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Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

nytimes.com

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Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#581

Post by Touche »

MichaelGG wrote: post #371
drcode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I agree with you about the "safer drugs" argument, Ross' site was the worst possible thing that could happen to the supporters of safe, anonymous marketplaces- The evidence that he was willing to use brutal mob-style violence to support his business has yet to be disputed by anyone in a credible way.

His mistake was shitty opsec - he should not have allowed any third parties into a position where they could extort him. However, after the fact, if you're facing someone threatening to imprison and destroy the lives of many vendors and patients, then what is the lesser evil? The extortionist choose to attempt to endanger people. You can't use the state. What other ethical choice is there? I'm not saying this is the…

Can't the exact same argument be made by the mob or any other organized crime that uses violence?

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#582

Post by copperx »

bradleyjg wrote: post #66
maxlybbert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the death penalty was ever a possibility, following Kennedy v. Louisiana ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana , "the power of the state to impose the death penalty against an individual for committing a crime that did not result in the death of the victim is now limited to crimes against the state (e.g. espionage, treason).")

The full quote was: "Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity , which are offenses against the State." (emphasis added)

The fact that Snowden would probably get death sentence has never sat quite well with me.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#583

Post by srdev »

mckoss wrote: post #493
cm2187 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to suggest that silkroad was an innocent market place that was used for drug trafficking without the knowledge of its creator...

Does that matter? There was nothing drug specific about the site implementation - you could sell anything you wanted to (gold, collectables, etc). He provided a system that could be used as a valuable service for legal activities. It could also be used for illegal or banned activities in various jurisdictions. I'm just saying that it's a dangerous precedent to say that anyone creating a communication or transaction p…

Intent absolutely matters, yes. Silk Road was promoted by the staff as primarily a drug marketplace. Ross grew mushrooms to sell on the marketplace. It had links to drugs on its sidebar. They had a doctor to give advice to drug users. It was designed specifically not to comply with the law. These are all factors when determining criminality. If a site like Amazon accidentally sold child porn (as an example) via self publishing features, then they wouldn't be liable because Amazon was designed and promoted as a way to sell legal things that follow the law, and they would action the removal of those items when brought to their attention. These would make a strong case that there was no criminal intent on Amazon's part and that the fault was with a third party and so nothing would come from it.

It is extremely obtuse to act as if this sets a scary precedent By reducing the situation to absurd levels. Context has always mattered and will continue to matter.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#584

Post by erichmond »

earlyresort wrote: post #214

Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for different types of people. An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and usually get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences. People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resi…

Agreed 100%.

I am curious what people think a fair sentence would be, given the sheer amount of drugs sold on SR. Selling over a pound of weed here in NYC will cost you 15 years, which for most people would be about 1/6th of their life.

Also, I am interested with the number of people saying he didn't actually do anything that wrong. I wonder if they are saying the same thing petty drug offenders. Maybe people do but they don't vocalize it, but I think if we saw this kind of empathy for all non-violent drug dealers, things would look very different here in the US.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#585

Post by copsarebastards »

srdev wrote: post #576
copsarebastards wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to look at the post you're responding to, I wrote the post you're responding to. In the court of law where Ulbricht was tried for drug trafficking , the murder for hire thing is a crazy rumor. The murder-for-hire case is a separate case, which remains untried. The evidence in the murder-for-hire case is probably compelling, otherwise the government probably wouldn't bring the case. But that's utterly unr…

> I don't need to look at the post you're responding to, I wrote the post you're responding to You do because that's the context of the point I am making. Right now you're having an argument with some point I didn't make, and it's coming off as a bit silly. >In the court of law where Ulbricht was tried for drug trafficking, the murder for hire thing is a crazy rumor. First of all, I'm talking about HN here and the pe…

> My gut reaction here is that the burden of proof should be higher (ie an actual conviction) and that the sentencing in question was highly inappropriate from a social standpoint

This is exactly what I am saying.

I think we're vehemently agreeing.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#587

Post by dasil003 »

jensen123 wrote: post #533
rat87 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I reccomend http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/ to you? Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

IQ basically measures the speed of the brain, so it seems likely that there is some correlation between IQ and good political judgement. High IQ people basically have a greater capacity for thought.

> IQ basically measures the speed of the brain

IQ attempts to measure the speed of the brain, via a proxy designed by humans who probably on average think a bit highly of their own intelligence. No risk of cognitive bias there....

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#588

Post by MichaelGG »

Touche wrote: post #581
MichaelGG wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His mistake was shitty opsec - he should not have allowed any third parties into a position where they could extort him. However, after the fact, if you're facing someone threatening to imprison and destroy the lives of many vendors and patients, then what is the lesser evil? The extortionist choose to attempt to endanger people. You can't use the state. What other ethical choice is there? I'm not saying this is the…

Can't the exact same argument be made by the mob or any other organized crime that uses violence?

Sorta. But one difference is that Silk Road wasn't out robbing or murdering anyone. So there's no justification in extorting it or informing on it. Where for a gang, an informant might be trying to overall save lives.

Another difference is scale. The extortionist that was after Ross was threatening to leak data on hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Do gangs usually find themselves in such situations?

If a gang is just selling drugs, not otherwise robbing or killing or hurting others, then I'm not very troubled by them killing extortionists, no. I just doubt that scenario makes up a notable portion of gang violence.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#589

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #25
javert wrote: post #12

Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs. Every single government actor involved in this case is far more guilty than Ross and, frankly, they are the ones that deserve prison. Yes, Ross should have realized you can't massively break the law and get away with it. He made a big mistake. But the mistake he made was assuming that other people were more benevolent than they really are. This young man…

> Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs. Legally, they do not. If you have a problem with that, take it up with (relevant to the federal laws at issue here) the Congress.

Often times breaking a bad law, and helping others to break it, is an important step in moving public opinion, which is how you take it up with the Congress.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#590

Post by xnull2guest »

Natsu wrote: post #414
themeek wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia: Blackmail is an act, often a crime, ... Essentially, it is coercion involving threats of ... of criminal prosecution. Similar searches for the legal distinction between extortion and blackmail consider blackmail a form of coercion. Given (A) that blackmail is coercion (psychological pressure), and (B) coercing someone into committing a crime is entrapment. Would (A) and (B) then not imply that…

I think the law guide I linked it to would file this under "there is no chutzpah defense." He had legal options that did not include "hire a hitman" ("do nothing" is a valid option) and he had a big hand in creating the problem to begin with, or there would be nothing to blackmail him with in the first place. And the state didn't corrupt him, he was already leading a criminal operation when they set out to catch him.…

Doesn't "there is no chutzpah defense" imply that he is guilty of a range of other things - then not yet determined in court?

And does it really work that way? You can be entrapped so long as your defense has no chutzpah?

Isn't it the case that law enforcement can be guilty of entrapment AND the defendant guilty of a crime? Hasn't this been established many times before? Wouldn't this exclude 'chutzpah' arguments?

I'm not sure that this really replies charitably to the premise of the discussion - i.e. that there was coercion. According to your argument nothing short of law enforcement physically forcing someone to take an action would be entrapment; so long as there are choices - even bad ones. Nor was there a reply to the fact that the hitman wasn't his idea.

It seems to me that those wishing the justice system overlook these issues already had decided on DRPs guilt and were convinced to get it at, even if that meant sacrificing due process and papering over it.

DPR can be behind bars - I don't care. But due process is something that even those wishing it were ignored for this conviction rely on and need, even if they don't think so.

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