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Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

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Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#781

Post by Nevermark »

siamese_puff wrote: post #454
wolfgang42 wrote: post #173

Tangentially related: I had the disconcerting experience of reading a Wired article about his arrest[1] while unknowingly sitting about six feet from the spot where he was apprehended. When I read that the FBI agents had stopped at Bello Coffee while preparing their stakeout, I thought, huh, interesting coincidence, I just had a coffee there. Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table dire…

I understood exactly what you meant and that is an awesome experience

This is so off topic. Or maybe not.

I once walked home after an evening of some friends and beer.

As I came up to my house it was dark but I clearly saw a little person walking through my back garden. About 3 foot tall, at the most, it seemed. And they were holding the hand of a smaller person half their height. Walking together, no hurry at all.

I just froze and watched them walking away, and turn a corner.

The feelings of disbelief, but wanting to believe were crazy.

I came out of my shock. Ran the length of my home and managed to see mother and child raccoons now walking on all fours.

They must have walked 20 feet on their back legs together, holding hands.

For a minute of my life I was actually Alice in Wonderland and there were tiny people who walked gardens at night.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#782

Post by Workaccount2 »

lvl155 wrote: post #686
rnernento wrote: post #660

In 2021, Ulbricht's prosecutors and defense agreed that Ulbricht would relinquish any ownership of a newly discovered fund of 50,676 Bitcoin (worth nearly $5.35 billion in 2025) seized from a hacker in November 2021.[78] The Bitcoin had been stolen from Silk Road in 2013 and Ulbricht had been unsuccessful in getting them back. The U.S. government traced and seized the stolen Bitcoin. Ulbricht and the government agree…

Bingo. US always has been about commerce and money. It wouldn’t shock me if Ross has at least a few million hidden in some “lost wallet” printed out in a vault some where. He was smart enough to know he would get caught one day.

It's unlikely he has a hidden stash that is truly hidden. Back then the government wasn't all over the blockchain (compared to today) and obfuscation was not like what is available today.

So even if he does have a stash, it is likely marked, and he will get a knock on the door real fast if it starts moving.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#783

Post by jonnycoder »

rhatsgf wrote: post #756
constantcrying wrote: post #722

Here is what the discussion looked like almost a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985 Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in how this issue is seen on here.

The facts are: Trump now does NTF and coinschemes himself and got talked into this by his new entourage. That is what most people here complain about. And he does this to distract from the fact that he will not stop the Ukraine war, not stop H1B etc. Many of the same people also complain about the Biden laptop and Biden's pardons.

He just revoked Biden’s Eo that strengthened h1b

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#786

Post by DrNosferatu »

DrNosferatu wrote: post #604

Some questions, as many of us are from another continent and are only marginally aware of the matter - so, for many here at HN: 1. Ross Ulbricht the ultimate entrepreneur? 2. Ross Ulbricht was a freedom fighter?

Wow - really surprised.

- So, what about the exploitation, violence, and devastating addiction that results from no-rules drug purveying/trafficking?

(how would you compare Ross Ulbright to medical opioid purveyers/traffickers? If the same, what are they morally?)

- Isn't murder for hire outright objectionable?

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#787

Post by epr »

constantcrying wrote: post #722

Here is what the discussion looked like almost a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985 Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in how this issue is seen on here.

As someone who's been following this since the beginning, the most striking difference is the assumption that Ross was in fact the DPR ordering hits, which he repeatedly denied. Obviously, he could be lying, but that's the main question for me. Since people now assume he was the one and only DPR (I wonder if people didn't get the concept from The Princess Bride), they assume DPR chat logs where murder-for-hire occurred must have been him as well.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#788

Post by stego-tech »

I’m not necessarily going to comment on his behaviors directly, as everyone else has already stated that in part or in whole. My grievance, my perspective, is that it’s yet another white man getting a slap on the wrist for wrongdoing while doing nothing to correct any of the underlying problems or pardon others who engaged in similar or lesser behaviors.

The war on drugs has always been farcical, deliberately engineered to target minority groups who were opposing power dynamics at the time. It’s why - despite popular opinion to the contrary - cannabis remains broadly illegal at the Federal level and enforced globally through a web of treaties. It’s always been about creating the means of entrapment for those inconvenient to power.

Pardoning Ross smacks of a gift to cryptobros to earn their loyalty to the current powers that be, rather than an acknowledgement of a past mistake. It is nakedly political, pardoning a white man from an otherwise good background while others languish in prison on far less serious charges or convictions. Were any of the drug dealers on his black market similarly pardoned? Were any of his consumers? Of course not, because Ross was a Capitalist making profit in an untapped market, and the others were individuals who were not.

The entire thing is nauseating, and is enough to wash my hands of all involved were the need to dismantle this farce of a war not so grave.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#789

Post by andyjohnson0 »

mardifoufs wrote: post #763
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #706

Non-USian here. I'm interested in why . Given that Trump didn't pardon Ulbricht during his first presidential term, why now? What does Trump, who is notoriously transactional, get in return for this? Alternatively, what signal is he sending and to who?

To be honest if Trump would've pardoned him in his first term it would've been way too short of a sentence for what he did. Though I hate the usual libertarian defense that makes him out to be an innocent martyr, I think that 10 years is somewhat enough for what he did. It would have been a normal sentence in a lot of countries outside the US.

Thanks. I appreciate your view on the sentence, but I'm interested in why Trump would issue a pardon.

I'm unconvinced that Trump in 2020 thought Ulbricht's total sentence was okay, but four years later has apparently changed his mind. So who's the client here? It doesn't seem to be Ulbricht - is it libertarians in general? Why does Trump, as a second term president, actually care?

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#790

Post by kordlessagain »

syspec wrote: post #264
wolfgang42 wrote: post #173

Tangentially related: I had the disconcerting experience of reading a Wired article about his arrest[1] while unknowingly sitting about six feet from the spot where he was apprehended. When I read that the FBI agents had stopped at Bello Coffee while preparing their stakeout, I thought, huh, interesting coincidence, I just had a coffee there. Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table dire…

Sorry, it went over my head a bit, you read about his arrest while he was being arrested?

That’s because they are describing the inner workings of their visualization systems.

They saw him walk in because he was where it happened. The image of Ross, and others, was in mind, however.

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