Roger Ver keeps attention on Ross Ulbricht case

'Bitcoin Jesus' Preaches Libertarian Gospel of Crypto & Crack Cocaine - P.H. Madore, CCN:

May 11, 2019 - "Roger Ver took to YouTube to read another letter from Ross Ulbricht, creator of the first darknet market using Bitcoin. The libertarian idealist used the opportunity to rail against the war on drugs.... Ver – once nicknamed 'Bitcoin Jesus' for his rabid crypto evangelism –  is more recently best known as a major proponent of Bitcoin Cash, which he views as remaining more faithful to the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto than Bitcoin....

"Ulbricht ... is currently serving a [double] life sentence in federal prison for his role in providing a safe place for people to buy and sell drugs online. Some have argued that Silk Road created the first real demand for Bitcoin, which was the only currency used on the website....

"After reading the letter, Roger Ver unleashed an emotional monologue about the war on drugs, of which he believes Ross Ulbricht is an unfortunate victim. He presented a boilerplate libertarian stance that drugs should not be illegal, in any form....

And just because some people get together and write some words down on paper and call it a law, that doesn’t alter morality one bit. And if people have the right to drink alcohol, they have the right to smoke marijuana – they have the right to smoke crack. Because their lives and their bodies belong to them and their lives and their bodies don’t belong to the politicians or the police officers or any of these other people....

"Ulbricht never sold drugs himself. The most involvement in the drug trade Ulbricht had was trying to grow mushrooms. Even so, he received the harshest sentence out of anyone ever arrested related to darknet markets.

"Governments worldwide have gone the opposite route from what Roger Ver and libertarians might prefer. Recently, DeepDotWeb, a clear net site devoted to the underworld of the web, was shut down and its domain seized. At least two of its operators have so far been arrested. This follows the capture of the proprietors of Wall Street Market, which had recently exit scammed.

"A substantial darknet bust coincided with the closure of Dream Market, leading some to speculate the events were correlated.

"In theory, it’s challenging to track users on the dark web and transactions made using certain privacy-enhancing technologies like cryptocurrency. The reality is that law enforcement often gets a big boost when it compromises just one or two individuals."

Read more and watch video: https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-jesus-preaches-libertarian-gospel-of-crypto-crack-cocaine
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Libertarians request pardon for Ross Ulbricht

Libertarian Party Urges Trump to Pardon Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht - CCN:

July 10,2017 - "The Libertarian Party has requested [that] President Trump grant a full pardon to Ross Ulbricht, who is serving a [double] life sentence with no parole possibility for his role in launching and operating the Silk Road website, which facilitated illegal drug trading. The party passed a resolution urging the pardon at its annual convention on July 3.

"On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court ... denied Ulbricht’s petition for writ of certiorari, which prevents him from appealing his sentence before the court.

"'We’re opposed to the drug war in all of its forms,' Richard Fields, the press secretary of the party’s national committee, told CCN.com. 'Ultimately, that’s what Ulbricht was convicted for'.... Ulbricht’s attorneys indicated the prosecution withheld evidence that DEA agents involved in Ulbricht’s apprehension were convicted of malfeasance, Fields further noted.

"Just recently, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States setting a precedent that warrantless search of Ulbricht’s Internet traffic would not have been allowed had the case been decided prior to his trial, he added. That alone should be grounds for a pardon.

"Darryl Perry, chair of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, presented the pardon resolution at the party’s recent convention. An attendee noted that because Ulbricht’s appeal to the Supreme Court was denied the previous week, his only hope of walking out of prison a free man is via a pardon.

"'We need to send a clear message now, and in two years, and in two more years we need to keep sending this message that we have a political prisoner who is serving two life sentences plus 40 years for the crime of running a website, being a libertarian and being unapologetic about doing those two things,' an attendee commented prior to the vote on the resolution, according to a YouTube video of the proceedings. The convention unanimously passed the resolution....

"Ulbricht claimed his Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated during both the investigation and the sentencing. He also claimed law enforcement officials gathered Internet traffic information without a required warrant during the investigation. He further claimed the judge issued an unreasonable sentence that was partly based on allegations he tried to hire a hit man, for which he was never even charged.

"Amicus curia briefs were filed by 20 organizations supporting Ulbricht’s petition. Supporters included the Reason Foundation, a libertarian organization, as well as the National Lawyers Guild and the Gun Owners of America.

"Thomas Knapp, director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, noted on the organization’s website that Ulbricht’s trial was unfair since the defense was not provided information on the government’s investigative methods nor allowed to provide an alternative view about the identity of the Silk Road operator known as 'Dread Pirate Roberts.' Nor could the defense bring up the fact that two government agents investigating Silk Road were imprisoned for their corrupt activities."

Read more: https://www.ccn.com/libertarian-party-urges-trump-to-pardon-silk-board-founder-ross-ulbricht/
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Reason subpoena shows where real threat lies

Reason Magazine Subpoena Stomps on Free Speech - Bloomberg View - Virgina Postrel:

June 9, 2015 - "Los Angeles legal blogger Ken White has obtained a grand jury subpoena issued to Reason.com, the online home of the libertarian magazine I edited throughout the 1990s. The subpoena seeks information about commenters who posted in response to an article by the site’s editor Nick Gillespie about the letter that Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht wrote to Judge Katherine B. Forrest before she sentenced him to life in prison without parole.... In it, Ulbricht expressed the libertarian ideals he said animated his creation of Silk Road -- the same ideals that Reason upholds. The portion Gillespie reproduced reads:

I created Silk Road because I thought the idea for the website itself had value, and that bringing Silk Road into being was the right thing to do. I believed at the time that people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they wanted so long as they weren’t hurting anyone else.[...] Silk Road was supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness, however they individually saw fit.[...]

"Judge Forrest handed down a sentence even more draconian than prosecutors had sought and made a point of condemning Ulbricht’s political views.... Whatever you think of Ulbricht or Silk Road, you can see why libertarians might be upset. A federal judge has just made the belief that it’s good for people to have 'the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness, however they individually saw fit' part of her justification for the most punitive sentence short of the death penalty....

"Reason commenters, who often sound like drunk teenage boys trying to one-up each other, ... were furious and, in their fury, some of them got nasty. 'Its judges like these that should be taken out back and shot,' wrote Agammamon. 'Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly. Especially if you feed them in feet first,' responded croaker. 'I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman,' commented Rhywun. 'I'd prefer a hellish place on Earth be reserved for her as well,' chimed in ProductPlacement. (Reason has since removed the offending comments.)

"No one in their right mind would take this hyperbolic venting seriously as threatening Judge Forrest.... Venting anger about injustice is not a crime. Neither is being obnoxious on the Internet. The chances of one of these commenters being convicted of threatening the judge are essentially nil. Conviction isn’t the point. Crying 'threats' just makes a handy pretext for harassing Reason and its commenters....

"The real threats aren’t coming from the likes of Agammamon and croaker. They’re coming from civil servants in suits. Subpoenaing Reason’s website records, wasting its staff’s time and forcing it to pay legal fees in hopes of imposing even larger legal costs (or even a plea bargain or two) on the average Joes who dared to voice their dissident views in angry tones sends an intimidating message: It’s dangerous not just to create something like Silk Road. It’s dangerous to defend it, and even more dangerous to attack those who would punish its creator."

Read more: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-09/reason-magazine-subpoena-stomps-on-free-speech
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Silk Road and Socrates

Ross is Our Socrates - Jeffrey Tucker - Liberty.me:

May 30, 2015 - "There is not an informed lover of liberty and progress who was not shaken by the life sentence handed down to Ross Ulbricht, visionary web developer and now martyr. The judge’s words were chilling in the extreme.

"'The stated purpose [of the Silk Road] was to be beyond the law. In the world you created over time, democracy didn’t exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts,' said Judge Katherine Forrest.... 'Silk Road’s birth and presence asserted that its … creator was better than the laws of this country. This is deeply troubling, terribly misguided, and very dangerous.'

"Why so dangerous? Most people on the Silk Road bought pot, before it became legal in many big cities. Others got medications that are legal in Canada and Mexico but not yet approved by the FDA [Food and Drug Administration], that decrepit bureaucracy controlled by big pharma. Others bought IDs to get around preposterous drinking laws that are tighter than any nation outside Saudi Arabia. For so many people, the service Ross created as a source for personal liberation from a deeply oppressive regime. Testimonials to this effect have been appearing all over the Internet.

"But, no, said the judge, what Ross made possible was 'terribly destructive to our social fabric.' Therefore, he must stand as an example to others. The state rules. Never doubt it. Never question it. The law of the land reigns supreme. If you think otherwise, you are the enemy to be destroyed.

"We think we are enlightened. No we are not. We read about the trial of Socrates. Every school kid does. What were they thinking, killing such a great mind? And why? For corrupting the youth with dangerous ideas, and daring to question the state religion. Those ancients were so despotic, so disregarding of essential human rights....

"But here we are, with a peaceful, brilliant, fascinating young man condemned to die in prison for being ahead of his time. We never learn. Or rather: the state never learns. In some ways, this institution is the same in all times and all places. It is not the light. It is the darkness, the unteachable, the inflexible, the ignorant, the past....

"There is no longer a hot war on philosophers, Christians, usurers, witches, abolitionists, homosexuals, liquor manufacturers, and race mixers. The war on pot, still raging when Ross opened his marketplace, is pretty well spent just a few years later. But we still have a war on underage drinkers, hackers, prostitutes, medicine distributors, narcotics manufacturers, and so on....

"Ross Ulbricht did not follow a conventional route to martyrdom, but in his role as the chosen target of a regime that wants to maintain control, he follows in a long line. He is our Socrates, our Oscar Wilde, our Rosa Parks. Think of the bigger picture. Think of the long term. Despite every appearance, the state does not rule. Progress has only been possible by rending its 'social fabric' asunder, again and again in every age.

"In our times, the paradigm is shifting. We have tools that leap beyond borders and beyond the physical realm itself, technology that fundamentally challenges the structure and character of how we are ruled or if we are ruled at all. This defines our times. Freedom will be ours. Let us never forget our rebels, our heroes, the men and women of courage and vision who made it possible."

Read more: https://tucker.liberty.me/ross-is-our-socrates/
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DOJ subpoenas Reason for commenters' IDs

Feds Subpoena Libertarian Media Site Over Comments Threatening Silk Road Judge - Forbes - Kate Vinton:

June 9, 2015 - "The Department of Justice issued a grand jury subpoena to Reason.com last week, asking the libertarian media site for the identities of six readers who had posted comments threatening Silk Road Judge Katherine Forrest.

"Blogger Ken White obtained the subpoena and published it in a post on popehat.com on Monday. The subpoena asked Reason.com to provide the government with account information, email addresses, telephone numbers, IP addresses, billing information and associated devices for six Reason.com readers. These readers had issued threatening statements against Forrest, a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York who presided over the trial of Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. The threats appeared in response to a post describing how Forrest had sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison for running the online drug marketplace on May 29, 2015.

"In the subpoena, the government cited a violation to U.S. Code Title 18 Section 875, which prohibits 'transmitting any communication in interstate or foreign commerce containing a threat to injure the person of another.' This law has been applied to cyberbullying, stalking and threats transmitted over the Internet. In his post, White argues that the comments are not 'true threats' outside of First Amendment protection because they don’t present an actual plan to commit violence. As such, a subpoena is not warranted and would be of the grand jury’s 'nearly unchecked' power.

The six comments listed in the subpoena build on each other, with escalating threats of violence against Forrest. A reader with the username 'Agammamon' wrote, 'Its judges like these that should be taken out back and shot.' A couple hours later, reader 'Alan' responded, 'It’s judges like these that will be taken out back and shot.' The six comments no longer appear on on the Reason.com post, although other comments by the same readers remain."

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2015/06/09/feds-subpoena-libertarian-media-site-over-comments-threatening-silk-road-judge/

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Silk Road trial sparks jury-rights campaign in NYC

Jury rights activists rally in NYC around Silk Road trial - National Libertarian news | Examiner.com - Garry Read:

January 3, 2015 - "The trial of Ross Ulbricht, accused by the federal government of running the Silk Road 'dark web' site on the Internet, kicks off on Monday, January 5, in New York City. Libertarians see the trial as yet another unjust victimless crime prosecution.

"Jury rights activist James Babb issued a press release Friday announcing a month-long jury nullification campaign in the area around the US courthouse in Manhattan to coincide with the Ulbricht trial. The protest will feature large phone kiosk advertising posters in the area while an army of activists distribute nullification pamphlets in an effort to educate people about their rights and responsibilities as jurors.

"A grassroots Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign launched in December and scheduled to run through February 5 has already raised more than their target goal. 'Early support has come from libertarians and redditors,' George Donnelly of the Jury Rights Project/NYC explained on the Indiegogo site. Because of that six kiosk jury nullification posters are already prominently posted, ringing the area around the courthouse.

"While the immediate goal is to support Ulbricht the long range objective is to end victimless crimes prosecutions in the city in 2015. Many Libertarian News Examiner readers will remember that former Penn State professor Dr. Julian Heicklen was repeatedly arrested and sent to jail or to psychiatric hospitals for distributing Fully Informed Jury Association outreach pamphlets at this same Manhattan courthouse.

"The 30-year-old Ross Ulbricht faces life in prison as the alleged creator and operator of 'Silk Road,' an 'illicit online marketplace' that was shut down by the feds in 2013. Silk Road, according to the libertarian Reason Magazine, was a secretive 'darknet' site operated as an online commerce website like Amazon or Yelp where people around the world could anonymously buy and sell non-legal drugs and have them delivered to their door by their country's postal service."

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/jury-rights-activists-rally-nyc-around-silk-road-trial
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Libertarian economics behind Silk Road website

Libertarian economics underpinned Silk Road Bitcoin drug website - FT.com - John Aglionby:

October 3, 2013 - "The goods and services traded on the semi-secretive website Silk Road since February 2011 with the virtual currency Bitcoins were so varied that the Federal Bureau of Investigation described it as 'the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet today'.

"Its philosophical underpinnings, however, were ... according to the FBI complaint published on Wednesday after the site was shut down, 'Austrian economic theory' and the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, economists closely associated with the Mises Institute, in the US state of Alabama.

"The libertarian institute’s website says it 'seeks to advance the Misesian tradition of thought through the defence of the market economy, private property, sound money and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive'.

"Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road’s alleged founder who was arrested on Wednesday and allegedly made millions of dollars from running the trading site, had a user profile on the Mises Institute site and linked to the website, and cited the economists’ work in Silk Road forum postings, the FBI complaint said."

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c1f0f78-2c17-11e3-acf4-00144feab7de.html#axzz2grWVCfoC
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FBI arrests alleged Silk Road webmaster

How the feds took down the Dread Pirate Roberts - Nate Anderson and Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica:

October 3, 2013 - "The Dread Pirate Roberts, head of the most brazen drug trafficking site in the world, was a walking contradiction. Though the government says he raked in $80 million in commissions from running Silk Road, he allegedly lived under a false name in one bedroom of a San Francisco home that he shared with two other guys and for which he paid $1,000 a month in cash. Though his alleged alter ego penned manifestos about ending "violence, coercion, and all forms of force," the FBI claims that he tried to arrange a hit on someone who had blackmailed him. And though he ran a site widely assumed to be under investigation by some of the most powerful agencies in the US government, the Dread Pirate Robert appears to have been remarkably sloppy — so sloppy that the government finally put a name to the peg leg: Ross William Ulbricht.

 "Yesterday, Ulbricht left his apartment to visit the Glen Park branch of the San Francisco Public Library in the southern part of the city. Library staff did not recognize him as a regular library patron, but they thought nothing of his visit as he set up his laptop in the science fiction section of the stacks. Then, at 3:15pm, staffers heard a "crashing sound" from the sci-fi collection and went to investigate, worried that a patron had fallen. Instead, library Communications Director Michelle Jeffers tells us that the staff came upon 'six to eight' FBI agents arresting Ulbricht and seizing his laptop. The agents had tailed him, waiting for the 29-year-old to open his computer and enter his passwords before swooping in."

 Read more: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-took-down-the-dread-pirate-roberts/

Interview with a digital drug lord - Forbes

An Interview With A Digital Drug Lord: The Silk Road's Dread Pirate Roberts (Q&A) } Forbes )  | Andy Greenberg:

August 14, 2013 - "Most black market drug lords don’t give interviews. But the Dread Pirate Roberts isn’t most drug lords. His website, the Silk Road, is designed to allow anyone to buy and sell drugs with the crypto-currency Bitcoin, using the anonymity software Tor to protect their identity. And those same anonymity protections have made Roberts confident enough in his security that he’s been willing to write about his illicit business under his pseudonym on Silk Road’s user forums and even give short comments to reporters in the past.

"Now he’s gone much further. For a magazine profile in the current issue, Roberts engaged Forbes in his first ever extended interview. Over the course of five hours on July 4th, the Dread Pirate answered my questions – all routed through Tor and the Silk Road’s messaging system – on topics ranging from the Silk Road’s history to the site’s business model to his own personal details and motivations. Though [the] dark web entrepreneur was unsurprisingly tightlipped on any information that might even remotely help law enforcement identify him, he did offer a few new revelations: The fact that he’s not actually the founder of the Silk Road, the possibility that the Silk Road may re-introduce weapon sales to the site, and his only-half-joking asking price to acquire the business. (Don’t insult him with bids less than a billion dollars.)

"Here’s the full, slightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-interview-with-a-digital-drug-lord-the-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts-qa/