014, and a different way if they don’t, in which case my INA 349(a)(5) renunciation in 2015 would come into effect. So if the state department doesn’t want to issue my CLN and tell me whether they’re recognising the 2014 relinquishment by the tax filing deadline, then the US tax laws require me to predict what the state department is likely to do in the future. Lacking a time machine, I am unable to do this.
People say the US doesn’t make anything anymore, but it is the world’s leading producer of enemies – it makes more of them than any other country in the world.
If you want additional information, feel free to contact me at the burner email isaacbrockburner@gmail.com, and I’ll give a real email address (I just don’t want to post the real one on the internet).
Cheers,
KV
I’m noting here Eric’s excellent piece analyzing the very recent State Department updates to “.. 7 FAM 1260, the section of the Foreign Affairs Manual which discusses procedures for renunciation of U.S. citizenship.”…” http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/07/10/major-updates-to-foreign-affairs-manual-on-u-s-citizenship-renunciation-procedures/ because it contains this point;
“……..the update disallows attorneys from being present for either interview, even if the renunciant does not speak English and needs a witness. State claims this is necessary to allow them to ascertain the person’s “free will”………..”.
This may also be additional valuable evidence to demonstrate to the UN that the US government barriers being erected against expatriations are being deliberately made more and more difficult – including depriving people of a witness, a translator and the presence of legal counsel in a situation in which so much is at stake.
The US is heavily invested in preventing people from exercising their right to renounce, and in depriving them of necessary tools/support to do so, and in generating significant income from the renunciation fee of 2350.
How far will they go?