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U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

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Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#41

Post by Genbox »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #18
str3wer wrote: post #14

[flagged]

> He was never prosecuted for causing harm or bodily injury and no victim was named at trial. didn't he pay for a would-have-been hit to get somebody killed but it was actually an FBI agent (aka he got set up and fell for the trap)? > Ross was not convicted of selling drugs or illegal items himself, but was held responsible for what others sold on the site. isn't that arguably worse? he helped people in a lot of coun…

> isn't that arguably worse? he helped people in a lot of countries break the law (created a place where illegal sales can be facilitated)

The logic is not sound.

1. If someone started selling drugs using someones GitHub/GitLab issue tracker, would the project owner be accountable? I understand that Ross was likely well aware about the drug sales on his website, but saying someone is facilitating the activities because they own the place is not a great argument in isolation.

2. What is illigal is very different different from country to country. A majority of the sales on Silk Road was marihuana, which is now legal in a 21 US states and decriminalized in 10 others. There are countries where it has never been illigal. Personal posession of AR-15 is legal in the USA, but illigal in a lot of other countries. Suffice to say that it is pretty subjective.

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#42

Post by SamPatt »

mike_d wrote: post #39
SamPatt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>didn't he pay for a would-have-been hit to get somebody killed but it was actually an FBI agent (aka he got set up and fell for the trap)? I don't know, did he? The government dropped those charges, and then when his defense team tried to present evidence defending him from those allegations (note that two federal agents eventually went to jail for their corruption during this case) the judge wouldn't allow them to…

> for non-violent crimes I get that a lot of people like to smoke weed and maybe do mushrooms at Coachella, but not all drugs are the same. Silkroad and other darknet markets sell everything from date rape drugs to fentanyl. Framing it as facilitating a harmless or victimless crime is disingenuous. Not to mention the ancillary services that often pop up like counterfeit documents, money laundering services, guides an…

Silk Road had rules against selling certain things, which included tools for fraud.

Drugs shouldn't be illegal. Prohibition has always failed.

Regardless, he didn't commit violence. The distinction between violent and non-violent crime is a meaningful one, and I strongly oppose his life sentencing.

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#43

Post by 988747 »

SamPatt wrote: post #42
mike_d wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for non-violent crimes I get that a lot of people like to smoke weed and maybe do mushrooms at Coachella, but not all drugs are the same. Silkroad and other darknet markets sell everything from date rape drugs to fentanyl. Framing it as facilitating a harmless or victimless crime is disingenuous. Not to mention the ancillary services that often pop up like counterfeit documents, money laundering services, guides an…

Silk Road had rules against selling certain things, which included tools for fraud. Drugs shouldn't be illegal. Prohibition has always failed. Regardless, he didn't commit violence. The distinction between violent and non-violent crime is a meaningful one, and I strongly oppose his life sentencing.

[dead]

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#44

Post by mike_d »

SamPatt wrote: post #42
mike_d wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for non-violent crimes I get that a lot of people like to smoke weed and maybe do mushrooms at Coachella, but not all drugs are the same. Silkroad and other darknet markets sell everything from date rape drugs to fentanyl. Framing it as facilitating a harmless or victimless crime is disingenuous. Not to mention the ancillary services that often pop up like counterfeit documents, money laundering services, guides an…

Silk Road had rules against selling certain things, which included tools for fraud. Drugs shouldn't be illegal. Prohibition has always failed. Regardless, he didn't commit violence. The distinction between violent and non-violent crime is a meaningful one, and I strongly oppose his life sentencing.

> The distinction between violent and non-violent crime is a meaningful one

Consider someone who knowingly brokered a sale of baby formula that they knew was tainted with rat poison and killed dozens of children, would you consider that a non-violent crime that deserves leniency in sentencing?

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#45

Post by bdcravens »

str3wer wrote: post #14

[flagged]

He (or his admins) created the categories, many of which have the reasonable assumption of illegality. You can't claim plausible deniability for your users selling cocaine when you literally created a category called Cocaine.

https://astr0baby.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/sr-01.png

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#46

Post by KyeRussell »

str3wer wrote: post #14

[flagged]

One has to be the most deranged and deluded sort of idiot libertarian to think that Ross doesn’t deserve to rot away in prison.

It’s not a matter of how one feels about drug policy or even financial / identity fraud.

He wasn’t just a kid that helped people sell drugs online.

Anyone that begins to spout this BS I assume either doesn’t know the full extent of the Silk Road story (which is inexcusable given its immense media coverage) or is a sheltered “you should just be able to do anything mahn” haven’t-really-thought-about-it-for-more-than-one-second libertarian.

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#47

Post by KyeRussell »

sampa wrote: post #13

apparently, unlike ordinary HN people US Gov don't care it "can't buy a coffee in my local deli for Bitcoin"

I think that Bitcoin is an absurd waste of time and effort, but if I had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of it floating around, of course I’m going to sell it.

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#48

Post by capableweb »

wmf wrote: post #21
monero-xmr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given there are thousands of spot markets I find it absurdly unlikely that a cartel could fix the price let alone keep such a conspiracy secret.

Allegedly whales set the price on Binance and arbitrage bots equalize the price on every other exchange.

And this is based on what information? Sounds very theoretical

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#49

Post by adastra22 »

CommitSyn wrote: post #32
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was never prosecuted for causing harm or bodily injury and no victim was named at trial. didn't he pay for a would-have-been hit to get somebody killed but it was actually an FBI agent (aka he got set up and fell for the trap)? > Ross was not convicted of selling drugs or illegal items himself, but was held responsible for what others sold on the site. isn't that arguably worse? he helped people in a lot of coun…

He was never prosecuted for it. AFAIK they didn't even really bring it up.

It was a major factor in sentencing, which is the issue at stake here.

Re: U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

#50

Post by vitehozonage »

mike_d wrote: post #44
SamPatt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silk Road had rules against selling certain things, which included tools for fraud. Drugs shouldn't be illegal. Prohibition has always failed. Regardless, he didn't commit violence. The distinction between violent and non-violent crime is a meaningful one, and I strongly oppose his life sentencing.

> The distinction between violent and non-violent crime is a meaningful one Consider someone who knowingly brokered a sale of baby formula that they knew was tainted with rat poison and killed dozens of children, would you consider that a non-violent crime that deserves leniency in sentencing?

Silk Road would not allow such a product
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