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Free Ross Ulbricht

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Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#31

Post by aeternum »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #20
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

It was totally a political trial with many exaggerations and the government trying to "set an example". - First-time offender - All non-violent charges - Two life sentences plus 40 years without parole >Ross Ulbricht is condemned to die in prison for creating an anonymous e-commerce website called Silk Road. An entrepreneur passionate about free markets and privacy, he was 26 when he made the site. He was never prose…

>creating an anonymous e-commerce website called Silk Road. An entrepreneur passionate about free markets and privacy, That wording really goes out of it's way to sound like this might conceivably be legal, or at least not knowingly criminal.

Was Napster knowingly criminal? By most accounts yes.

How about Uber? In most cities they were by allowing airport pickups?

How about Amazon? Remember when they aided and abetted customers with sales tax evasion for years?

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#32

Post by roenxi »

I was initially unhappy about the situation, but on reviewing the opinion [0] of the judge of the appeal it seems reasonable. It is uncomfortable that the judge effectively sentenced him for something he wasn't charged with, but if that judge saw evidence that he tried to plan the murder of multiple people there aren't really many alternatives.

It does seem like bad form that the prosecutors didn't charge him with murder, it leaves open the question of whether the evidence was actually flimsy and Ulbricht's team didn't challenge it properly because they didn't think it was especially relevant. I assume the details of the opinion would reveal the thinking on that if I read it closely.

[0] https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20170531115

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#33

Post by vkou »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

It was totally a political trial with many exaggerations and the government trying to "set an example". - First-time offender - All non-violent charges - Two life sentences plus 40 years without parole >Ross Ulbricht is condemned to die in prison for creating an anonymous e-commerce website called Silk Road. An entrepreneur passionate about free markets and privacy, he was 26 when he made the site. He was never prose…

> >Ross was not convicted of selling drugs or illegal items himself, but was held responsible for what others sold on the site.

I'm pretty sure that running an illegal drug marketplace is also illegal.

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#34

Post by Jasper_ »

This is the guy who thought about whether to sell cyanide to people or not, and decided that, yes, Silk Road should sell it ("myself" is Ross):

> myself: cyanide has a bad reputation

> myself: there are plenty of legitimate uses

> inigo: so we're going to allow it?

> myself: its bad for image/PR

> myself: i think we're going to allow it

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/silk-road-trial-...

You can't represent this guy as just selling some drugs, maybe. He knew what he was doing, and documented all of it.

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#35

Post by scoofy »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

It was totally a political trial with many exaggerations and the government trying to "set an example". - First-time offender - All non-violent charges - Two life sentences plus 40 years without parole >Ross Ulbricht is condemned to die in prison for creating an anonymous e-commerce website called Silk Road. An entrepreneur passionate about free markets and privacy, he was 26 when he made the site. He was never prose…

“The Silk Road was fine”

-HN

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#36

Post by loandbehold »

blackshaw wrote: post #21
ddalex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't this guy try to hire a hitman ?

According to Wikipedia, Ulbricht allegedly tried to hire a hitman to murder at least five people, but this wasn't actually something he was formally charged with at trial. > Federal prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had paid $730,000 in murder-for-hire deals targeting at least five people,[27] allegedly because they threatened to reveal Ulbricht's Silk Road enterprise.[36] Prosecutors believe no contracted killing ac…

No killing actually occured because Ulbricht was incompetent at procuring contract killing. Ulbricht was scammed, paying $730K for nothing. But he did have the intention of having the victims killed.

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#37

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #26
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think people who facilitate the sale of community destroying hard drugs deserve punishment Alcohol is undeniably a hard drug. It: 1) is extremely physically addictive 2) causes many overdoses and deaths. More than opiates or cocaine. At the same time, there is tons of compelling evidence that: A) making alcohol illegal in the 20s/30s didn't decrease consumption at all and simply increased the danger of consuming…

You conveniently redefined what most anyone would consider not a hard drug as a hard drug to make your point.

Does it really matter what "most" think? From the medical point of view, ethanol is a hard drug. It was actually defined as one in an old USSR government standard, but that definition was dropped later (in the 1970s or thereabouts IIRC).

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#38

Post by pennaMan »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #26
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think people who facilitate the sale of community destroying hard drugs deserve punishment Alcohol is undeniably a hard drug. It: 1) is extremely physically addictive 2) causes many overdoses and deaths. More than opiates or cocaine. At the same time, there is tons of compelling evidence that: A) making alcohol illegal in the 20s/30s didn't decrease consumption at all and simply increased the danger of consuming…

You conveniently redefined what most anyone would consider not a hard drug as a hard drug to make your point.

Alcohol is at the top of the list of objective harm to self and others, right up there with heroin. What "most anyone would consider" is irrelevant to the actual pharmacology of the durg.

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#39

Post by ffggffggj »

aeternum wrote: post #31
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>creating an anonymous e-commerce website called Silk Road. An entrepreneur passionate about free markets and privacy, That wording really goes out of it's way to sound like this might conceivably be legal, or at least not knowingly criminal.

Was Napster knowingly criminal? By most accounts yes. How about Uber? In most cities they were by allowing airport pickups? How about Amazon? Remember when they aided and abetted customers with sales tax evasion for years?

Those are almost entirely civil issues so not really.

Re: Free Ross Ulbricht

#40

Post by jjallen »

This is a good lesson about not forgetting that much of life is not binary. Here we have someone who was convicted of doing illegal things. There is also strong evidence that he hired and paid someone to kill five people.

So the question isn't free or don't free him. The question is "how long should he be in jail for?". There's a middle ground here.

Many people, including the OP website just say "free" him. I don't know. That is a binary option which implies total innocence. And I don't think total innocence is the case here.

So the question really needs to be: for how many years should this guy be in prison for. And the answer to me, primarily because he was planning on killing five people is quite a long time. Certainly longer than the ten years or so he's been in there.

[edited for some increased readability and formatting]

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