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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
willmadden wrote 18 min ago:
I think she summed up this thread pretty well!
URI [1]: https://x.com/dumbbitchcap/status/1881926945212190758
belter wrote 25 min ago:
May I respectfully and humbly suggest to this community to avoid
posting Twitter links?
righthand wrote 29 min ago:
"Drugs should be legalized so that means a violent criminal who had
people killed should be set free."
nipponese wrote 33 min ago:
It's very hard to square his sentencing.
If he had been running an IRL drug and gun facilitation marketplace in
my city, I would have said 20 years was appropriate.
But when the feds make it a techno-political issue, I feel the urge to
push back.
notananthem wrote 57 min ago:
This thread really shows how unhinged the community is. Dude hired
contract killers and ran the most prolific darkweb forum for whatever.
He's not some martyr. He's just a bum.
upmind wrote 1 hour 0 min ago:
Was there anything said about pardoning Snowden?
palad1n wrote 1 hour 2 min ago:
I canât believe Trump did something right. If Harris were prez heâd
be languishing there till who knows when.
DrFunke wrote 1 hour 28 min ago:
I laundered money on The Silkroad (sent birthday cards filled with cash
for bitcoin). It was a level of criminality I was fairly comfortable
with. I do retain some fear that my door would be kicked in some day.
Lawyers of HN, Am I in the clear now too? Ross tried to have a guy
murdered, after all.
beeflet wrote 41 min ago:
That depends, did you send the cards on their birthday?
IANAL, but I think you should be in the clear as long as you left a
big red lipstick kiss on the bottom of the card.
metadat wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
I wonder if this action was executed at the suggestion of Mr. Musk?
It seems questionable Trump even understands or cares what Silk Road
did or how it worked.
andsoitis wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
Ross Ulbricht on X:
URI [1]: https://x.com/realrossu
pjbeam wrote 1 hour 45 min ago:
DPR is free!! I'm very happy for him and hope he makes good on this
second lease on life.
leonewton253 wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
I regret not voting for Trump. Hopefully most of his BS will be
contested and the good stuff he does sticks.
nodesocket wrote 2 hours 5 min ago:
Ross just posted this photo on X. Man served 10 years, time for him to
be free.
URI [1]: https://x.com/Free_Ross/status/1881925029497377104
amac wrote 2 hours 9 min ago:
The right decision.
Whatarethese wrote 2 hours 10 min ago:
Hope he goes on Dark Net Diaries.
jMyles wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
It's baffling to me that there are actually comments on Hacker Gosh
Darn News of all places suggesting that Ross justly belonged in prison.
He successfully created a tool to undermine one of the most unjust and
predatory policies of the US State - the policy of drug prohibition.
He's a damn hero. I don't understand why Trump, who most of the time
seems like a simply awful human being with no end of appetite for state
power, has chosen to do this, but I'll certainly take it.
It's beyond obvious that voting and other mechanics of representative
rule have not succeeded at simple policy change such as ending
prohibition. I look forward to several decades of truth trumping power
in the form of the internet undermining states, until the asinine mode
of political organization known as the nation state is deprecated
entirely.
liamwire wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Genuinely thought weâd never see the day. My feelings on Ulbricht are
mixed and have evolved over the decade heâs been in prison.
However, the Silk Road allowed me to try LSD as an 18 year old in a
safe(r) way than those that came before me.* It was those experiences
that revealed Iâd been depressed most of my life, and that it also
didnât have to be that way, by way of experiencing what that would
feel like. I went on to seek new experiences, make new friends for the
first time in my life, engage with professional mental health support,
went to university, and started multiple businesses. It also introduced
my staunchly-atheist self to the experience of spiritual/transcendental
experiences, and how those can exist separately from, and donât
require, belief in deities or religion.
It canât be said where Iâd have wound up without those experiences,
but my own understanding of myself feels pivotally tied to something I
couldnât have gone through without Rossâ actions. Still, I
acknowledge it appears more likely that not he tried to have people
killed, and regardless of the circumstances surrounding this, that is
condemnable.
*Had it not been for an anonymous group at the time, The LSD Avengers,
posting reviews using gas chromatography mass-spectrometry and reagent
tests of suppliers on the site, I wouldnât have had the confidence to
take the risk of trying what Iâd received. LSD is physiologically
safe, not to say anything of any psychological risks, but knowing the
dose allowed me to enter into the shallow end of the pool, so to speak.
Common substitutes however cannot have the same said of them.
If Iâd lived in a time and place that allowed for state-funded drug
testing (something my own state has in fact recently abolished despite
wildly successful trials), perhaps things wouldâve not required a
Ross Ulbricht to exist in my case, but I see this as a failure of the
system and of drug prohibition as a whole.
Ross wouldâve existed one way or another I believe, for better or
worse, by another name, had he chosen another path. Now he gets the
chance to try his life again. I felt the same way.
xeckr wrote 2 hours 18 min ago:
Good.
arittr wrote 2 hours 18 min ago:
Now that I didnât expect
RomanPushkin wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
Explain to me like to five year old why when I create a _successful_
drug marketplace that sold whole bunch of illegal drugs should be
pardoned?
unobatbayar wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
Words can't describe how happy I am.
agentultra wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
Is this president extremely concerned about drug dealers and gangs in
the US?
Why is he pardoning a drug trafficker?
kube-system wrote 54 min ago:
Trump clearly values favoritism to a high degree. He is doing
exactly as he has promised, running the country like a businessman.
If you scratch his back, he will scratch yours. Principles take a
back seat to "getting the job done". For other examples, see his
changed stances on TikTok, various foreign interests,
cryptocurrencies, EVs post Elon support, etc. And in the opposite
vein, he abandons support for anyone who challenges his authority on
principles.
outside415 wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
what's it like to be poor in a rich country? the libertarian party
supported his reelection bid and by support Ross he garnered more of
their votes. this couldn't be more obvious. he did the same for
crypto.
according to Trump: "A promise made is a promise kept", he is keeping
his promise to his constituents.
enjoy your CNN propaganda.
kubb wrote 1 hour 2 min ago:
Basically heâll do anything to get the votes he needs, thereâs
no morality behind it.
outside415 wrote 56 min ago:
thank god he won. someone had to do whatever was necessary.
kubb wrote 53 min ago:
I wish we had leaders with integrity, but we wonât for the
foreseeable future.
outside415 wrote 52 min ago:
I am just happy someone is slowing the H1B and indian out
sourcing down. between that and AI california tech was about
to die for Americans.
kubb wrote 48 min ago:
Whether that happens remains to be seen. In the first row
on his inauguration was an Indian tech CEO and Elon loves
H1Bs.
isoprophlex wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
To appease the broligarch technologists, who all enjoyed buying LSD
with cryptocoins.
insane_dreamer wrote 1 hour 45 min ago:
No no no, my friend. Ulbricht was not a lowly drug trafficker (also,
incidentally, not black or latino). He was an _entrepreneur_ who
built a _marketplace_ that would bring together buyers and sellers,
cutting out the middleman, and driving _efficiency_! Basically
trustedhousesitters.com, just for illegal drugs instead of pets ;)
hbbio wrote 2 hours 1 min ago:
A drug trafficker sells drugs
A developer builds a platform like eBay but without censorship that
can be used by the drug trafficker
It's not the same thing
kube-system wrote 39 min ago:
If you set up what is clearly a perfect marketplace for drugs, and
you know it's going to fill up with drug dealers, and it does fill
up with drug dealers, and there's one goofball that decided to sell
a hamburger.... you're not an innocent guy who is running a
hamburger marketplace.
_s wrote 1 hour 50 min ago:
I make and sell soap. The soap contains an ingredient that anyone
can use to make bombs. Some people buy my soap only for that
purpose. I know because they literally tell me how they use my
soap. I can remove that ingredient but I would loose a lot of
sales.
The police finds my soap in the lab of someone who blew up a
building. Some people died. Was it my fault, knowing how it was
being used? Did I do anything illegal? Unethical? Immoral?
beeflet wrote 50 min ago:
Interesting thought experiment, but no, I don't think it's
llegal/unethical/immoral to sell that soap. But in practice this
sort of business will change their formula to avoid bad press and
regulation.
hbbio wrote 1 hour 33 min ago:
> I can remove that ingredient but I would loose a lot of sales.
Or: I can remove that ingredient but it goes against my principle
of not accepting constraints.
> Some people died. Was it my fault, knowing how it was being
used? Did I do anything illegal? Unethical? Immoral?
URI [1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/
jshen wrote 1 hour 20 min ago:
Jail is for people that don't accept constraints outlined by
democratic society.
shoxidizer wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Pardoning Ulbricht was a campaign promise he made at the Libertarian
National Convention in response to it being a popular demand among
the libertarians.
noirbot wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
And more importantly, among the crypto crowd that dumped millions
into his campaign. Libertarians have essentially no clout or money
on their own. This was a pardon bought by Coinbase and Gemini and
A16z.
twelve40 wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
Why would Coinbase and Gemini and A16z care about an obviously
shady person who reportedly tried to hire a person to kill
someone? surely they could find a more legitimate hero to advance
the legal crypto case? i mean, it's kind of like them - companies
trying to do legit crypto - rallying today around SBF when they
already have image problems from other exchanges?
talldayo wrote 1 hour 6 min ago:
There is no "legit crypto" - it's a myth. Every single exchange
that swaps spit with the Bitcoin ledger is laundering money
made by criminal (often violent or fraudulent) means. Many if
not most altcoins are equally as fraudulent, or used to launder
("tumble") other suspicious coins.
Let's be honest anyways, the cryptocurrency "industry" as we
know it is less than 4 years old, and in 4 years it may be
gone. Exchanges like coinbase and so-called defi innovators
like A16Z need this legally-dubious signalling or they'll risk
never having another leader corrupt enough to sanction their
behavior.
beeflet wrote 55 min ago:
I got cash out of an airport currency exchange ATM the other
week, and when I tried to use it to by groceries yesterday,
the cashier tested it for cocaine and it came back positive.
There is no "legit cash".
cycrutchfield wrote 18 min ago:
Probably residue from your hands tbh
smt88 wrote 2 hours 30 min ago:
I understand your point, but it has become a waste of energy to try
to point out hypocridy and ideological inconsistency among that
group.
It's better to ignore the rational reasons to oppose them and focus
on the emotional ones. For starters, people are repulsed by their
cruelty.
southernplaces7 wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
For all his many defects and cloudy motives for doing it, Trump
deserves applause for this. It's with actions such as this that he also
shows why he's a genuine maverick of a president, with who it's
genuinely possible to expect deeply unexpected actions (for better or
worse).
For all his talk of being progressive and cultivation of a youthful
maverick image of his own, you would have never seen such a move from
Obama and forget about it under the mealy mouthed Biden or a
hypothetical Hillary administration. With Trump, rather uniquely and
singularly, it happened.
Ulbricht made many mistakes, less so morally but definitely legally, of
the kind with which he could have expected to cause punishment to rain
down upon him, but the way in which his case was managed and the way in
which he was sentenced truly were both disgusting in numerous ways.
They were classic examples of prosecutorial and political vengeance and
give much truth to Trump's own description of the same as "The scum
that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were
involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He
was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!â
If you in any way mistrust heavy-handed government prosecutions and
persecutions, it's hard to disagree much, even if it's also not hard to
imagine Trump being just as abusive in other contexts where prosecution
of enemies would suit his interests and personal vengeance.
Now if we see him pardon Snowden too, i'd happily give a standing
ovation.
Before someone here smugly chimes in about how Ulbricht also tried to
hire out a murder by contract, bear in mind that this accusation was
riddled with holes, suspicions of entrapment and in any case wasn't
formally used for his sentencing, AND still wouldn't justify the kind
of onerously grotesque sentence that was dumped on him. Pedophiles who
committed child murders have been sentenced to less than Ulbricht was.
insane_dreamer wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
> you would have never seen such a move from Obama
you forgot Chelsea Manning; so I stopped reading there
dimator wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
the fact that he will never pardon Snowden tells you all you need to
know: this pardon was pandering and suits his own purposes. there are
no higher principles here besides quid pro quo.
jimt1234 wrote 3 min ago:
I wouldn't even call it pandering. He straight-up said the pardon
was because the libertarians supported him.
yownie wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
>For all his talk of being progressive and cultivation of a youthful
maverick image of his own, you would have never seen such a move from
Obama
he pardoned Chelsea Manning I think you're forgetting.
spiritplumber wrote 2 hours 46 min ago:
Legalities aside, is it more evil to hire a dude to kill your enemy, or
to go kill your enemy yourself? (I'd go with the former because if you
go kill your enemy yourself you're at least accepting that it may go
the other way).
smashah wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
All I can think about after reading this is "Rest In Power Aaron
Swartz"
cratermoon wrote 3 hours 43 min ago:
Just a reminder: the condition for accepting a pardon is acknowledging
that you did commit the crime in question and accept the court's
finding of guilt.
In contrast: Biden didn't pardon Leonard Peltier, the president
commuted his sentence. Peltier maintains his innocence.
plsbenice34 wrote 1 hour 50 min ago:
Do you have a source for that condition? How does that work for Biden
pardoning Fauci for crimes that havent been revealed yet?
johnneville wrote 3 hours 6 min ago:
Can you share more about your first point? A brief search shows the
1915 Burdick supreme court case said that accepting a pardon can
imply guilt. However, it doesn't seem to say that acknowledgement or
acceptance of guilt is a requirement by the recipient of the pardon.
olalonde wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
I wonder if the decision to drop the "murder for hire" charges was
originally influenced by his existing life sentence, and whether the
pardon now alters that reasoning. Is it still possible for him to be
prosecuted on those charges?
insane_dreamer wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
So does this mean the war on drugs is finally over and we're going to
stop mass incarceration for non-violent drug offenses? If so, that
_would_ be good news.
ecocentrik wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
He also just classified drug cartels as terrorist organizations so
drug dealers are now technically facilitating terrorism. Apart from
liberating this white collar drug dealer, all of his other actions
have escalated the war on drugs. While he was signing these orders,
he claimed that drug cartels were responsible for up to 300,000
American deaths annually (a completely fabricated number.)
nostromo wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
I think the attacks on some of these black and gray markets has
increased violent crime in the real world. I wish the federal
government would stop shutting them down and instead use them as tools
to build cases against people breaking the law.
For example, for a while most prostitution and sex work seemed to be
online, on places like Craigslist right next to ads for used furniture
and jobs. And it seemed to be really effective in getting prostitutes
off the streets.
Now that those markets were shut down, I'm seeing here in Seattle we're
having pimp shootouts on Aurora and the prostitutes are more brazen
than ever. Going after Craigslist has had a negative effect on our
cities and has increased crime, and I suspect going after SilkRoad has
had a similar impact.
cogman10 wrote 3 hours 21 min ago:
I wish instead of criminalizing addiction we'd fund harm reduction
centers and rehabilitation services.
I would much rather the police be focused on stopping violent crime
rather than these victimless crimes.
Legitimizing drugs/prostitution makes is easier to regulate and
ultimately make safer. Shoving this stuff into a black/gray market
is what ultimately creates violent crime.
floydnoel wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
no victim means no crime. victimless "crimes" are just 'arbitrary
rule' violations (like going 56mph in a 55mph zone) or infractions.
the twisting and distortion of language by the state is
counterproductive to society.
LAC-Tech wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
Those won't stop the problem at the root, right?
The inflow/manufacture of narcotics won't be affected at all.
You'll still have a constant new influx of junkies, and it you'll
essentially by funding this widescale and expensive solution
forever.
Much better to simple make drug trafficing and manufacture a
capital offense. It's been extremely effective in a lot of
jurisdictions. Even if you're squeamish about the death penalty, a
back of the envelope calculations will tell you you're saving a lot
more lives than you spend due to decreased overdoses, drug wars
etc,
Eisenstein wrote 1 hour 13 min ago:
Where has that strategy been effective? Do you have any numbers?
Does it have any side effects?
nipponese wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
> I wish instead of criminalizing addiction we'd fund harm
reduction centers and rehabilitation services.
We tried that in SF, I was a supporter. Seeing it first hand with a
with a family member in public school flipped me. Dumping money
into people who aren't ready to convert back into tax payers (even
in the most basic sense) while schools got the back burner was
enough. Not to mention the tents.
culi wrote 2 hours 34 min ago:
While I think anecdotes are valuable and should not be easily
dismissed, we have decades of research and evidence supporting
the benefit of harm reduction centers. They reduce risk of
overdose morbidity and mortality while not increasing crime or
public nuisance to the surrounding community.
E.g.
URI [1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8541900/
nipponese wrote 52 min ago:
It's just really hard to swallow the findings in this paper
(all non-US cities) when you can see such a visible change on
the streets in SF since the pandemic.
By all official accounts crime is down in SF, but many agree
something has changed in the way homeless carry. I would dare
to use the word "entitled" to describe the cavalier way large
encampments and bicycle chop shops are set up.
cogman10 wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
> Seeing it first hand with a with a family member in public
school flipped me.
Why is this an either or?
SF spends about $1 billion dollars on schools [1] and while the
program ran it had around a $40 million dollar budget [2]. For
an area that houses huge tech companies, this doesn't seem like
an extreme budget to be working with.
> Not to mention the tents.
Ok? And what options would you give these people, just be
homeless somewhere else where you can't see them? [1]
URI [1]: https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-relea...
URI [2]: https://sfstandard.com/2021/11/17/supervisors-approve-6-...
daseiner1 wrote 2 hours 13 min ago:
SF spends nearly $1B on the homeless.
nine_k wrote 1 hour 20 min ago:
Homeless and drug addicts are not the same.
Letting the homeless block streets with tents is not the same
as caring for them, or rehabilitating them.
daseiner1 wrote 27 min ago:
correct. my comment was intended to point out the
disturbing misplacement of priorities, given that the
budgets for educating the citizens of the future and for
fetty smoking bums are comparable.
bloudermilk wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
I don't think much changed, really. The contraband and services
offered on these marketplaces has always been backed by criminal
enterprises. Mostly the markets provided level of indirection that
made purchasing palatable and gave a false sense of safety.
outside415 wrote 1 hour 24 min ago:
you are either a naive man or a dumb man, unclear which.
aftbit wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
Ask an actual sex worker what they think about that.
joe_the_user wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
Online markets for sex work allowed women to operate far more
safely than "the street" allow. I had friends who were affected by
the crackdown on craigslist etc.
anon84873628 wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
Sure, but the point is about secondary effects. If pimps are
"competing" online then they need to compete on, well, marketing
and UX. If they compete in real life then it is about who controls
physical territory.
There are lots of studies about the unintended consequences of
prohibition.
yalogin wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
Is SBF next in line for a pardon?
insane_dreamer wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
SBF lost a lot of money for a lot of rich people; he's not getting
off so easy as someone selling illegal drugs and ordering hits on
competitors
sidibe wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
The sympathy for this guy from so many of you makes me sad.
The messages show he wanted and thought he was getting people murdered.
But that's perfectly OK because it was actually the evil FBI he was
talking to!
77pt77 wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
Surely you must understand that he was also white and solid middle
class.
And he was able to code sloppy LAMP code.
sidibe wrote 3 hours 13 min ago:
Ah I hadn't seen his photo. Could have been me after a night of
drinking, lets not ruin the poor guys life just because of a few
callous decisions.
MPSFounder wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
These discussions are very interesting. So many red flags from Trump
(this pardon, ending birthright citizenship...), and people try to
justify these things. America is unfortunately heading for a very dark
time. Politics aside, I am rather uncomfortable with the power the
president possesses. We were always mindful that there are systems of
checks and balances. However, given the current court overturned a
precedent (Roe), I am unsure what the future holds. This pardon makes
me very uneasy.
underseacables wrote 4 hours 21 min ago:
I thought it was a ridiculously long sentence compared to what other
people have received. 10 years was right. That's enough time. I know
that he was accused of hiring a hitman, but he was never convicted of
that. It should have never been used in his sentencing. I think the
government tried to make an example out of Ross Ulbrich, and it was a
miscarriage of justice.
sidcool wrote 4 hours 32 min ago:
I'm indifferent to him being pardoned. But people saying he didn't
deserve any punishment seems weird to me.
Aurornis wrote 5 min ago:
Itâs always interesting to see how heâs become a folk hero to
some people who can do a lot of mental gymnastics to downplay the
fact that he tried to hire a hitman to kill people. Itâs weird to
read all of the comments trying to discount the attempted murder
because it didnât actually happen.
blast wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
To me too. But life without parole seemed weird as well.
osrec wrote 5 min ago:
To me what is weird is the "complete" pardon from a president that
is supposedly going after immigrant drug dealers and murderers.
Basically, if you've done something wrong, but can drum up enough
support for the winning political candidate, you get a chance to
cut a deal and wipe the slate clean.
To those that say he's rehabilitated etc, I'm sure there were other
worthy prisoners too, but why does this particular guy happen to
get the pardon on day one?!
Same with the pardoned capitol rioters.
It just feels like a very slippery downwards slope, where political
back scratching trumps everything else.
sidcool wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
Yeah. That was harsh, I agree.
sophacles wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
That's why commutation is a thing. The courts have ruled this as
within the pardon powers. His sentence could be changed to reflect
something much more aligned with other convictions for the same
crimes.
dmix wrote 1 hour 39 min ago:
Commutation is not considered during sentencing or mandatory
minimums or anything like that. It's only an option for very
popular cases and even then it's rare.
mmaunder wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
I wonder if Assange will get the pardon heâs campaigning for:
URI [1]: https://www.action.assangecampaign.org.au/
PKop wrote 4 hours 41 min ago:
Since no one is posting it, here's Trump Truth Social post on the
matter:
"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that
in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so
strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and
unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict
him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day
weaponization of government against me. He was given two life
sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
santoshalper wrote 4 hours 55 min ago:
Disclosure - I immensely dislike Trump and think Ross Ublricht deserved
to be convicted.
That said - There is no evidence that anyone was ever killed, there is
pretty thin evidence that he actually ever intended to hire any hitmen
(though he may have defrauded people who thought they were hiring
hitmen), and a life sentence for non-violent drug trafficking seems
draconian. I certainly don't think this should have been one of Trump's
priorities (I'm guessing it came through Vance, Musk, or someone else
in the crypto community), but I don't have a big problem with it.
UltraSane wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
Presidents and governors should NOT have the power to pardon people.
And if they do it should be ONE pardon per term.
macintux wrote 4 hours 18 min ago:
The authority to pardon is one of the most direct indicators we have
for the moral character of an executive.
UltraSane wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
So?
macintux wrote 3 hours 1 min ago:
So I'd prefer to give a good person the power to do good things
by pardoning those worthy of liberty, and a bad person the power
to make their corruption evident for the world to see.
dylan604 wrote 4 hours 49 min ago:
Until you can prove to me that all courts, judges, attorneys, and
juries are above reproach and no innocent people are imprisoned there
absolutely should be a method for someone to pardon. Sometimes a
pardon will be issued for people you disagree with, but thatâs part
of it. Just like somebody will say something that pisses you off, but
thatâs the cost of free speech
UltraSane wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
A single person should never have the sole power to undo an
unlimited number of lawful convictions. It seems like a power
designed for corruption.
dylan604 wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
you say lawful convictions, but yet have not provided any
evidence of all convictions being lawful. we absolutely know that
people have been wrongly imprisoned. but at this point i feel
like i'm talking to a 3month old bot
eviks wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
is the power to put people in prison designed for corruption? And
if so, should it be limited to a max of 1 person / judge / term?
foogazi wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
How are cartels terrorist organizations but online drug markets are not
illegal ?
yapyap wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
I am surprised Trump pardoned him, not unhappy bout it tho!
yapyap wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
finally! letâs go!
though he was very stupid with how he did it, I am happy he is a free
man
foogazi wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
Wait, is he smart or stupid ?
ionwake wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
Good - edit - from what I recall he was some kid in a library running a
website that got out of hand - he was an idealist who reminded me of
Aaron. But I donât know much more than that. Just my 2 cents.
arp242 wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
Aaron tried to give the world free access to information for no
personal gain.
Ross ran an online marketplace for drugs and other illegal materials
for personal profit.
The life sentence was ridiculous, but they're not he same at all.
It's the difference between Chelsea Manning or Snowden leaking state
secrets and someone who sells on state secrets to the Russians or
Chinese.
darknavi wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
Not going to try and sway you here but to learn more, read or listen
to "American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind
Behind the Silk Road".
Truly fascinating story and good story telling.
xyst wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
The latest string of pardons are blatant political power moves. He
pardoned _all_ of the January 6 insurrectionists. Many of these people
have been filmed attacking police and literally raiding the nations
capitol to overturn 2020 election. Violent folks being released back
into the public is not good.
Now heâs just getting favors with crypto bros and âlibertariansâ.
Man is building his personal army filled with angry racists, poor men
that can be easily manipulated.
Sends a clear message - do this illegal thing for me, Iâll sign away
any consequences.
ricochet11 wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
those thinking this is a criminal who shouldnât be released i
recommend reading this thread
URI [1]: https://x.com/tayvano_/status/1641931312385888256
mrandish wrote 5 hours 14 min ago:
This is wonderful. I've never argued that Ross shouldn't have served
time but it's always been clear his prosecution and sentencing were
excessive and unjust. The prosecutors asked for a 20 year sentence,
which seemed disproportionate given the sentencing guidelines for a
first-time offender and the non-violent charges he was convicted of.
But the judge sentenced Ross to TWO life sentences plus 40 years -
without the possibility of parole. There's no doubt Ross made a series
of unwise and reckless decisions but serving over ten years of hard
time in a FedMax prison is more than enough given the charges and his
history.
It's just unfortunate that Trump, and now, excessive pardons are
politically polarized, which could cloud the fact that justice was done
today. I don't credit Trump in any way for doing "the right thing" or
even having a principled position regarding Ross' case. Clearly, others
with influence on Trump convinced him to sign it. It doesn't matter how
the pardon happened. Biden should have already pardoned Ross because
that crazy sentence shouldn't have happened in the first place.
insane_dreamer wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
Madoff got 150 years for non-violent charges (and he didn't even try
to have anyone killed). Died in prison.
loeg wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
Madoff stole $20-35B, but by some measures a human life is only
worth $10M. I am not really asserting those figures are comparable,
just that Madoff stole a lot of money.
insane_dreamer wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
Nah, it's more that you do not fuck with the money system. SBF is
learning that same lesson.
Jeff Skilling (Enron) served 12 years in jail for insider trading
and securities.
Not saying that Skilling, Maddoff or SBF shouldn't have gone to
jail. They deserved it. But I do find it interesting that
financial crimes can tend to be the most harshly judged, likely
because of who they impact (the people with money) and because
they cause distrust of the financial system as a whole.
> Madoff stole $20-35B
Not to defend Madoff, but it's not like he made off with that
money himself, so I'm not sure "stole" is the correct term. Most
of that money went to investors -- it just went to a different
set of investors than the ones who had put that money in (the
nature of a Ponzi scheme).
dmix wrote 1 hour 33 min ago:
> Nah, it's more that you do not fuck with the money system.
Isn't a common critique of the justice system that white-collar
crime gets you less prison time (in nicer jails) than being for
ex a drug dealer?
Plenty of finance scammers and conmen who stole millions get
<5-10yr sentences
insane_dreamer wrote 34 min ago:
yes, unless you're a big enough finance scammer that you
stole from really rich people (most scammers who steal
millions don't get it from the very rich)
t-writescode wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
It is wildly harmful and an escalation of monstrous practices to
look at one or several unjust actions and/or sentences and declare
that those who do worse than the person who was dealt out such a
retribution should receive an even longer sentence.
If someone gets 10 years for smoking weed, the solution is not to
put someone in prison for 20 years for punching someone.
insane_dreamer wrote 1 hour 43 min ago:
I wasn't implying that either Ulbricht or Madoff's sentences were
unjust.
arp242 wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
> Biden should have already pardoned Ross because that crazy sentence
shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Biden did commute the sentence of several other non-violent cases
just last week or thereabouts, and Trump has been talking about
Ulbricht for quite some time so it's not a complete surprise.
I guess the whole "murder for hire" thing excluded him from the
"non-violent" category. But how that got tacked on seems very odd;
the judge basically said "we didn't really handle it in the court
case and it wasn't a charge, but it was mentioned a few times and it
seemed basically true, so I included it in the sentencing". Like,
ehh, okay?
To be honest, I don't really understand much of the logic ("logic")
of the US justice system....
mrandish wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
Judges are allowed to consider some evidence during sentencing
which was not presented at trial. The standard for this evidence is
lower than the "beyond a shadow of doubt" standard required for a
criminal conviction. This is allowed because during sentencing the
judge is considering information related to the history and
character of the defendant. The 'hiring an online hitman' (who was
an FBI informant) allegation was never charged or tried. Even if it
hadn't been obvious entrapment, it might well have evaporated under
discovery and cross-examination by a competent defense.
Including such evidence in sentencing consideration is not
uncontroversial in the U.S. However, it can cut both ways, in that
a judge can consider extenuating circumstances in a defendant's
life to reduce sentencing. We want judges to evaluate cases and
make sentencing adjustments where appropriate. So, I don't think
I'd do away with the practice. The real issue is that this specific
judge went absolutely bonkers far beyond the 20 years the
prosecution asked for during sentencing (which was already very
high) and sentenced Ross to two life sentences plus 40 years
without parole.
Most of us who are happy that Ross was pardoned agree that he was
guilty and deserved a jail sentence for the crimes he was convicted
of. The only problem is the sentence was so wildly excessive for a
non-violent, first-time offender. Compared to guidelines and other
sentences it was just crazy and wrong. Ross has served over ten
years. Now he's free. That's probably about right.
wolfgang42 wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
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
directly in front of me, and suddenly as I was reading I could look up
and see exactly the chair he had been in, where the plainclothes police
had positioned themselves, how they had arranged a distraction.
Having this tableau unexpectedly unfold right in front of my eyes was a
fascinating experience, and it certainly made the article suddenly get
a lot more immersive! [1]
EDIT: to be clear, I was not present for the arrest. I was reading the
magazine, some years after the arrest, but in the same place as the
arrest. (I didnât qualify the events with âI read that...â since
I thought the narrative ellipsis would be obvious from context;
evidently not.)
URI [1]: https://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/
siamese_puff wrote 1 hour 15 min ago:
I understood exactly what you meant and that is an awesome experience
alwa wrote 2 hours 5 min ago:
Just as an additional datapoint, since Iâm confused by fellow
commentersâ confusionâI thought your narrative was clear,
colorful, and entertaining, and I hope youâll keep things so
literary and engaging in your future contributions too :)
As with so many matters of crime, punishment, and high dudgeon, the
physical reality of the situation always feels so banal. Dread Pirate
Robertsâ lawless dark kingdom, where he commissions trans-national
assassinations⦠looks a lot like a nerdy dudeâs laptop on a
municipal library table.
DrBenCarson wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Maybe the single most confusing comment ever
Unearned5161 wrote 2 hours 39 min ago:
for the record, I appreciated your creative prose and enjoyed the
trippy narrative
nick3443 wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
You did a Boondock Saints!
beeflet wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT
pyuser583 wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
This is why I love SF. Itâs so small.
You can walk anywhere, and thereâs a good chance something big
happened nearby.
cush wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
Before I got to the edit I was convinced you were in The Neverending
Story
mergy wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
Give it up for Glen Park.
coliveira wrote 4 hours 15 min ago:
The responses to this comment show that people's ability to read and
comprehend text has decreased dramatically in the last few years.
Frightening...
pcdoodle wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
Aaron695's comment are always fun to read. For some reason he's
kinda 86'ed here.
defrost wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
I (and others) have vouched a few of his comments back to life,
he does write a good comment.
I don't know the original reasons for his apparent perma-dead'ing
(users can option to "show dead" and see these comments) but I
suspect it's due to going fully Australian wih swear words and
invectives when he gets a bit passionate about something .. or
even just adding colour for a lark, as we do.
throw37263 wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
Or HN just has a lot more international readers now and English
isn't their first language.
rpmisms wrote 3 hours 51 min ago:
An engineering forum may not be the place for creative prose, too.
chimeracoder wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
> The responses to this comment show that people's ability to read
and comprehend text has decreased dramatically in the last few
years
Or they show that GP wrote an ambiguous piece of text.
internet2000 wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
If every reply is pointing out how confusing it is, maybe the
original comment is just poorly written.
wolfgang42 wrote 3 hours 41 min ago:
Youâre not going to hear from the people who thought it made
perfect sense, so the replies are a pretty biased sample. (This
is also true of the parent complaint about reading comprehension,
tbh.) But I see three confused replies and three corrections (not
counting my own), so it doesnât seem to be every reply.
I think the problem is that I took an artistic style in an
attempt to paint a picture for the reader, but I did it in a long
thread on a technical forum where people are probably mostly
skimming rather than engaging in literary criticism, so I should
maybe have anticipated this would be a problem.
vonunov wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
I thought it was fine, I wasn't confused for a moment. The only
real problem here is that HN attracts a certain brand of nerds
who are inclined to think it's hilarious when Maurice Moss says
"Yes, it's one of those", many of whom are likely frothing
right now because I just committed a comma splice in the
previous sentence.
inopinatus wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
I was afraid of this too but it turned out to be presbyopia
beejiu wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
I assume you mean "I could look up and see exactly the chair he had
been in" figuratively?
wolfgang42 wrote 4 hours 16 min ago:
I mean, itâs possible that the library had rearranged their
chairs in the intervening years and that exact one was now at a
different table, but it was certainly a chair in the same location.
inopinatus wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
this is Neurath's library¹.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurath%27s_boat
remram wrote 4 hours 32 min ago:
> When the FBI agents stopped to have a drink I thought
You mean "when I read the part where the FBI agents stopped to have a
drink I thought"?
This part makes your comment super confusing. Where you there then or
later?
wolfgang42 wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
I thought that starting my story in media res would make for a
better dramatic effect, but it seems I overestimated my audience
and went a little too heavy on the narrative ellipsis.
vasco wrote 11 min ago:
I've seen this type of thing recently and also have been told
some comments were "obviously" meaning something else. I think
people must've stopped reading books and lost interpretation
skills.
homebrewer wrote 26 min ago:
> I overestimated my audience
How many languages do you speak? A large part of this site speaks
at least two, and usually English is not the first one of them.
ipaddr wrote 26 min ago:
I found it interesting and could visualize you as you were
visualizing it while reading. The only part that made me go back
was I thought he sat down to your table until I reread you could
see the table he sat down at years ago.
kurisufag wrote 2 hours 12 min ago:
I enjoyed it, personally.
Dylan16807 wrote 2 hours 15 min ago:
I think you could have told it as experiencing the events without
making your post confusing, but you'd have to redo your first
paragraph. Your first paragraph is external, meta, and places
his arrest in your past, which throws off the effect when that
suddenly changes in the next sentence. It's not the audience's
fault that that is hard to parse.
sdwr wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
Boo! Don't blame the audience!
> Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at
the table directly in front of me, and suddenly as I was reading
I could look up and see exactly the chair he had been in, where
the plainclothes police had positioned themselves, how they had
arranged a distraction.
Alternately:
> Ulbricht had walked into the public library
gives the game away.
If you still want to play around a bit:
> I could see where Ulbricht walked into the public library. The
table he sat at. I looked up and saw where the plainclothes
police had positioned themselves, how they had arranged a
distraction.
That way you are leaving some ambiguity, but are not directly
lying with the tenses.
inopinatus wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
I believe they are suggesting an experience of imaginatively
visualising the events of the arrest linearly as they were narrated
in their read-through of the article, serendipitously aided by
being physically present at the same location, and are referencing
the article's narration partially in the present tense to similarly
immerse us in medias res as we follow their remark.
Alternatively, they are themselves Ross Ulbricht, describing an
out-of-body fever dream or post-traumatic flashback. This seems ...
somewhat less likely.
syspec wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
Sorry, it went over my head a bit, you read about his arrest while he
was being arrested?
Satam wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
I had the same confusion initially, interestingly chat GPT gets it:
So while wolfgang42 wasn't there when Ulbricht was actually
arrested, their realization created a vivid mental image of the
event unfolding in that space, which made the story feel more
immersive.
In short: they were reading about an old event, but it happened to
occur in the same spot they were sitting at that moment. Hope that
clears it up!
TeMPOraL wrote 8 min ago:
> their realization created a vivid mental image of the event
unfolding in that space, which made the story feel more
immersive.
Glad that ChatGPT, probably like GP themselves, is a visualizer
and actually can create a "vivid mental image" of something. For
those of us with aphantasia, that is not a thing. Myself, I too
was mighty confused by the text, which read literally like a time
travel story, and was only missing a cat and tomorrow's
newspaper.
blooalien wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
Okay, that's actually pretty wild. I totally misunderstood too,
but the response from the "AI" does indeed "clear it up" for me.
A bit surprised actually, but then again, I suppose I shouldn't
be, since language is what those "large language models" are all
about after all... :)
babkayaga wrote 56 min ago:
Indeed. But their is something surprising here, however. people
like chomsky would present examples like this for decades as
untracktable by any algorithm, and as a proof that language is
a uniquely human thing. they went as far as to claim that
humans have a special language organ, somewhere in their brain
perhaps. turns out, a formula exists, it is just very very
large.
TuringTest wrote 34 min ago:
> chomsky would present examples like this for decades as
untracktable by any algorithm, and as a proof that language
is a uniquely human thing
Generatove AI has all but solved the Frame Problem.
Those expressions where intractable bc of the impossibility
to represent in logic all the background knowledge that is
required to understand the context.
It turns out, it is possible to represent all that knowledge
in compressed form, with statistical summarisation applied to
humongous amounts of data and processing power, unimaginable
back then; this puts the knowledge in reach of the algorithm
processing the sentence, which is thus capable of
understanding the context.
erehweb wrote 19 min ago:
Huge amounts of data and processing power are arguably the
foundation for the "Chinese room" thought experiment.
wolfgang42 wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
He was being arrested in the article, not IRL. When I say
âUlbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the
table directly in front of meâ I mean that I read
> He went... past the periodicals and reference desk, beyond the
romance novels, and settled in at a circular table near science
fiction, on the second floor... in a corner, with a view out the
window and his back toward the wall.
and realized that I was in the Glen Park public library, at a
circular table near science fiction on the second floor, in a
corner with my back to the window, and facing directly towards
where the article had just said he had sat.
chrisco255 wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
I see so you accidentally retraced his footsteps from years prior
and then realized it as you were reading about it.
paulsutter wrote 4 hours 37 min ago:
Wait, you were reading about his arrest while he was being arrested?
That article was written after his conviction?
EricRiese wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
Plot twist: wolfgang42 is Ulbricht
tocs3 wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
Clearly time travel. He had brought the article back in time so
he could read it as it happened.
By the way, I thought the post was written well. It did take a
little thinking but it was an interesting take.
j-bos wrote 4 hours 28 min ago:
He first read the article while sitting where Ulbricht was when
Ulbricht was arrested.
npvrite wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
A. His prison sentence was totalitarian and three letters stole his
crypto and illegally convicted him.
B. Orange is not a hero. I don't bow down to Kim Jong Un/Hitler
wannabees.
C. Tor is a three letter honeypot.
rappatic wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
I think his original sentence was absolutely deservedâeven though the
charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business
competition may have been dropped, I think it's clear he did many
things in the same vein. Even if you support his original pursuit of a
free and open online marketplace, I think most people would agree he
took it a bridge too far in the end.
That said, I do think he absolutely deserved to be released, not
because he didn't deserve to be locked up in the first place, but
because he's clearly been rehabilitated and has done great work during
his time in prison. All that considered, ten years seems like a not
unreasonable prison sentence for what he did. I hope he'll continue to
do good when he's released.
offsign wrote 3 min ago:
"he took it a bridge too far" is a massive trivialization.
The guy operated a marketplace for illegal goods in order to enrich
himself. The illegality wasn't just incidental, it was literally his
business model -- by flouting the law, he enjoyed massive market
benefit (minimal competition, lack of regulation, high margins etc)
by exploiting the arbitrage that the rest of us follow the rules.
Said a different way, he knowingly pursued enormous risk in order to
achieve outsized benefits, and ultimately his bet blew up on him --
we shouldn't have bailed him out.
zik wrote 13 min ago:
They dropped the contract killer charges - it appears that they were
fabricated to try to turn public opinion against him and get him
jailed. But as soon as they went to trial the charges were dropped
for lack of evidence.
outside415 wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
learn to read. he clearly was over sentenced.
jMyles wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
> I think it's clear he did many things in the same vein
It is clear as mud. We now know:
* At least four other people had access to the DPR account, by
design.
* One of those people (the person whose murder was supposedly
ordered, who has vehemently defended Ross!) asserts that he knew that
Nob (who we know who was a DEA agent) was one of those four people.
* Nob is a serial liar, and is now in prison for having stole some of
the bitcoin from this operation.
...what about that make clear that Ross was within a mile of this
supposed 'murder for hire' business?
pmarreck wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
Ross Ulbricht was widely regarded by friends and family as a
fundamentally decent and idealistic personâif admittedly naïve
about the implications of his actions. Those who knew him personally
describe him as thoughtful, intelligent, and motivated by a vision of
a freer and more equitable society. His philosophical motivations
were rooted in libertarian ideals, particularly the belief that
consenting adults should have the right to make decisions about their
own lives, including the substances they consume.
I just learned that he was an Eagle Scout.
Not exactly the résumé of someone getting locked up and the key
thrown away.
WrongAssumption wrote 38 min ago:
No rewrite that from another perspective saying someone was a
devout man rooted in Christian ideals. I just learned he was a
choir boy.
This is why we try not to sentence the way you are suggesting.
GIFtheory wrote 1 hour 17 min ago:
This argument is problematic because it implies that a person from
a different background who committed the same crimes (e.g., a poor,
black, uneducated person without any fancy philosophical ideals)
/should/ be locked up and the key thrown away. It doesnât work
that way. The law applies the same to all, and thatâs the way I
like it.
BoiledCabbage wrote 52 min ago:
Seriously, that was pretty blatant "he was one of the good guys
like me and so the law shouldn't really punish him, not like one
of those other people with different value that should be
punished to the full extent."
bdcravens wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
A 10 year prison sentence was apt. He did knowingly break the law
(the marketplace defense doesn't really apply, since admins had to
create the categories that were obviously illegal). A life sentence
was ridiculous, and added punishment for unconvicted crimes, however
likely, is a gross violation of constitutional protections.
soulofmischief wrote 2 hours 52 min ago:
These two thoughts are incompatible though, aren't they? Politics and
shenanigans around the case aside, the original sentence should have
taken into account the possibility of rehabilitation. But he got life
without parole.
That said, it was entrapment and everyone involved should be deeply
ashamed and prosecuted. At least those two agents did get some wire
fraud charges [0], but the entrapment angle got explored because the
charges were dropped.
[0]
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-federal-agents-charged...
jyap wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
His original sentence was life imprisonment without the possibility
of parole.
So you canât agree with the original sentence and then say he
âabsolutely deserved to be released.â
Without the chance of parole, a pardon from the president is one of
the few ways he could get out of jail.
ttul wrote 50 min ago:
As an aside, in Canada, a sentence of life without parole is
considered unlawful because it conflicts with Section 12 of the
Charter guarantees that individuals have the right not to be
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Courts have ruled that
life without the possibility of parole deprives offenders of any
hope of rehabilitation or reintegration into society, which could
amount to cruel and unusual treatment.
A sentence must balance the gravity of the offense with the
circumstances of the offender, while still allowing for hope and
redemption. A life sentence without parole forecloses this balance.
It's always struck me as odd that the United States - a nation that
is packed with far more Christians than Canada - doesn't shape its
system of incarceration to be more inline with Christian values and
the teachings of Jesus.
Canada's explicit rejection of life sentences without parole (LWOP)
through decisions like R v Bissonnette more closely aligns with
Jesus's teachings about redemption and mercy. In Canada, even those
convicted of the most serious crimes retain the possibility of
parole - not a guarantee of release, but a recognition of the
potential for rehabilitation that echoes Jesus's teachings about
transformation and second chances.
This philosophical difference manifests in several ways:
- In Canada, the emphasis on rehabilitation over retribution is
reflected in the term "correctional services" rather than
"penitentiary system"
- Canadian prisons generally offer more rehabilitative programs and
education opportunities
- The Canadian system places greater emphasis on Indigenous healing
lodges and restorative justice practices that align with Jesus's
focus on healing broken relationships
- Canadian courts have explicitly recognized that denying hope of
release violates human dignity, which parallels Jesus's teachings
about the inherent worth of every person
The contrast becomes particularly stark when considering multiple
murders. While many US jurisdictions impose multiple life sentences
to be served consecutively (effectively ensuring death in prison),
the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled this practice
unconstitutional, maintaining that even the worst offenders should
retain the possibility - though not guarantee - of earning
redemption through genuine rehabilitation.
This doesn't mean Canada is soft on crime - serious offenders still
serve lengthy sentences, and parole is never guaranteed. But the
maintenance of hope for eventual redemption, even in the worst
cases, better reflects Jesus's teachings about grace,
transformation, and the limitless possibility of spiritual renewal.
The irony is particularly pointed given that the US has a much
higher proportion of self-identified Christians than Canada, yet
has adopted a more retributive approach that seems less aligned
with Jesus's teachings about mercy and redemption.
But hey, you just have to wait for the right president to be
elected and you might get your chance. So I guess that's something.
ipaddr wrote 9 min ago:
On the surface but then they label you a dangerous offender and
they keep you in jail. Paul Bernardino is a good example.
The differences in the system probably have more to do with
electing vs appointing. Electing is more likely to send someone
tougher on crime vs well balance.If officials were elected in
Canada you would see the same outcome.
Not to mention private vs public prisons and when you make it a
business you have to find new customers vs a cost center you want
to limit.
AnthonyMouse wrote 19 min ago:
> It's always struck me as odd that the United States - a nation
that is packed with far more Christians than Canada - doesn't
shape its system of incarceration to be more inline with
Christian values and the teachings of Jesus.
Canada didn't have Prohibition to the extent that the US did,
which in turn led to the rise and financing of organized crime.
All the rest of it fell out of that: Organized crime was violent
and ruthless, so people started demanding oppressive laws and
harsh penalties to deal with it.
One of the major problems with this is that the cycle is
reinforced by law enforcement. You sensibly get rid of
prohibition, but then the mob is still around and starts looking
for a new source of funding, so you get more extortion rackets
etc. Then a law enforcement bureaucracy is created to deal with
it, but long-term the mob was going to die out without
prohibition anyway and the law enforcement efforts just speed it
up a bit. Except now you have a law enforcement bureaucracy with
nothing to do, so they lobby to recreate Prohibition in the form
of the Controlled Substances Act, which reconstitutes the mob in
the form of the drug cartels.
But now instead of saying "prohibition failed, let's repeal it"
they say "we need more resources" -- institutions try to preserve
the problem to which they are they solution. So the Feds fight
any attempts to legalize drugs because it would put them out of a
job, but as long as there is prohibition there is organized
crime, and organized crime is violent and terrible and a ratchet
to ever-harsher penalties.
jmb99 wrote 2 min ago:
> Canada didn't have Prohibition to the extent that the US did,
which in turn led to the rise and financing of organized crime.
All the rest of it fell out of that: Organized crime was
violent and ruthless, so people started demanding oppressive
laws and harsh penalties to deal with it.
Canada definitely had (has?) organized crime in that era,
although maybe not to the extent the US did. Check out the
Papalias[1] (my great great uncle was a quasi-crooked cop on
their payroll), as well as the Musitanos and Luppinos, for a
couple southern-Ontario examples. Thereâs still a
(relatively) small but fairly influential Italian mafia
presence in a lot of smaller southern Ontario cities, and at
least a few of the Papalias are still living off of family
money (my familyâs cottage, ironically not the side with the
crooked great great uncle, is next door to one of the
Papaliaâs cottages).
Hamilton is the way it is today in large part due to the mob
activity from the 40s-90s.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papalia_crime_family
ec109685 wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
Commuting is the typical response for âhe was totally guilty but
sentenced too longâ.
rappatic wrote 2 hours 34 min ago:
Good point, you are absolutely correct. Then I suppose life âwith
the possibility of paroleâ would have been a more appropriate
sentence, though I donât know if thatâs typically given. In any
case, I feel prisons ought to release prisoners if they demonstrate
exceptional rehabilitation and remorse, as Ross has, though of
course thatâs a difficult line to draw in practice.
reg_dunlop wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
I'm more interested in the subtext of the pardon.
Why this person specifically? And why at this time? Perhaps the
discussion shouldn't be about the actual subject of the pardon, and
perhaps more about the motives of the pardoner...
orblivion wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
Trump came to the Libertarian Party convention and specifically
promised to free Ross if he got their support. He actually promised
a commutation; I wonder why he upgraded to pardon. He also promised
a libertarian in his cabinet; oh well.
The LP chairwoman has made very interesting political moves this
election.
mrandish wrote 2 hours 28 min ago:
Yeah, I'm pleased that Ross is out after serving over 10 years,
but I wish it had been a commutation. He was guilty. The problem
is the judge wildly over sentencing. Ten years served is about
right for what he was convicted of.
Y_Y wrote 3 hours 24 min ago:
Bitcoin
77pt77 wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
> has done great work during his time in prison
What work?
sunnybeetroot wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
He set up an excellent in prison market
OccamsMirror wrote 1 hour 17 min ago:
He's known to locate certain things from time to time.
bko wrote 4 hours 56 min ago:
Ross Ulbricht was not sentenced for murder-for-hire charges.
Those allegations were used to deny him bail and influenced public
perception, they were not part of his formal conviction or
sentencing.
He was convicted on non-violent charges related to operating the Silk
Road website, including drug distribution, computer hacking, and
money laundering.
Does this change your opinion of sentencing being well-deserved?
chrisco255 wrote 2 hours 15 min ago:
Does anyone know if Ross had a jury trial and if not, why not?
mihaaly wrote 1 hour 20 min ago:
He had a jury trial.
empathy_m wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
Honestly any time I read the procedural history of this stuff I get
nerd sniped by the bizarre details and I lose track of the big
picture. I feel like the whole thing could be three competing
Dateline NBC style six-part crime specials and I still wouldn't get
tired of it.
Ross heard that one of his Silk Roads moderators was arrested, and
so he hired someone to kill the mod? The assassin sent a
confirmation photo of his mod, asphyxiated and covered in
Campbell's Chicken and Stars Soup?? The supposed assassin was
actually a corrupt DEA agent who later served federal prison time
for crimes so embarrassing that they were never fully disclosed?!?!
There is some kind of thorny moral question I cannot quite wrap my
brain around.
Ross did not successfully have anyone killed, but it seems that he
must have thought he was successful?
Ross (it is alleged, and chat logs seem to show) ordered someone's
death and paid for it and got explicit confirmation that they were
dead. [actually several someones.] Did he feel like a murderer at
this point? What a fascinating, real life Raskolnikov style figure.
Later, perhaps much later, he gets strong evidence that the murder
was fake. Nothing has changed in the outside world after he learns
this -- the victim is no more alive before or after he learns this.
Does this change his identity? Is he more or less of a murderer
than before?
Do the people who kill with modified Xbox controllers from a
warehouse in Las Vegas do the same kind of killing that Ross
thought he did?
And then there is some kind of moral thought experiment happening
at a Silicon Valley Rationalist, Effective Altruism kind of scale
that I can't quite wrap my head around. Do people matter as much in
person as if they're just blips on a screen you'll never meet? If
Ross could have sent 1 BTC to prevent fatal malaria in a dozen
young kids, thousands of miles away, but he didn't, should he feel
responsible in some way for their death? Is he about equally
responsible for them as for the online people he is pretty sure he
ordered killed from afar, but never met?
It's just a lot. The whole story is supernaturally intense; it's
hard to believe it was real. It will make for great TV.
See, e.g.
- [1] for the faux forum moderator killing
- [2] for the other faux five killings (another scam on Ross - he
thought he was having extortionists killed? he kept getting
confirmations?)
URI [1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/murdered-silk-road-employe...
URI [2]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/silk-road-drug-vendor...
lmm wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
I don't see how that should change anyone's opinion on whether the
sentence was deserved. Whether it was legally/procedurally correct,
sure. Whether he didn't get the day in court he should have had,
sure. But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did
try to pay to have the guy killed, what he deserves is a long
prison sentence, and whether that's imposed by a court doing things
properly, a court doing things improperly, or a vigilante kidnapper
isn't really here or there on that point.
(The rule of law is important, and we may let off people who
deserve harsh sentences for the sake of preserving it, but it
doesn't mean they deserve those sentences any less)
pcthrowaway wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
> But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did
try to pay to have the guy killed
If there was enough evidence to demonstrate that he attempted to
murder someone, why wasn't he charged and convicted of it?
Also, 2 of the DEA agents involved in his investigation were
convicted of fraud in relation to the case.
I do believe he probably did attempt to have someone killed, but
I'm far from certain of it, and think it should have no bearing
on the case if there's not enough evidence to convict him.
fogof wrote 30 min ago:
> If there was enough evidence to demonstrate that he attempted
to murder someone, why wasn't he charged and convicted of it?
Wikipedia suggests this was because he was already sentenced to
double life imprisonment. Clearly prosecutors should not waste
time pursuing charges that won't really impact a criminal's
status, do you disagree?
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Trial
AnthonyMouse wrote 2 min ago:
If they don't "waste time pursuing charges that won't really
impact" the sentence then the unproven allegations should not
be allowed to impact the sentence. You can't have it both
ways.
chrisco255 wrote 2 hours 14 min ago:
I don't think he did. The guy who he allegedly ordered a hit on
doesn't believe it and argued for Ross's release.
lotharcable wrote 4 hours 1 min ago:
> The rule of law is important,
The rule of law says innocent until proven guilty.
The reason they didn't go after him for murder for hire
allegations isn't because they felt bad for him or that they
didn't want to waste tax payer's money.
The reason they didn't go after him for 'murder for hire' was
that they knew there was no merit in it.
This is self evident.
tptacek wrote 3 hours 48 min ago:
They did go after him for "murder for hire"; the murders were
part of his conspiracy predicates, and evidence for them was
introduced. This stuff about him not being taken all the way
through a case charged on murder-for-hire, after receiving a
life sentence in a case where those murders were part of the
case, is just message board jazz hands.
trhway wrote 3 hours 13 min ago:
>case where those murders were part of the case, is just
message board jazz hands.
you're trying to look like you don't understand or aren't
aware that jury didn't convict him of murder-for-hire.
He chose a trial by jury, not by a judge. Nevertheless the
judge herself decided that he is guilty of the
murder-for-hire, and additionally the judge used
significantly lower standard than required for conviction.
tptacek wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
That's not what happened at all. You can just read the
filings on PACER; I'm sure they're all free on
Courtlistener by now.
mvdtnz wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
You say the rule of law is important, but also we should impose
extra-legal long sentences even if the rule of law doesn't allow
us to? How do you reconcile this perspective?
lmm wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
I say people sometimes deserve sentences longer than that which
the law imposes on them. I didn't say anything about what we
should do in that case.
nuclearnice3 wrote 4 hours 31 min ago:
This opinion [1] from the judge in his case indicates that the
murder-for-hire evidence was admitted during his trial. The
document outlines the evidence for all 6 murder for hire
allegations and explains why, although not charged, the evidence is
relevant to his case.
URI [1]: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/13...
srj wrote 28 min ago:
It's surprising to me that the prosecutor is allowed to
essentially insinuate crimes to influence the jury, without the
need to prove them. That seems to undermine the process because
it creates a "there's smoke so there must be fire" mentality for
the jury.
simonsarris wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
This opinion (after appeal) also details how they taken into
consideration with sentencing. See pages 130-131
URI [1]: https://pbwt2.gjassets.com/content/uploads/2017/05/15-18...
duxup wrote 4 hours 34 min ago:
The other user directly addressed that in his comment.
rappatic wrote 4 hours 35 min ago:
Did you read my comment? I said:
> even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate
his business competition may have been dropped
Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent of
it. In fact, reading the chat logs makes his guilt pretty clear. Of
course, because the whole operation was a scam, there's little he
could have been convicted of. Yet just because the murder was never
carried out doesn't mean he didn't intend to have someone
assassinated. In my book, paying someone money to kill another
person is definitely grounds for imprisonment.
tptacek wrote 4 hours 21 min ago:
The case for this was dropped because he was sentenced for it in
the other case.
ekianjo wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
> Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent
of it.
If you had a trial and they can't prove that, then yes it means
you are innocent of this charge in the eyes of the law
ktallett wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
Ah that's not strictly true. I believe Scotland is the only
place in the world I am aware of where there is Innocent,
unproven, and Guilty verdicts. I believe in reality a not
guilty verdict is, we didn't have the evidence to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt this person committed the crime. Finding
someone not guilty is a legal term. Considering whether someone
is innocent or not is more of a moral/factual term.
bko wrote 4 hours 31 min ago:
So you think people should be sentenced based on charges that
were not proven in court?
rappatic wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
No. I'm talking more from an ethical standpoint. I think
someone who hires contract killers deserves to go to prison. I
also think people shouldn't be convicted for charges that were
not proven in court. As I said before, in Ross' case, the
charge was dropped.
throwaway81523 wrote 4 hours 15 min ago:
That happens all the time, when people confess to a charge
ahead of time, instead of proceeding to a trial. Remember that
the purpose of the trial is to find out whether they are guilty
when there is a factual dispute about that question. Here, I
suppose the existence of a factual dispute is itself disputed:
does that need to go to a jury, or is it enough that the trial
judge and the appeal court looked at the record and decided
there wasn't a dispute?
ec109685 wrote 1 hour 26 min ago:
Confessing is the same as being convicted though.
anigbrowl wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
So you should apologize for not paying attention to the
original comment before stamping in to 'correct' it. A little
manners goes a long way.
scarab92 wrote 4 hours 32 min ago:
> Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent
of it
Thatâs exactly what it means under the presumption of
innocence.
Advocating for the continued imprisonment of someone for
something they are legally considered innocent of, is quite
literally vigilantism.
cmdli wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
He was found during sentencing to be guilty of hiring a hit on a
competitor using a preponderance of evidence (lower then
presumption of innocence). While this is a lower standard than a
conviction, it is still a higher standard than most apply in public
discourse.
hammock wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
> a higher standard than most apply in public discourse
Is it? Preponderance of the evidence is basically âmore likely
than notâ
torstenvl wrote 41 min ago:
That's one way of phrasing it, and unfortunately some
jurisdictions have adopted that phrase, but it is not correct.
A preponderance of the evidence is the greater weight of the
evidence after all evidence is considered. Heuristics along the
lines of "yeah that fits my priors"âwhich is what is actually
meant by "more likely than not"âare explicitly disallowed.
If Joe Smith in Smalltown, Ohio was hit by a blue bus, and
hammock owns 51 of the 100 blue buses in Smalltown whereas
torstenvl owns 49 of the 100 blue buses, that is insufficient
evidence by itself to prevail by a preponderance standard
against hammock in a civil suit.
noirbot wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
Yea, and most public discourse is at the level of "I saw a post
online about it once". Most people aren't doing deep research
before their opinions about things that aren't actually that
relevant to their day to day lives. 95% of the world, at best,
still has no idea who Ross Ulbricht is even today.
roenxi wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
That isn't fair, the point of the trial is to test whether
something is to be acted on. To act on something that wasn't
directly part of the trial is a bit off. I'm sure the judge is
acting in the clear legally, but if someone is going to be
sentenced for attempted murder then that should be after a trial
that formally accuses them of the crime.
mustache_kimono wrote 29 min ago:
> That isn't fair, the point of the trial is to test whether
something is to be acted on.
I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
If one show lots of bad behavior which amounts to a criminal
conspiracy, a judge should be able to sentence by taking into
account that behavior as an aggravating circumstance. Here,
the finder of fact found by a preponderance of the evidence the
defendant engaged in murder for hire schemes(!). It's
perfectly fair and reasonable to sentence based on those facts.
jjallen wrote 1 hour 17 min ago:
Other acts of those charged are routinely brought up in trials.
Fir example, criminals being charged with crime A that already
committed similar crimes in the past are used to show that the
likelihood of crime A being committed this time is higher.
mandevil wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
Sentencing is complicated in the US. Generally speaking, they
have a huge range and a standard for computing where one falls
in that range, but everything within that range is open to
judge's discretion. Life without parole was within that range
for the crimes that Ulbricht was convicted of.
This standard is an enormous document, [1] which lays out the
rules for adjustments. Evidence is admissible (by both sides!)
for sentencing, with a lower standard of evidence and burden of
proof, to either raise or lower the sentence within the very
wide numbers of what the conviction was for. So the Judge in
this case found that the lower burden of proof was met for
additional violent crimes being committed (with Ulbricht's
legal team having an opportunity to rebut), and that impacts
the sentencing calculations.
Not a lawyer, but I have listened to US lawyers on podcasts.
URI [1]: https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines
hackingonempty wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
He wasn't sentenced for attempted murder, the sentence Ulbricht
received was within the range provided by statute for the
crimes he was convicted of. Judges have discretion in
sentencing and they are allowed to consider the character of
the defendant. The fact that Ulbricht attempted to murder
people was demonstrated to the judges satisfaction during the
trial and influenced her to sentence at the higher end of the
range allowed for the crimes he was duly convicted.
Dylan16807 wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
The range allowed for those sentences is way too wide. Life
without parole is nowhere near reasonable for hacking, money
laundering, and drugs. Being within the sentencing range is
meaningless when the range encompasses any possible sentence.
Muromec wrote 10 min ago:
Well, just selling some drugs and laundering the money is
one thing. Being some much a drug lord that you start a war
in other drug lords is so much on a different level of
severity that it could have been itâs own article in a
criminal code
wahern wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
This cuts both ways as judges often adjust their sentencing
downward based on mitigating evidence. For both aggravating and
mitigating circumstances evidence does need to be submitted,
and there are standards of proof to be applied. It's just that
the procedural rules can be different and, depending on the
context and jurisdiction, sufficiency can be decided by the
judge alone. In some jurisdictions, for example, aggravating
evidence may need to be put to the jury, while mitigating
evidence need not be.
The U.S. is rather unique in providing a right to jury trials
for most--in practice almost all, including
misdemeanor--criminal cases. And this is a major factor for why
sentencing is so harsh and prosecutions so slow in the U.S. In
myriad ways the cost of criminal trials has induced the system
to arrive at its current state favoring plea deals, with
overlapping crimes and severe maximum penalties as cudgels. Be
careful about what kind of "protections" you want to impose.
AnthonyMouse wrote 11 min ago:
> This cuts both ways as judges often adjust their sentencing
downward based on mitigating evidence.
It isn't supposed to cut both ways. The prosecution is
supposed to have the higher burden, and admitting unproven
allegations is excessively prejudicial.
> In myriad ways the cost of criminal trials has induced the
system to arrive at its current state favoring plea deals,
with overlapping crimes and severe maximum penalties as
cudgels. Be careful about what kind of "protections" you want
to impose.
The lesson from this should be to make the protections strong
enough that they can't be thwarted like this. For example,
prohibit plea bargaining so that all convictions require a
trial and it's forbidden to impose any penalty for demanding
one.
It's not supposed to be efficient. It's supposed to be rare.
karlgkk wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
It does not change my opinion that the sentence was well deserved
in the eyes of the law. Those are all things, that independently,
can lead to serious jail time. The scale of his operation was also
substantial.
ekianjo wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
There are murderers who hardly do more than a few years in
prison. He was jailed for much longer than what violent criminals
get.
listenallyall wrote 23 min ago:
There are also many murderers who get life. And serve it all.
So, it's also true he was jailed for a much shorter time than
what violent criminals get. Your comment is negated.
gretch wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
yeah it's a tragedy - those violent criminals should have
received more time
ekianjo wrote 26 min ago:
Yet nobody complaints about that on HN on a daily basis
LarsDu88 wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
People have served more time for selling less drugs and attempting to
murder fewer people than Ross Ulbricht did.
Just because he was decent with computers does not mean he should be
busted out of jail.
eviks wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
People also served no time for selling more drugs and actually
murdering more people.
scarab92 wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
The attempted murder charge was dropped.
Under our system that means he should be considered innocent of it.
This conversation is messy mostly because people are refusing to do
that, which is akin to vigilantism.
A good faith discussion should only involve the charge he was
convicted of and pardoned for, which is the narcotics charge.
cyberax wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
> Under our system that means he should be considered innocent of
it.
Nope. This doesn't mean anything, and the charges can be picked
up again.
Oh wait, no. He was pardoned completely.
ALittleLight wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
He should be considered innocent by the courts - and he was
(innocent of the murder for hire charges, I mean). In the public
we aren't obligated to follow the same standards of evidence as
the courts. I think he almost certainly did pay to have those
people killed, and that can shape my opinion of him.
bigstrat2003 wrote 4 hours 22 min ago:
That's perfectly reasonable - but I don't think it should
really have a bearing on whether he should be pardoned. That is
not exactly a matter of the courts (by definition), but I think
as an official public act it should be subject to the
presumption of innocence as well.
muddi900 wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
The prosecution dropped the charges. That does not make anyone
innocent.
mrandish wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
My understanding is they never brought the charges in the first
place. The supposed online hitman and the victim were both FBI
informants. They never filed any charges because it was clearly
entrapment and no one was ever in any danger.
The prosecutors later used that evidence as support for their
sentencing request after Ross was convicted of only non-violent
offenses, which has a much lower standard of evidence. The
allegations of murder-for-hire were never tested at trial. They
may have evaporated under cross-examination by a competent
defense. Our system of justice holds that Ross is innocent of
those allegations unless convicted at trial.
bjt wrote 2 hours 24 min ago:
For purposes of a criminal conviction and locking them away
(or the death penalty), sure. Proof beyond a reasonable
doubt.
For purposes of random citizens saying "he tried to commit
murder", no. We're absolutely not bound by that same standard
of proof.
recursive wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
It does. Innocent until proven guilty.
scarab92 wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every
person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven
guilty.
Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof
is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling
evidence to the trier of fact (a judge or a jury). If the
prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is
acquitted of the charges.
jcranmer wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
> The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that
every person accused of any crime is considered innocent
until proven guilty.
That should be "considered innocent by the legal system".
People are still free to come to their own conclusions--and
act on them--even without a jury rendering a verdict.
Rather famously, for example, OJ Simpson was acquitted by a
jury of murdering his wife. But most people these days would
agree with the statement that he murdered his wife.
beezle wrote 4 hours 42 min ago:
It is also the case that prosecutors need to decide both the
probability of conviction, the effort needed to do so and
whether likely conviction on other serious charges are
sufficient for the people to feel that justice has been done.
parineum wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
And if the prosecution doesn't like the probability of
conviction, they doubt their ability to prove, beyond a
reasonable doubt, guilt.
There can be whatever reason he wasn't convicted, it
doesn't change the fact that he wasn't and presumed
innocence is the legal default.
rappatic wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
What makes you think I support those people being locked up either?
Also, afaik Ulbricht didn't sell drugs himself, he simply provided
an unmoderated marketplace.
arcticbull wrote 5 hours 7 min ago:
Because attempted murder is bad. I didn't think that would be
contentious.
Nezghul wrote 1 hour 10 min ago:
If the law is unethical then you may be pushed to do "bad"
things. For example if you are a Jew living with family in a
Nazi Germany and someone know your secret and he feels he need
to disclose it to the authorities then you may consider...
murdering him. Would you really be a bad guy?
arcticbull wrote 49 min ago:
The hypothetical is simply a bob and weave. Hiring a contract
killer to execute a business rival is clear and unequivocal.
daveguy wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
According to Reuters he was found guilty of "charges including
distributing drugs through the Internet and conspiring to commit
computer hacking and money laundering." In addition to running an
illegal market bazaar for 4 years.
beezle wrote 4 hours 45 min ago:
What a travesty. Maybe life was too long a sentence but this was
far too short.
Stagnant wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
10 years is plenty. No point in keeping non-violent offenders
behind bars for absurd amounts of time.
slt2021 wrote 5 hours 11 min ago:
- sackler family engineered opioid crisis and went unscathed
- hacking is a bogus charge applied to everything touching PCs
- money laundering is another victimless crime that very few actual
money launderers gets charged with, for some reason
foogazi wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
[flagged]
andirk wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
Case law obsessively cites other case law. So yeah, that's how
it works. His trial was a farce and was meant to send a message
to others to not, um, do drugs online or something.
foogazi wrote 4 hours 31 min ago:
Drug Cartels were just categorized as terrorist organizations
so I'm not sure the current admin is ok with drugs
"But he was a libertarian!" Shrugs
arcticbull wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
So that means Sackler should be charged, not that Ross should get
off lol.
daveguy wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
Yeah, the Sacklers should be in jail too.
And you didn't bother to address that he ran a market for illegal
goods and services, for some reason.
slt2021 wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
>Sacklers should be in jail too.
but they didn't, so we can forget about concept of justice.
nadermx wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
What has always sat odd with me regarding this, is we don't truly
know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this. They stole, so it's
not hard to imagine they planted evidence too.
trhway wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
>we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this
the corruption what we do know about already tainted the case to
the point that it should have been thrown out.
I don't care about Ulbricht, and whether he is guilty of all or
some of the charges or innocent. What bothers me in this case is
that the government can get away and in particular can get its way
in court even with such severe criminal behavior by the
government.
Rare case when i agree with Trump: [1] "The scum that worked to
convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the
modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump said in
his post online on Tuesday evening."
Trump even personally called Ulbricht mother. I start to wonder
whether i have been all that time in blind denial about Trump.
URI [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o
lettergram wrote 4 hours 42 min ago:
As part of the FBI conviction they were accused of tampering user
logs and taking over accounts. So⦠literally none of it can be
used as evidence imo.
potato3732842 wrote 4 hours 46 min ago:
I assume that the feds corruption is as bad as it is in every other
high profile case case involving fed informants and politically
charged topics. Randy Weaver, all the muslims they radicalized and
then goaded into doing terrorist things post 9/11, the Michigan
Fednapping. It seems like every time these people have a chance to
entrap someone they do, but they do it in a "haha, jokes on you we
run the system so while this probably would be entrapment if some
beat cops did it the court won't find it that way" sort of way.
They just can't touch anything without getting it dirty this way
and the fact that that is a 30yr pattern at this point depending on
how you count speaks volumes IMO. While I'm sure they can solve an
interstate murder or interstate fraud or whatever just fine I just
don't trust them to handle these sorts of cases.
It seems like all of these people they wind up charging probably
are questionable people who wanted to do the thing and probably did
some other lesser things but they probably would have given up on
the big thing if there wasn't a federal agency running around doing
all the "the informant says the guy is lamenting not having
explosives, quick someone get him some explosives" things in the
background.
GolfPopper wrote 52 min ago:
It took a bit of tracking down, but I finally found an apparently
egregious example of this sort of thing I had vaguely remembered:
Iraqi citizen and legal US resident Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab
was sentenced last February to 14 years in prison for his role in
an alleged plot to murder George W. Bush, and his involvement in
smuggling terrorists into the United States. [1] But his
sentencing (after his guilty plea) contains an interesting
caveat: lifetime supervised release.
Why is a terrorist and would-be assassin of a former President
getting lifetime supervised release? None of the media coverage
of the case, going back years, makes that clear. However, a
footnote in the original criminal complaint against[2] him offers
a likely explanation:
"In or around the end of March 2022, United States immigration
officials conducted an asylum interview with SHIHAB. After the
interview was conducted United States immigration officials
advised the FBI that SHIHAB may have information regarding an
ISIS member that was recently smuggled into the United States."
With a little reading between the lines of the criminal
complaint, a very different story emerges: Shihab never dealt
with any terrorists. He was a paid middleman between two
government informants or agents pretending to be terrorists. He
took their money, played along, and ratted them out to INS during
an asylum interview. After that, once they realized the jig was
up, the FBI arrested and charged him at its earliest opportunity
- for the plot they had created and paid him to participate in,
and which he in turn had informed the government about.
1. [1] 2.
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/columbus-man-senten...
URI [2]: https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2022/06/Shihab-complain...
VWWHFSfQ wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
Ross Ulbricht was not a good person. Full stop.
He organized and operated a global criminal drug ring and conspired
to have people killed. The only difference between DPR and Pabla
Escobar is that DPR was running his drug business in the 2010s
instead of the 1980s.
K0balt wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
DPR dabbled with the idea of violence.
Pablo Escobar revelled in it.
PE put bombed newspapers and killed hundreds, if not thousands of
people unrelated to any criminal enterprise or to arresting him.
I mean, actual innocent, minding their own business civilians.
Over 4000 murders have been directly attributed to the actions
and orders of Escobar. Estimates to the actual count range closer
to 8000.
DPR went over to the dark side a bit in that entrapment racket,
or at least it seems so.
Thinking that someone needs to be murdered isnât necessarily a
character flaw, imho.
It depends on what DPR was led to believe about this fictional
person. It is reasonable to imagine that the FBI took every
possible measure to make their fake victim seem as murder worthy
as possible. Itâs not too much of a stretch to imagine that the
âvictimâ may have been painted as a purveyor of child
trafficking, CSAM, or other things repugnant. My point is we
donât know. And if we donât know, we should reserve judgment.
thruway516 wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
>DPR went over to the dark side a bit in that entrapment racket
It has to start somewhere
vunderba wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
I don't think anyone in here is making the case that Ulbricht is
a "good person", but comparing Escobar to Ulbricht is next-level
delusional.
One of these people attempted to place hits on 3-4 individuals,
the other one planted a bomb on a passenger plane that resulted
in the deaths of over a hundred people.
Get some perspective and/or learn your history.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_203
jMyles wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
> I don't think anyone in here is making the case that Ulbricht
is a "good person",
I am.
He built a tool that allowed people to circumvent a wantonly
unjust legal framework by an aging, decreasingly relevant
state.
We need more of that.
mrandish wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
> The only difference between DPR and Pabla Escobar is that DPR
was running his drug business in the 2010s instead of the 1980s.
Asserting moral equivalence between someone who ordered dozens of
innocent women and children not just killed but dismembered -
solely as a lesson for others. Orders which were actually carried
out multiple times and DPR who was never charged, tried or
convicted of conspiring with a supposed online hitman to kill a
competitor (who both were actually FBI informants - clearly
making it entrapment). Yeah, that's quite a reach.
Sure, DPR was no saint but why push for the absolute maximally
extreme interpretation? Even asserting he "organized and operated
a global criminal drug ring" is a stretch. My understanding is he
ran an online marketplace which drug dealers used to sell to
their customers. I'm not aware that Ross ever bought or sold
drugs as a business or hired others to do so. There is more than
a little nuance between 1) buying drugs from distributors,
delivering drugs to buyers and collecting the money, and 2)
running online forums and messaging for people who do those
things. At most, #2 is being an accessory to #1.
VWWHFSfQ wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
> My understanding is he ran an online marketplace which drug
dealers used to sell to their customers. I'm not aware that
Ross ever bought or sold drugs as a business or hired others to
do so.
Ah yes, he accumulated over $5 billion in Bitcoins by entirely
legal means. He didn't facilitate the wholesale distribution
of illegal (and dangerous) drugs at all. He never contributed
to the massive distribution of Fentanyle-laced dopes to the
United States, Europe, and elsewhere. He was just the online
guy!
WrongAssumption wrote 45 min ago:
Are you for real using todayâs value of the Silk Road
bitcoins to say he amassed $5 billion dollars.
Sorry, thatâs just dishonest. Those coins were worth less
than 30 million at the time of his arrest.
URI [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/2...
tayo42 wrote 53 min ago:
Tbh you probably don't know what your talking about. Silk
road and fentanyl in drugs didn't over lap. Fent really
showed up a couple years after the market was shut down.
mrandish wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
You've mischaracterized what I said.
> he accumulated over $5 billion in Bitcoins by entirely
legal means.
I never claimed he didn't break the law. I said the opposite,
that he's guilty of being an accessory to drug dealing.
> He didn't facilitate the wholesale distribution of illegal
(and dangerous) drugs at all.
I said "he ran an online marketplace which drug dealers used
to sell to their customers."
> He was just the online guy!
I said he's "no saint" and in an earlier post in this thread
I also said he deserved a jail sentence and that "ten years
was enough" for what he was charged with and convicted of as
a first-time offender.
I challenged your assertion of "no difference" between DPR
and Pablo Escobar as extreme and your response is to
mischaracterize my position as DPR committing no crime
instead of responding to my actual position that he's a
criminal who is guilty and deserved ten years in jail but not
two life sentences plus 40 years without parole. There is a
middle ground between "completely innocent of anything" and
"no different than Pablo Escobar." I don't understand why you
can't acknowledge such a middle ground might exist - and that
it is my position.
VWWHFSfQ wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
Well in any case, Ross Ulbricht got what he deserved. Now
he'll spend the rest of his life wearing an ankle bracelet.
mrandish wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
You appear to be confused about the difference between a
pardon and parole (and even parole doesn't entail
monitoring "for life").
Also, your response didn't respond to what I said (which
was about previously only responding to a straw man I
didn't say). I like to think we strive in good faith for
a little higher level of discourse here on HN. Try to do
better.
defrost wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
Are you sure this is the right forum for you?
Regardless of Ross Ulbricht's crimes, the pro's and con's
of the pardon deserve considered discussion.
Are you bringing thoughtful and interesting
considerations to this thread?
For example; will he actually wear an ankle bracelet for
the rest of his life under the terms of a full and
unconditional pardon?
VWWHFSfQ wrote 2 hours 18 min ago:
a metaphorical bracelet, I guess. The orange-faced man
pardoned the guys in the orange jumpsuits. Seems
fitting haha
I think you're in the wrong thread
robertlagrant wrote 1 hour 28 min ago:
The other poster was specifically replying to what
you were claiming. How can they be in the wrong
thread?
ekianjo wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
> The only difference between DPR and Pabla Escobar
The only difference?
rajamaka wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
Was he ever convicted on conspiracy to murder?
Because in my opinion the ethics of operating a drug ring is not
as black as white as you state.
The existence of drug rings is an inevitable outcome from the war
on drugs and I would argue the blame lands on the politicians who
maintain the status quo that incentivises the creation of the
black market for drugs.
dogmatism wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
wait what? Escobar was responsible for conservatively 4,000
people killed, some at his own hand
DPR conspired but didn't actually directly kill anyone
Not saying DPR was a good person, but a little perspective is in
order
adastra22 wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
He did order (and pay for) at least one murder. It just happens
that both the victim and the would-be hit man were both
informants so they staged the murder. Rossâ argument is that
he knew it was fake, but that makes no sense in context.
It was right that they dropped the charge because it was quite
obviously entrapment. But none of it reflects well on Ross
Ulbrichtâs character.
mplewis wrote 5 hours 16 min ago:
What evidence would you have even needed to plant? He ran the
largest internet drug market and openly tried to assassinate a
competitor.
plsbenice34 wrote 54 min ago:
Many people, including myself, do not believe that he really did
any of the activity related to the assassination attempts.
Demonstrably corrupt law enforcement agents had the opportunity
to do it all themselves and it would be typical behaviour for
those agencies. He is (and was) politically passionate about
non-violence and it would go against everything he stood for. I
cannot believe he would do it. What do you mean "openly"?
jMyles wrote 2 hours 10 min ago:
> openly tried to assassinate a competitor.
Unmitigated nonsense. The evidence that he was involved in this
is somewhere between unreliable and nonexistent, and he (and the
supposed victim) have disputed it since day one. WTF do you mean
"openly"?
nadermx wrote 5 hours 14 min ago:
He never admitted to the attempted murder. So it's not a leap to
assume that might of been tainted
seanw444 wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
But the feds would never attempt shading means of solving a
problem that they're being heavily pressured to solve in a
timely manner! Don't be a hecking conspiracy theorist.
mplewis wrote 5 hours 12 min ago:
Tainted how?
TheAmazingRace wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
Agreed. He willingly engaged with the alleged hitman (which ended
up being the FBI contact). He didn't need to do anything or not
have the thought to murder others cross his mind.
andirk wrote 4 hours 41 min ago:
Allegedly. The 2 rules of his Fight Club were no underage sex
stuff and no physical harm. That hitman claim was not part of
his charges or sentencing. The heavy sentencing was to like
"send a message" the judge said.
TheAmazingRace wrote 4 hours 37 min ago:
They weren't part of his sentencing because a different court
entirely was pursuing the hit for hire attempt charge, but
because another court in NY got the book thrown at him for
running the site, they decided to drop it because it didn't
seem necessary anymore.
In hindsight, the prosecution probably wished they didn't do
that, since they are said to have had overwhelming evidence
and proof, and there is even a Wired article about chat logs
pertaining to DPR seeking services, but those are the breaks!
If you don't do your due diligence, criminals can be let off
on a technicality too!
andirk wrote 4 hours 31 min ago:
I haven't looked into the case(s) for years, but
prosecutors don't often just drop charges because other
charges were found guilty. People get charged even after
life sentences have been handed down.
cyberax wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
> I haven't looked into the case(s) for years, but
prosecutors don't often just drop charges because other
charges were found guilty.
They absolutely do that all the freaking time. Especially
when other convictions already result in a long sentence.
Prosecutors have limited bandwidth, and just wasting time
adding one more life imprisonment on top of a life
imprisonment is not helpful.
TheAmazingRace wrote 4 hours 28 min ago:
Perhaps. I can't think of why they ultimately decided not
to move forward with it, but here we are.
buckle8017 wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
They dropped the murder for hire charges because
discovery would have.. discovered the FBI doing very
very bad things.
WrongAssumption wrote 50 min ago:
Prosecutors do not work for the FBI, and the FBI has
no say in who gets prosecuted nor for which charges.
TheAmazingRace wrote 1 hour 59 min ago:
I doubt that's the reason. It could simply be
bandwidth reasons as another commenter in the thread
implied.
jazzyjackson wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Obligatory "This is good for bitcoin"
insane_dreamer wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Interesting. I wonder who pushed Trump to do this. Gotta be Musk. Who
else?
zeroonetwothree wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
The LP presumably
nikolay wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Trump freed him because libertarians voted for him - he openly said so.
Meanwhile, he's waging a war on fentanyl! He should've freed Snowden
instead.
loeg wrote 5 hours 29 min ago:
Any non-twitter reporting on this?
Edit:
URI [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pardons-silk-road-found...
dschuetz wrote 15 min ago:
Thanks.
Cub3 wrote 2 hours 51 min ago:
It seems a lot of reddit communities are starting to block xitter as
it's painful to use now without an account. Should HN do the same?
easterncalculus wrote 1 hour 45 min ago:
The main reason all the subs made this change today is because of
the elon nazi salute, not the fact that twitter is hostile to
unauthenticated user agents.
dmix wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
> not the fact that twitter is hostile to unauthenticated user
agents.
Yep, Twitter has had aggressive authentication gating for almost
2yrs now and HN frequently has Twitter links
bigmattystyles wrote 1 hour 25 min ago:
Am I remembering correctly that when Elon first took over, he
took that gate down because of his whole free speech thing. I'm
guessing they re-instated it as soon as it hit the bottom line.
Makes me wonder if government should still rely on it for
comms.
dmix wrote 46 min ago:
One of the first things Twitter did post Elon was remove sign
in gating then I guess the bankers pressed Elon and it went
back up. Can't always do everything you want in business, I
guess. Bills come first.
hbbio wrote 1 hour 58 min ago:
Of course not, the tweet here is _the_ original source for that
news
psygn89 wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
No. Let us decide how we want to handle it. Most of us could
handle it ourselves through scripts and extensions if it really
bothered us anyway.
loeg wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
Nah. I just wanted to see a source I trusted to be legitimate
before sharing a sensational story.
frinxor wrote 2 hours 46 min ago:
if its on front page of HN already w/ hundreds of votes, i think
its fair to assume its legitimate regardless of the source.
loeg wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
True looking nonsense floats to the top of HN semi-regularly;
it's not a good enough metric.
dredmorbius wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
Guardian: < [1] >
CNN: < [2] >
NPR: < [3] >
MSN: < [4] >
Reuters: < [5] >
AP: < [4] >
URI [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/ross-ulbrich...
URI [2]: https://lite.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/silk-road-ross-ulbr...
URI [3]: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/21/nx-s1-5270051/trump-pardons-d...
URI [4]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-pardons-...
URI [5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pardons-silk-road-fou...
URI [6]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-pardons-...
par wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
it's in nytimes
scudsworth wrote 5 hours 30 min ago:
In one message, Ulbricht informed ELLINGSON that â[the murder target]
is a liability and I wouldn't mind if he was executed.â In another
message, Ulbricht stated: â[the murder target] is causing me problems
. . . I would like to put a bounty on his head if itâs not too much
trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to
find him?â ELLINGSON responded, â[the p]rice for clean is 300k+
USD,â and the â[p]rice for non-clean is 150-200k USD depending on
how you want it done.â ELLINGSON further explained, in part, that
â[t]hese prices pay for 2 professional hitters including their travel
expenses and work they put in.â
Ulbricht later sent ELLINGSON $150,000 worth of Bitcoin to pay for the
purported murder. ELLINGSON and Ulbricht agreed on a code to be
included with a photograph to prove that the murder had been carried
out. In April 2013, ELLINGSON and Ulbricht exchanged messages
reflecting that ELLINGSON had sent Ulbricht photographic proof of the
murder. A thumbnail of a deleted photograph purporting to depict a man
lying on a floor in a pool of blood with tape over his mouth was
recovered from Ulbrichtâs laptop after his arrest. A piece of paper
with the agreed-upon code written on it is shown in the photograph next
to the head of the purportedly dead individual.
Later in April 2013, ELLINGSON and Ulbricht exchanged additional
messages regarding a plot to kill four additional people in Canada.
Ulbricht sent ELLINGSON an additional $500,000 worth of Bitcoin for the
murders. ELLINGSON claimed to Ulbricht in online messages that the
murders had in fact been committed.
holuponemoment wrote 1 hour 11 min ago:
James Ellingson is a convicted federal criminal charged with numerous
crimes related to this case.
Tasked with investigating Silk Road he ended up in jail himself,
along with his co-workers.
There's a very good reason none of this stuff ever went to trial, it
would be incredibly embarrassing for the agencies involved to see the
light of day.
brcmthrowaway wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
That is table stakes for Trump
vvpan wrote 5 hours 30 min ago:
When Snowden, is my question. RFK put a lot of words into "if I am in
charge that'll be my first thing". Yeah, he's not the president but
he's also not nobody anymore.
Cornbilly wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
Oh thatâs going to be good if it happens.
Everyone will celebrate Trumpâs good deed while he funnels more
government money to companies like Palantir to do things similar to
PRISM.
dylan604 wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
For someone that likes to take top secret documents and share them
with unauthorized people, Snowden sounds perfect for this guy to
pardon
mimerme wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
private intelligence still has a few ways to go before whistleblowers
don't have all their rights stripped by the state
mikrotikker wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
I'd be worried about the Russians putting him in jail if the US
pardoned him.
sapiogram wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
I don't think Putin would want to taint his relationship with Trump
on his first week on the White House.
Maxious wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
That doesn't mean that he would want to be seen to be a pushover
URI [1]: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5098063-donald-...
bbor wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
NGL it would be pretty funny if Snowden gets to return to the west
but we hadn't actually fixed any of the stuff he brought forward in
the meantime. Not sure what I would do in his shoes... I guess a
pardon is pretty impossible for future presidents to get around, TBF
andirk wrote 4 hours 45 min ago:
The courage a lot of these whistleblowers have shown is admirable.
How the American public outrages, though: Facebook has targeted
ads. How they don't outrage: their government is illegally tracking
their own citizens' movements and communications including
overseas.
Not going to say Ulbricht is a hero like some of the others, but he
trail blazed like none before him! And he deserves his freedom
years ago.
steveBK123 wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
[flagged]
zoklet-enjoyer wrote 5 hours 26 min ago:
I don't understand how she's not in prison and SBF is
steveBK123 wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
Pretty sure she is currently in jail.. if not, she's finished doing
the time she was sentenced.
Her husband took the fall, whatever the facts actually are, and got
a longer sentence.
SBF - well the scale, number of laws violated, duration, number of
victims, profile of victims, complete lack of contrition, etc would
be why he got a much longer sentence.
tayo42 wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
The laws should change too. Legalize and regulate drugs and access.
bdhcuidbebe wrote 5 hours 36 min ago:
Will he get his possesions back then?
50,676 bitcoins, today valued at 5,3 billion USD.
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-his...
notfed wrote 39 min ago:
I don't think it's crazy to suspect that Ulbricht knows a password or
two and cut a deal here.
Scoundreller wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
Was that profits or usersâ deposits?
yapyap wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
obviously not.
throwaway657656 wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
Until now I oddly never questioned how any government could seize
someone's bitcoin and how a government keeps the private keys of
their crypto wallets secure.
yieldcrv wrote 4 hours 47 min ago:
a lot of known best practices were not followed in 2013.
Every advancement in crypto was done after the government made a
move. And all subsequent moves netted the government less.
Now it takes more agencies to seize darknet markets, and most
merchants and consumers get their money back because it was a
multisignature transaction and the server stored nothing. Even
domains have been seized back from the government.
The crypto space calls it "antifragility", as in the idea - and now
history - that the asset class and infrastructure improves under
pressure.
dmix wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
> a lot of known best practices were not followed in 2013.
like Secret Service and DEA agents getting immediately caught
trying to steal Bitcoin from Silk Road?
URI [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/30/federal-a...
yieldcrv wrote 25 min ago:
Yes, like that
I was referring to hot and cold wallet practices, methods for
unlinking transaction activity from your KYCâd funds, and the
immaturity of multi-signature at the time
arcticbull wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
No, generally a pardon does not eliminate any civil liability or
entitle you to refunds once the assets have been transferred to
Treasury. He would still have to answer Yes to having been convicted
of a felony and he would still not be entitled to vote in states that
do not permit felons to vote.
> Where a person has paid a monetary penalty or forfeited property,
the consequences of a pardon depend in part on when it was issued. If
a monetary fine or contraband cash has been transferred to the
Treasury, a pardon conveys no right to a refund, nor does the person
pardoned have a right to reacquire property or the equivalent in cash
from a legitimate purchaser of his seized assets or from an informant
who was rewarded with cash taken from the pardoned person before he
was pardoned.
URI [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/presidential-pardons-sett...
joering2 wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
This is obviously incorrect. Actually pardon means the charges
filed has been voided, hence anything happening afterwards has had
no merits and court decisions made are now rendered moot. For
example, Roger Stone was charged and found guilty of multiple
crimes and Trump pardoned him; he still brandish guns and was
"proudly voting Trump" in 2024 in state of Florida. Getting pardon
is literally like it never happened in the first place.
duxup wrote 4 hours 32 min ago:
Your example doesn't seem to involve restoring property / funds
due to a pardon that were already confiscated / already paid.
Is there some example of someone getting such money back?
mech422 wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
Part of getting pardoned is admitting guilt - ask joe arpaio ...
arcticbull wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
The pardon can restore certain rights in some cases, I'm not
entirely familiar with the Stone shenanigans, but knowing the
parties involved I can't assume that Stone was legally entitled
to do what he did after the pardon, and maybe he was.
That said, the recovery of assets after transfer to Treasury is
settled law. [1] > More broadly, the Court ruled in several cases
during this period that pardons entitled their recipients to
recover property forfeited or seized on the basis of the
underlying offenses, so long as vested third-party rights would
not be affected and money had not already been paid into the
Treasury (except as authorized by statute).
Was covered in Osborne v. United States, Knote v. United States,
In re: Armstrong's Foundry, Cent. R.R. v. Bosworth and Jenkins v.
Collard
Subsequent cases make it clear that the offense is not in fact
"gone."
> ... the Court in Burdick stated that a pardon âcarries an
imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it."
> ... then, in Carlesi v. New York, the Court determined that a
pardoned offense could still be considered âas a circumstance
of aggravationâ under a state habitual-offender law, reflecting
that although a pardon may obviate the punishment for a federal
crime, it does not erase the facts associated with the crime or
preclude all collateral effects arising from those facts.
The court holds that it is not in fact as if it never happened.
URI [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2...
bb88 wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
If they were from the commission of a crime, then no.
idlewords wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
It's a full pardon; there is no crime.
Spooky23 wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
Pardons are forgiveness. They donât roll back the clock,
although the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that acceptance of a
pardon is not an assumption of guilt.
ajcp wrote 3 hours 46 min ago:
Was acceptance of a pardon an "assumption" by the court? Is it
not "admission* of guilt", which I believe itself was never the
case as this was based on a judge's aside that people didn't
accept pardons because it was *percieved* as "an admission of
guilt", i.e. the "percieved" part was not actually articulated
in court but rather the judge was completing a thought before
it was fully articulated.
bb88 wrote 3 hours 10 min ago:
What I find interesting is that the 5th amendment no longer
applies after a pardon. The pardoned can no longer claim
that protection for the crime he was convicted of.
Spooky23 wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
My apologies I made a mistake. The Burdick SCOTUS case from
1915 said âcarries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of
a confession of itâ
In 2021, an appeals court opined that: ânot every
acceptance of a pardon constitutes a confession of guilt.â
I thought the 2021 case was a Supreme Court case, and I was
incorrect. I think in the public eye the pardon is viewed
differently based on however the story is told.
TrackerFF wrote 4 hours 35 min ago:
That would arguably create some of the worst perverse incentives,
as far as financial crimes go.
Any two-bit governor could team up with some criminal, and make
enough money to be set up for life against a pardon. Even worse
if it's a president, as they could likely get off scot-free.
Trump could literally scam everyone and everyone, step down,
receive a pardon from the VP, and happy days.
Spooky23 wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
Thatâs exactly what itâs doing. As long as you misbehave in
Washington DC or commit a crime not chargeable in a state or
too complex to prosecute, youâre good.
For example, you could defraud suckers into buying a pump and
dump memecoin. Elon has repeatedly demonstrated that nobody
will prosecute, and POTUS is above the law for as long as he
decides to stay in office.
TeaBrain wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
A pardon results in the relief from the consequences of a crime.
There being a pardon doesn't necessarily mean there was no crime.
qingcharles wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
That's not how it works. The money can still be guilty of a crime
outside of the Defendant's acquittal in civil cases like this.
source: hundreds of hours in forfeiture court
cryptonector wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
Civil asset forfeiture should not be considered constitutional,
and some day a test case will make it to the SCOTUS. As for
this case though... the pardon does not make Ulbritch innocent!
On the contrary, accepting the pardon implies guilt. So the
pardon need not and might not extend to forfeitures. Though
it's also possible that the presidential pardon could extend to
the forfeitures, but I suspect that's a constitutional grey
area.
bb88 wrote 3 hours 6 min ago:
Civil asset forfeiture connected to an actual crime should
be. You should not own the guns you used to murder someone
else, e.g.
Otherwise it's "your $100,000 in dollars in cash looks guilty
to me."
cryptonector wrote 2 hours 39 min ago:
Right, if you've been found guilty, the your assets can be
forfeited.
tptacek wrote 3 hours 23 min ago:
Cases have made it to the Supreme Court --- recently! --- and
it held up just fine. This is another message board fixation.
I'm sure it's abused all over the place. It wasn't in this
case.
cryptonector wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
[1] ?
That's not very conclusive.
URI [1]: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/16740-civil-fo...
tptacek wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
What part of this makes you thing CAF is on shaky
constitutional ground? This is a CAF case with reach-y
fact patterns for the government and they won it handily.
We didn't even get close to the question of whether CAF
is itself constitutional; the court simply presumed it.
bb88 wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
If the cases start with: "US v $200,000", that probably
needs to go away.
I doubt I would be able to get away with "bb88 v $2B". It
should so belong to me.
idlewords wrote 4 hours 46 min ago:
Pardon the money!
tptacek wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
He can't. The President doesn't have civil pardon power.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
Hard to agree here. A jury of his peers convicted him of the
crime.
georgeplusplus wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
I donât believe thatâs true. A pardon does not excuse a
crime.
misiti3780 wrote 5 hours 29 min ago:
Hey may have other wallets...
bigiain wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
I suspect there'll be a lot of people very carefully watching for
transactions from wallets with some sort of links to Silk Road that
have been dormant for 12 years or so.
konfusinomicon wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
with a name like DPR id have to assume its buried treasure
ktallett wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
I am not sure of the legality around his possessions but they are
long gone. Even the ones stolen by FBI officers during the course of
the investigation.
mmooss wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
I think that requires convincing evidence. Also, how is it relevant
to the question?
1123581321 wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
It is easy to look up the cases against the agents. [1] Both
served time.
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-federal-agents-cha...
mmooss wrote 4 hours 47 min ago:
Thanks, that links to the charges.
"Two former federal agents have been charged with wire fraud,
money laundering and related offenses for stealing digital
currency during their investigation of the Silk Road ..."
1123581321 wrote 4 hours 41 min ago:
Iâll let you Google the pleas and sentences. Stop with the
asinine recalcitrance.
ktallett wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
I'm more than happy to have the discussion with you but I
have no requirement to provide all of the information that is
widely available in the public domain.
mmooss wrote 1 hour 47 min ago:
Are you replying to the wrong comment? :)
ktallett wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
Well the American Government auctioned the bitcoin, and the two
FBI agents were tried and sentenced for theft. I don't need
evidence.
I am curious how the American government can reimburse those
pardoned.
mmooss wrote 4 hours 56 min ago:
I see those are your claims, but do you have evidence of them?
bdhcuidbebe wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
Its well known and well covered facts regarding this high
status case, you even got links in a sibling comment so read
them
steveBK123 wrote 5 hours 36 min ago:
At the same time he is threatening to tariff China 10% due to their
responsibility for fentanyl, lol
zoklet-enjoyer wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
Fentanyl wasn't big yet when Silk Road was around. And besides,
people were buying straight from China off the clearnet
ethagnawl wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
I knew people who were wringing it out of medicated patches and
sniffing it out of Afrin bottles during high school in the 90s. I
also knew someone who ODd and died from tainted/fake pills they
bought from one of The Silk Road's (immediate) successors.
Some number of people also OD on "traditional" street drugs every
day. So, this is really not a sound argument.
ics wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor?
Just in case I feel the need to puke
If we'd known what it'd take to get here
Would we have chosen to?
So you wanna build an altar on a summer night
You wanna smoke the gel off a fentanyl patch
Aintcha heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews
And I always loved you to the max
David Berman, from Punks in the Beerlight
nozzlegear wrote 5 hours 11 min ago:
Mr. Trump isn't exactly known for making distinctions like that.
steveBK123 wrote 5 hours 24 min ago:
I think serious jail for running an illegal drug marketplace is
good, even if he used lots of neat tech to do so..
asveikau wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
I think they're pointing out the hypocrisy of wanting to crack down
on drugs while doing this.
I see so many Trump adjacent folks demanding we lock up drug
dealers, deport them, whatever. But they want to let this one go.
ethagnawl wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
I see those people in my personal life, too. Ironically, they're
also the ones who regularly drive drunk and do a little cocaine
now and again because _it doesn't really count_.
steveBK123 wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
Orange man is a classic tough-on-crime guy, very selective what
crimes and what demographics of criminals he is tough on.
jsphweid wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
From wikipedia:
> "full and unconditional pardon for any crimes related to drugs".
Does "any crimes related to drugs" include the murder for hire
allegations? Does this mean new charges related to that could be
brought against him?
jMyles wrote 2 hours 14 min ago:
Given the farcical nature of those allegations and all that we now
know, including that others with access to the Dread Pirate Roberts
account assert that the DEA agent making the allegations (who is
himself now in prison for attempting to steal some of the silk road
bitcoin) had access as well, it will be wonderful if DoJ attempts to
bring charges, just to further clear Ross' name.
There are not a shred of evidence that Ross ever had the slightest
thing to do with those conversations, and it seems much more likely
that the DEA used the DPR account to frame him.
hsuduebc2 wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
Wasn't charges about paying a hitmen dropped?
zeroonetwothree wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
Seems like it.
ggm wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
I don't see how this benefits the American economy, jobs, or national
security. I do see that for a cohort of people in the Libertarian
community this was held to be a central Tenet: Ulbricht was their
"hostage" just as the Proud Boys thought their leader was.
But, I can't see how this becomes net beneficial in Congress, or in the
wider economy. At best it's providing lower friction movement of goods
and services. They tend not to go to Federal Tax collecting exchanges,
so I cannot for the life of me see how this helps the exchequer, but
maybe thats the point?
BurningFrog wrote 5 hours 41 min ago:
Keep in mind that he spent 11 years locked up.
He's not getting off lightly!
tdb7893 wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
I'm just shocked it was a full pardon instead of a commutation or
something. I don't think the US is gaining a ton from keeping him
locked up but he still did run an organization he knew was used for
selling drugs and other illegal things and a full pardon for that
seems weird. I feel like I mainly heard people talking about
commuting his sentence
liquidify wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
He built a website. He didn't dictate how people used it. That
was the point. He was charged as a drug kingpin with mobster era
consequences. His sentence didn't fit whatever crimes he did or
didn't commit.
ecocentrik wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
Trump killed Net Neutrality during his first term and you think
he would use it to justify the actions of someone running an
internet black market that trafficked in drugs, prostitution and
murder?
timewizard wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
Is there some reason he should not be allowed to vote, own a
firearm, or receive federal benefits?
arp242 wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
No one said anything about voting or benefits? That's an entire
different discussion.
It's just that, in layman's terms, a pardon means "you did
nothing wrong", whereas a commutation means "you did something
wrong but were sentenced too harshly". As far as I know that's
also what it more or less means legally (with some nuance).
I'm absolutely not a fan of "tough on crime" sentencing, but he
absolutely did do something wrong, even if we ignore the
contended "murder for hire" claims he should have been sent to
prison for a number of years (personally, I'd say about 5-10
years). This is also by Ulbricht's own admission by the way.
lokar wrote 4 hours 1 min ago:
Why should he be treated differently then people who committed
similar crimes?
sophacles wrote 4 hours 8 min ago:
Yes. He was convicted of several crimes.
nateglims wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
He was convicted and the party of law and order typically views
these punitive post release measures to be part of the
punishment.
mplewis wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
What do you mean "lightly?" He ran an illegal drug market and tried
to assassinate a competitor. We gave him the punishment that society
has determined one should receive for this. Revoking his punishment
is "light."
timewizard wrote 4 hours 42 min ago:
The judge issued the punishment at their sole discretion. The
legislature sets the laws often without any input from the
constituency.
Meanwhile a sizable campaign has materialized around this case and
many people do feel he has done enough time and should be free
without any restrictions
talldayo wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
> many people do feel he has done enough time and should be free
without any restrictions
This could be said for any number of people rightfully detained
by the US for crimes of incredible magnitude.
TheAmazingRace wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
Hence why, if DPR was going to get off somehow, a sentence
commutation would have been better rather than an unconditional
pardon. The latter implies he did absolutely nothing wrong, which
hilariously runs counter to Trump's supposed tough on drugs and
crime shtick he has.
bb88 wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
It's still not enough.
FergusArgyll wrote 5 hours 42 min ago:
This thread is a great lesson in "Politics is a mind virus"
I recommend you read the HN thread when Ulbricht was sentenced [0]
first, then come here and read all the "Honest, genuine question,
why?"s
Then start practicing not letting politics influence your thought
process
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985
swat535 wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
What exactly are you trying to say here?
That people can't change their minds? That HN is a hivemind ? (news
flash: it's not , it's more diverse than you actually think) or that
everything is attributed to "Politics is a mind virus" ? if so, what
do you mind by this term specifically?
I personally, find little substance in such comments. If you have an
opinion on the matter (which seemingly you do), then please share it
so that we can have a discussion about it.
So.. care to elaborate?
andrewmutz wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
Nah social media is just about engagement. People who are happy with
the article donât bother to comment. Those who are outraged
comment. Itâs just two different groups of people commenting
yieldcrv wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
At the time of sentencing, did we already know that the murder for
hire plots were created by corrupt Secret Service and DEA agents on
trial next door? and all of that was withheld from the defense and
the jury?
because that's where the story really jumps the shark. I'm all for
some accountability - such as the 12 years in prison already - but
that particular case should have been dropped for several reasons,
I've seen cases dropped for way less.
santoshalper wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
Man, that shit is so old. Even if you're right, which I don't think
you are, you are adding nothing to the conversation but cynicism.
LeafItAlone wrote 5 hours 5 min ago:
Well, that thread is almost a decade old. HN a decade ago was a very
different vibe than today.
You are insinuating one thing, but perhaps it is also possible reason
is that the same people with those old views of the crimes have grown
and their views changed. I know mine certainly have gone that way.
Iâd have to imagine other users have grown with me.
steele wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
Donald literally cites Mommy Ulbricht's political inclinations...
Terr_ wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
Could you post the literal text? I don't really want to make a
Doubleplustruth Social account, and it doesn't seem to be in other
news excerpts.
PKop wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
His posts are public: [1] "I just called the mother of Ross
William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the
Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my
pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of
her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of
the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day
weaponization of government against me. He was given two life
sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
URI [1]: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113869112...
Terr_ wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
Thanks, I tried their front-page but it seemed to demand an
account before any browsing or searching.
throw124121276 wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
I don't see anything special about that thread. There are in fact
more people there who believe the contract killing allegations than
now.
smallmancontrov wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
"Politics" is a dismissive word for crypto's evolution over the last
decade. North Korea ransoming our hospitals, industrial scale
gambling and scam enablement, wealthy kingpins buying self-serving
policy. Crypto grew up. So did our opinions.
That doesn't change what Ross Ulbricht did, but we can now see him as
continuous with a great evil that we couldn't see at the time. With
more information, our opinions changed, and they were right to
change.
tayo42 wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
It was pretty out of left field and seemingly uncharacteristic for
the him to do this. It's fair to ask why. I think Trump is terrible
in every way, think the pardon is fine, but can't help but wonder why
and other questions about it
amrocha wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
Itâs different people commenting on each post. Thereâs no âmind
virusâ.
Trasmatta wrote 5 hours 32 min ago:
Or it could be different people commenting than on that original
thread? And people might have changed their minds? HN is not a
monolith. Humans are not static. You don't need to blame it on
"politics being a mind virus".
wisty wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
This is often a bit of a cop-out.
Any time a criminal is caught, people want them to do hard time,
but people believe we're too hard on crime if you don't use
examples. People think the government should spend less, but are
far less likely too agree to any specific cut. People thought Musk
was a genius until they realised he is also a jerk.
And while it's sometimes different people, it's suspiciously
reliably consistent in what you see said and upvoted.
brookst wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
But âmind virusâ is such a cool phrase, and it implies that
people who disagree with you are not just wrong, but diseased.
Great bit of rhetoric.
incrudible wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
People generally do not come up with absurd beliefs all on their
own, those do spread like a virus and as a consequence of all
that social contagion, they do not seem all that absurd anymore
to the person who contracts them.
bko wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
I don't know. I personally know people that lost their minds
because of an election. Completely well off people, whose lives
are not affected at all by national politics, apart from slight
changes in tax rates. They live in a state and city that shares
their politics. They're isolated from everything on the national
level.
Yet some of these people have rearranged their entire lives
around a singular politician. Ended relationships, moved, started
therapy or medication.
It happens on both sides and its pretty sad.
What else would you call that?
rayiner wrote 4 hours 47 min ago:
Itâs religious conflict. Nobody cares really about
differences in tax rates. But differences in foundational
beliefs about the world and humanity will do that.
adfm wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
Belief.
Belief short circuits reason.
hsuduebc2 wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
Weird part is that these two groups generally belive are not
that different in the general. Most of the fight on the
ideological side is on marginal differences.
This all is mostly idiotic tribal fight when you hate each
other because you just must to hate someone.
I profoundly hope for star trek like civilisation in the
future
stonogo wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
Integrity?
slg wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
>Completely well off people, whose lives are not affected at
all by national politics, apart from slight changes in tax
rates. They live in a state and city that shares their
politics. They're isolated from everything on the national
level...
>What else would you call that?
This is one of those comments that accidentally reveals more
than intended because I would call that "empathy". You are
revealing that the only reason you think people should be
concerned about politics is when it directly effects them.
Some people actually genuinely care about other people and
seeing someone elected who has promised to hurt people is a
disturbing and troubling turn of events even if they themselves
are likely to be safe.
bko wrote 4 hours 33 min ago:
I think you should manage your health and safety first and
those closest to you.
You're not helping by inflicting harm on yourself and those
around you. If you want to canvas for the other side, donate,
volunteer, great. But these people are obsessed and inflict a
lot of damage on themselves for no good purpose.
Most people empathize to those that are infected with a
virus. It's often out of their control. You can only offer
them help and suggest they touch grass once in a while. But
you shouldn't feed into their self delusions that self harm
and obsession with things out of their control is healthy and
a good way to live their life
slg wrote 4 hours 16 min ago:
The empathy you are showing in this comment would feel a
lot more genuine if you didn't reveal with your prior
comment how little empathy plays into your overall
worldview. I'm personally fine, you don't have to waste
your time telling me how to live a better life. I was just
trying to explain to you what you were seemingly
misunderstanding about your fellow humans.
brailsafe wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
> Some people actually genuinely care about other people and
seeing someone elected who has promised to hurt people is a
disturbing and troubling turn of events even if they
themselves are likely to be safe.
Ya but, it's all a bit silly isn't it? Realistically those
people wouldn't be doing any of that unless they were
addicted to media and perhaps by consequence emotionally
volatile. If I chose not to be chronically keeping up with
stuff on a moment to moment basis that only has vague
intangible impacts on my life or those around me,
specifically online, does that make me less empathetic or
less tolerant of having all my time, energy, and attention
stolen from me? That's not always the case, but it often is,
and if it's actually relevant, you're opting into poor mental
health despite having zero control over anything even if you
care, so you might as well not be so tuned in; which part is
the good part again?
It's a bit fatalistic perhaps, but I feel like the greatest
trick social media (and Trump) ever pulled was convincing us
we'd be pariahs if we opted out. If not for chronically
keeping up with nearly literally every word the new batch of
chronies has to say, they might not be saying it.
slg wrote 4 hours 19 min ago:
>If I chose not to be chronically keeping up with stuff on
a moment to moment basis that only has vague intangible
impacts on my life or those around me, specifically online,
does that make me less empathetic or less tolerant of
having all my time, energy, and attention stolen from me?
Some people view empathy as an active ability to "put
yourself in someone else's shoes". Other people view it as
a passive feeling along the lines of "it hurts to see other
people hurt". If you can just stop being empathic by not
thinking about it, you are in the first group. Some of us
are in the second group and can't just decide to ignore it.
liontwist wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
So youâre saying people are making a rational estimation of
the various harms caused to their fellowmen, determining that
political actions in Washington are the primary component,
and feeling bad about the harm?
I donât buy it. Citing empathy is moral language to justify
bad actions.
slg wrote 4 hours 42 min ago:
>So youâre saying people are making a rational estimation
of the various harms caused to their fellowmen, determining
that political actions in Washington are the primary
component, and feeling bad about the harm?
Trump released an executive order yesterday that said some
of my friends are no longer considered citizens of this
country. Yes, sometimes it is incredibly obvious when
Washington is to blame for people's suffering.
liontwist wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
This thread is about people whose well being and ability
to enjoy life is ruined by politics (Enemy centered
mindset).
Itâs normal to feel bad for someone you know impacted
by bad a policy. Ruining your life on their behalf is not
empathetic.
slg wrote 2 hours 10 min ago:
>This thread is about people whose well being and
ability to enjoy life is ruined by politics
Another facet of empathy is being able to understand
other perspectives besides your own. Maybe this was
your interpretation of the bounds of the conversation.
It doesn't mean that is the only interpretation.
Here are the exact words from the comment I replied to:
"Ended relationships, moved, started therapy or
medication." I don't think those are signs someone
whose "ability to enjoy life is ruined". In fact, I
see those as signs of someone enjoying life more by
removing or addressing things that sap the joy out of
life.
cies wrote 5 hours 7 min ago:
Yes let's use word that need massive essays to explain what one
person believes they mean... Like "woke". And not just stick to
words we know the meaning of. That surely aid the discussion. /s
slg wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
Talk like this is never apolitical. No political change can
occur without discussion first and therefore preemptively
dismissing political discussion is inherently an endorsement of
the current power structures.
There is no way to actually discuss this specific story without
discussing politics. A president pardoning someone is an
inherently political act and that is only emphasized when it was
done on his first day in office and with a statement that
includes lines like "The scum that worked to convict him were
some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day
weaponization of government against me." That is all part of the
story of what happened here and it involves politics whether you
like it or not.
kurisufag wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
i prefer 'mind-killer', myself.
URI [1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politi...
latexr wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
Exactly. If anything, the one thing thatâs guaranteed in these
types of threads is that someone will make this same tired argument
of âaha, but HN back then said differentlyâ as if itâs some
kind of gotcha. I used to always look, and not only was it never
the same people but the threads are largely more balanced than the
original poster let on. Itâs like the contrarian dynamic, which
dang has to explain over and over and over and over and over again.
URI [1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&...
ktallett wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Based on the sheer number of posts that have misrepresented the
charges or misunderstood why he was actually in prison, it appears
to partially be a lack of knowledge on the case, likely due to time
hazing some of the memories. Of course someone will change their
mind, and some may have their view influenced by who happens to
support him.
rcpt wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
The main thing I notice is that back then we were writing paragraphs.
JHonaker wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
Wow. I thought you were being glib, but the average comment length
is noticeably higher in the linked discussion. While length isnât
necessarily a valid proxy for meaningful conversation, this was
definitely an eye-opening contrast to the current thread.
pizza wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
The value of the token has gone up since then.
zoklet-enjoyer wrote 5 hours 29 min ago:
I mostly stopped typing in paragraphs because I use a smart phone
for most of my internetting. It's a lot easier to write your
thoughts on a keyboard
dredmorbius wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
Using a touchscreen halves my IQ.
(I'm challenged enough to start with.)
macinjosh wrote 5 hours 42 min ago:
I am happy to see that Trump is a man of his word. I voted for him just
because of this campaign promise. I would have voted for almost anyone
who promised this.
thrance wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
How do you feel about him backing down on H1B visas, price of
groceries, peace in Ukraine...
thfuran wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
How could that possibly be the most important political issue?
plsbenice34 wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
I am very sympathetic to the idea of voting just for Ross. It is
unclear to me which candidate would be better, since neither of
them are close to my political beliefs at all. It is a deadlock and
I seem completely unrepresented. The consequences of voting based
on any big issues I care about seems completely unpredictable;
politics is a game of lies, smoke and mirrors. So I would perhaps
rather vote for the candidate that would definitely save one
person's life that is important to me.
shadowgovt wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Unless it's your day job: never try to unpack the priorities of a
voter. You'll just get sad.
(For consideration on this topic: [1] )
URI [1]: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691138732/...
dimator wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
This one act was more important than the Paris agreement?
tomjen3 wrote 1 hour 18 min ago:
Not OP, but yes, immensely. Two different galaxies.
The Paris Agreement is a joke; it has done nothing. It's just a
bunch of big-ass politicians and a few celebrities bloviating about
not solving the problem.
Look, I'm not disputing at all that global warming is an issue, or
that we need to solve it, or that humans cause it, or whatever. But
the Paris Agreement and those all other agreements are all about
big idiots pretending to do stuff.
Probably the most effective thing we have done globally to combat
warming is changing to electric cars, and that's NOT the Paris
Agreement. Not even close.
The Paris Agreement is the ultimate politician's move. Global
warming is a technical problem and must be solved by technical
means.
Ironically, the one person who is doing more than all the
politicians combined to solve this is backing the current
administration. Twitter is nuts over if he did a Nazi salute, while
doing nothing to focus on solving what they believe is the biggest
issue in our lifetimes.
ragazzina wrote 7 min ago:
>Probably the most effective thing we have done globally to
combat warming is changing to electric cars, and that's NOT the
Paris Agreement.
What do you think about Trump's actions on electric cars then?
ein0p wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
Yes. The Paris Agreement is a bunch of virtue signaling WEF
nonsense. The biggest polluter is not reducing CO2 emissions, and
the United States is reducing them, both in absolute terms and per
capita, at a great cost to its industrial capacity:
URI [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=CHN~U...
CabSauce wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
You're right. I guess we just shouldn't do anything. And
somehow it's virtue signaling and reduces output?
ein0p wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
Yes. If you stop producing steel (which we kinda did), and just
buy it from China instead, you haven't "eliminated emissions".
You've merely moved them to a country which is currently not
subject to the environmental limits. We are on the same planet
- in the long run it doesn't matter where you burn coal.
macinjosh wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Immensely more important than an ineffective agreement on an
overblown problem.
llamaimperative wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
What were your number 2 and 3 issues, out of curiosity?
Were there any accompanying policies that you would say, "despite
promising to free Ross Ulbricht, I don't think accompanying Policy X
would be worth it?"
bb88 wrote 5 hours 49 min ago:
Genuine question: Of all the people to pardon, why him?
xwolfi wrote 3 hours 10 min ago:
Trump explains it eloquently:
"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics
who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government
against me," Trump said in his post online on Tuesday evening. "He
was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
SamPatt wrote 3 hours 54 min ago:
It's because of his mother Lyn.
She was a tireless advocate for his release from the start, and it
became a part of the libertarian cause to see him released.
It worked. Trump courted the libertarian vote, and this was his most
popular promise to them.
She's an inspiring woman. I'm so glad she lived to see this.
y0ssar1an wrote 1 hour 22 min ago:
Yay the drug trafficker and hitman hirer is free!
What a happy ending! /s
Spooky23 wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
They seem to be pandering to the more libertarian tech community.
This guy appeals to that and to the more radical maga types who want
a revolution. Iâm sure weâll see more.
The Biden DOJs bungling of the insurrection, turning a jail into a
martyrs club, slow rolling prosecutions, etc is ultimately worse than
the insurrection for democracy.
beeflet wrote 5 hours 14 min ago:
because it was a promise he made to the libertarian camp
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ofi6U0eWE
orblivion wrote 2 hours 55 min ago:
He upgraded from commutation to pardon, I wonder about what
happened there.
bb88 wrote 2 hours 24 min ago:
Elon transferred a BTC wallet over to Trump. Prove me wrong!
beeflet wrote 2 hours 12 min ago:
it would be visible on-chain, so if you notice something weird
you can take a look and point it out to us.
bustling-noose wrote 1 hour 56 min ago:
It might be visible. Just not a large amount from one account
to another. Thats not how laundering works and definitely not
how trades work that are supposed to go unnoticed.
ty6853 wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
What do you mean? Trump just pardoned or commuted pretty much all of
the J6 crowd. One guy convicted of crimes that don't require proving
violence beyond a reasonable doubt is pretty tame in comparison. He
is one of thousands.
insane_dreamer wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
Trump know the Jan 6 rioters and supported them. Pardoning is
important to justify his claim that nobody did anything wrong as
that the election was "stolen by the Dems".
I can't imagine he would have known Ross Ulbricht's case.
bb88 wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
What? All crimes were proved beyond a reasonable doubt according
to a jury of our peers. (Or they plead guilty).
ty6853 wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
The violent element was not proven for Ross. The judge decided
on preponderance of evidence he hired the hit man, and sentenced
him as if he did.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
Ulbricht was convicted of crimes by a jury of his peers though.
There are no mandatory maximums in sentencing guidelines. Just
mandatory minimums.
IncreasePosts wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
Presumably musk pushed for it. Not sure who else in/near the
administration would even have him on their radar
silisili wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
Whether or not he was the sole or even primary reason, he knew
about it beforehand as seen by his tweet last night saying it was
coming soon. Love him or hate him, it's a bit concerning that he
has that level of access IMO.
The tweet:
URI [1]: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881524296386031892
freddi333 wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
Trump promised it when he attended the libertarian convention
tomhoward wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
Itâs been a campaign of Mike Cernovichâs for a long time.
arrowsmith wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
And Trump cares what Mike Cernovich thinks because.... ?
mplewis wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
[flagged]
Havoc wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
Musk is definitely a fan recreationally chemistry
xigency wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
The clips of him rolling his eyes and head around in boredom at
the inauguration definitely looked like he was suffering from
some kind of withdrawal symptoms.
macinjosh wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
Trump promised to do this at the Libertarian Party convention. This
case is very important to the libertarian crowd. He is a martyr for
many of their ideals. After Trump was so well received at the
convention the LP, recently taken over by the right faction of the
party, put forth a candidate specifically chosen to not get votes so
that members would vote for Trump. Trump seems to be a man of his
word.
RockyMcNuts wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
man of his word, ok.
URI [1]: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/660639
orblivion wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
The LP candidate was nominated due to some
fluke/shenanigans/dealings between candidates. Based on the
right-leaning demographics you would not expect him to win. It just
happened to work out perfectly to get the people who would never
vote for him anyway to vote for Trump. (Meanwhile the chairwoman
encouraged Biden supporters to vote for the LP candidate).
Also, Trump actually got a mixed reception at the convention at
best.
Dalewyn wrote 4 hours 15 min ago:
>Trump seems to be a man of his word.
One of the big reasons I voted for him. He actually keeps the
promises he made as far reality will allow.
What's really stupid is that keeping promises made isn't the norm
for politicians, of all kinds.
jdjdjfhfkeksnc wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
This is 100% true. I am posting from an anon account (obviously),
but I was heavily involved in this. I worked with members of the
party to push part of their strategy - mainly the coalition with
trump and an effort to get vivek and elon involved. We spoke about
this in 2023. I didn't care about Ross, had my own motivations, but
I wrote some of their playback with AI and it worked. I didn't know
about certain things (like the losing candidate for example). I
wrote strategy that seems to have made its way all the way to
Trump's team.
batch12 wrote 4 hours 21 min ago:
Without proof this is just a bedtime story.
insane_dreamer wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
> Trump seems to be a man of his word.
when there's political gain, sure
blindriver wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
You may not like Trump but I remember he fulfilled or attempted
to fulfill a lot of his campaign promises back in 2016 as well.
Biden, the career politician, talked a lot about many things
before election and then forgot about them after he was elected.
For example, universal health care. Obama promised to enshrine a
woman's right to abortion as law, and then when he had the House
and Senate after he was elected, he said "it's not a priority for
me." Then we lost Roe V Wade.
insane_dreamer wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
> universal health care
that was Obama - Biden never promised that
Biden delivered on the IRA and climate change bill.
Trump promised to "drain the swamp" and filled it instead. I
can't think of any major campaign promise that he fulfilled -
he didn't even build the wall (probably his main promise).
WillPostForFood wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
that was Obama - Biden never promised that [1] I can't think
of any major campaign promise that he fulfilled
Renegotiate NAFTA
Lower Taxes
Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem
Nominate to the Supreme Court from the list he shared
Kill TPP
No Social Security Cuts
Take No Salary
Where he failed, it generally wasn't for trying, but because
he was getting blocked by Congress, the courts, and the
general bureaucracy. You only have to look at the last 48
hours to see a better prepared Trump committed to his
promises.
URI [1]: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/joe-biden-public-option-...
tzs wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
I'm not sure "No Social Security Cuts" should count,
because (1) he did try to cut it in his proposed 2020
budget, (2) he did nothing to try to address the shortfall
that is expected in the social security trust fund around
2033, and (3) he said that if he was reelected in 2020 he
would get rid of the payroll tax, which would have moved
the depletion of the trust fund up to around 2026.
duxup wrote 4 hours 28 min ago:
>or attempted
That's a really low bar with that bit added. "I didn't say it
would be easy" was his line about his token tariffs the first
term ... then he never tried again for the rest of that term.
Nimitz14 wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
When did Biden talk about universal healthcare?
Let's go through Trump's campaign promises: Infrastructure,
Border wall, increased US manufacturing, repealing ACA, "drain
the swamp". He achieved zero of those.
Biden in contrast followed up on his campaign promises:
Infrastructure, increased US manufacturing, expanding ACA plus
lowering costs. Among others.
mmooss wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
He also lies all the time about many things. People are are
sometimes honest are called 'liars'.
> when he had the House and Senate after he was elected, he
said "it's not a priority for me."
How could he get it through the Senate without a
filibuster-proof majority?
insane_dreamer wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
Trump did just about what every president does - makes promises
and then does some of them, tries to some others (successful
unless thwarted by Congress), and ignores others.
Obama didn't have the votes in the Senate (to overcome the
filibuster, also not as many Dems congressmen supported it as
you might think). Neither did Clinton (people thought it would
happen then)
bb88 wrote 4 hours 45 min ago:
I'm privately predicting the senate will remove the
filibuster this term.
bb88 wrote 5 hours 32 min ago:
Voters wanted a better economy first, not pardons for drug
traffickers and violent offenders.
This could have waited until after the midterms.
Klonoar wrote 3 hours 21 min ago:
> This could have waited until after the midterms.
On the contrary, he can just bury it in the first 48 hours. This
will fade into the background soon enough but that group is kept
happy.
duxup wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
>This could have waited until after the midterms.
He promised to pardon the rioters during the election and it
didn't hurt him. I think he decided it wouldn't hurt him (and
Trump cares bout that first) and if he thought about the midterms
... maybe won't hurt then either.
Congress isn't directly involved in any of this anyway.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
Congress is involved. They have to prove they can govern.
It's hard to be the party of "law and order" if you need only
to kiss the ring for your release.
duxup wrote 3 hours 24 min ago:
GOP house could hardly operate last round and ⦠they won
more seats.
bb88 wrote 2 hours 20 min ago:
I think this is funny.
People hate congress. Yet each person can vote to only
change one congressman at a time. [1] October of 2001 they
were up to 80% approval. Left to their own devices by Aug
2002 they were below 50%.
There's an argument to be made that congress doesn't really
represent the people at large. Some people go on to make
the argument that through gerrymandering politicians choose
who's elected, and not the people.
URI [1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public....
foogazi wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
Eh, lowering the price of eggs is not as easy so
mattpope wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
It seems like the voters that were being referred to value
restoring rights. How can something immediately achievable be
balanced with "the economy", a thing so broad and deeply
systemic?
bb88 wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
The people in Pennsylvania who elected him, didn't want this.
mattpope wrote 4 hours 27 min ago:
It isn't clear from your original statement that those voters
aren't from Pennsylvania. I interpret your statement as
discounting the weight of their vote on actions they care
about. There are many perspectives, and the values of those
who did vote in that direction are being addressed in some
way.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
A lot of republicans want a "shining city upon the hill".
Drug free, sin free, tough penalties on crime.
A lot of republicans want a working economy. High paying
jobs, low taxes.
A lot of republicans believe in a free market economy.
Freedom to innovate, freedom to hire and fire.
And then we have this.
mattpope wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
We're talking about Libertarians and not Republicans,
atleast that is what the parent comment was referring to.
I don't know what Republicans what or believe vs what
they say. The action to pardon directly addresses the
Libertarian ideals.
bb88 wrote 3 hours 41 min ago:
I guess if Trump really wanted to run Libertarian, he
could have run under the Libertarian ticket.
dmix wrote 1 hour 23 min ago:
Republicans are not a monolithic group of social
conservatives.
mattpope wrote 3 hours 31 min ago:
He attended the convention. Is is for all intents and
purposes representing them.
macinjosh wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
It was one signature? Doesn't seem like a big time sink. Many of
these early actions were prepared prior to inauguration.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 35 min ago:
In war, you point your biggest gun at the enemy. You don't
shoot yourself in the foot.
hilux wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
According to Trump, he is doing this to get libertarian support.
toomuchtodo wrote 6 hours 0 min ago:
URI [1]: https://archive.today/FNvkp
lupusreal wrote 6 hours 0 min ago:
This conversation is presently flagged. Why? When Ross was sentenced
HN had a discussion about it with more than 600 comments. His
conviction has been discussed numerous additional times in other
threads throughout the years. His pardon is plainly on-topic for HN,
and this discussion is a necessary followup to those previous
discussions.
dang wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
Of course it's on topic. Why did users flag it? Probably some
combination of not liking the event itself and fatigue with political
stories. But that's just a guess.
In any case, we turned the flags off when we saw it.
cakealert wrote 6 hours 6 min ago:
I wonder if he is going to be able to launder and cash out whatever
crypto he squirreled away. His finances are probably going to be
closely watched.
Starting a business that accepts crypto payments is going to be a tell.
guywithahat wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
I'm wondering that too. I think there's three options: he either has
secret money hidden away, is going to get a cushy job in tech by some
fan, or he's going to be working as a walmart greeter in 3 years.
Honestly I'm hoping he gets an X account so I can follow him and see
which it is lol
trillic wrote 5 hours 57 min ago:
If heâs smart heâll go Jordan Belfort style and make money with
book, speaking, and movie deals.
threeseed wrote 5 hours 44 min ago:
That's the old way of doing things.
Now it's all about podcasts, energy drinks and crypto coin
rug-pulls.
johnneville wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
does he even need to launder it ? The pardon may cover any proceeds
given Trump described it as "a full and unconditional pardon"
notyourwork wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
Pardoned from the crimes convicted of? Or pardoned from any crime.
I found the Biden pardon to be particular egregious because of how
vague it was.
ktallett wrote 6 hours 2 min ago:
He has admitted his wrong doings and made efforts to change whilst in
prison. I doubt he will go straight back to a life even remotely
close to before. He was doing good in prison for other inmates and I
imagine he will continue doing the same now he has this second
chance.
notyourwork wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
What the future holds for someone who was pardoned is likely
decided based on very different rationalization compared to how one
acts while serving a lifetime prison sentence.
ktallett wrote 5 hours 43 min ago:
Whilst I understand your point of view that the change in
circumstances can change how someone decides to act, I don't
believe there is much history to show someone who gained a
surprising second chance outside of prison has gone back to their
previous life.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 49 min ago:
It's vindication of political violence that's the problem. If
political violence is sanctioned, then there is no law.
bdhcuidbebe wrote 5 hours 12 min ago:
> I don't believe there is much history to show someone who
gained a surprising second chance outside of prison has gone
back to their previous life.
Didnt have to look far, from dec 9:
URI [1]: https://lawandcrime.com/crime/exonerated-man-heading-b...
ktallett wrote 5 hours 0 min ago:
Of course, there will be an outlier. I didn't state no
history. One person doing wrong after being released
shouldn't mean no one gets released.
bb88 wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
No but recidivism should be factored into such a decision.
steve_avery wrote 6 hours 8 min ago:
Well, I think that justice has been served. The feds' prosecution of
Ulbricht was the epitome of throwing the book at someone to make an
example, when the government's case was pretty flawed, in my opinion.
10 years is enough time to pay the debt of running the silk road.
I am glad that Ulbricht has been pardoned and I feel like a small iota
of justice has been returned to the world with this action.
zanek wrote 3 hours 42 min ago:
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading the comments on this
thread. Multiple teenagers (one in Australia) died from the drugs
distributed on Silk Road. Ross was ok with selling grenades, body
parts, etc on there. But everyone is saying he served his time ???
Jensson wrote 20 min ago:
Manslaughter is at most 10 years, he served 12 years, I feel its
fair to release him now.
tomjen3 wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
People die when they take drugs all the time, whether brought
online or not.
But the war on some drugs are a failure, but also impossible to
change due to stupid people, so Silk Road and crypto was a means to
work around this, while lowering crime and turning it into an
iterated prisoners dilemma so that quality etc could stay high.
bogota wrote 2 hours 14 min ago:
Maybe spend a little less time reading propaganda.
butterlesstoast wrote 1 hour 6 min ago:
Wait⦠youâve clearly never used The Silk Road, have you?
loeg wrote 2 hours 54 min ago:
People regularly die from drinking alcohol. Should liquor store
owners be doing life in prison? (And why are Australians special?)
mihaaly wrote 1 hour 9 min ago:
Why not incarcerate all car makers and doctors then too?
You are hopelessly lost my friend, unable to comprehend the
concept of illegal activity.
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote 39 min ago:
You look lost to me because you equate law and morality at a
deep level.
Whatarethese wrote 2 hours 15 min ago:
Charles Manson never murdered anyone. Should his sentence been
commuted?
realce wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
The comment you replied to referenced "multiple teenagers" - the
very people that liquor stores cannot sell alcohol to since
they're not recognized as mature enough to be freely allowed to
drink.
SR allowed children to buy addictive poison without any
regulation whatsoever, and Ross profited off of those
transactions.
These are not comparable institutions.
krispyfi wrote 33 min ago:
You're right. Ross should have been granted a drug selling
license, analogous to a liquor license, and it should have been
revoked if he failed to check ID before allowing people to make
purchases on his marketplace.
loeg wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
Teenagers routinely drink alcohol and sometimes die.
mrcwinn wrote 2 hours 32 min ago:
The law recognizes that a bottle of beer generally cannot be used
to murder someone else.
rpmisms wrote 44 min ago:
But it easily can. Break the end off and poke.
cortesoft wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
People have died from things bought on Amazon, too
Also, Ross wasn't selling those things. He was just operating a
market where other people sold things.
golly_ned wrote 3 hours 20 min ago:
He wasn't dealing them. He's not exactly culpable for the effects
of his platform any more than Zuckerberg is responsible for mass
hate speech coordinated by third-world dictators or Evan Spiegel
for facilitating millions of nude images of children and teenagers.
talldayo wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
It's ridiculous. I think a lot of the people here have a chip on
their shoulder because they suspect they bought their ketamine from
the same guy Elon did.
What Ross did was not a demonstration of showing restraint. You
cannot defend a mafia boss for killing people by saying "at least
he didn't rape the dozen bystanders that were watching" and you
can't defend Ulbricht's actions, or the consequences of them,
simply by saying he reduced harm. He spread harm - he ran a
craigslist for drugs that ran off ad-hoc rules that could not
promise safety for it's customers. It was illegal and rightfully
so.
The precedent this sets is that you can live as a respected
American drug lord if your skin is white. If it is not, the United
States will use it's military power to prosecute you with absolute
impunity.
buckle8017 wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
Body parts? huh
fsckboy wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
wasn't there evidence of hiring a hitman to commit a murder in
furtherance of the Silk Road? that's not part of "the debt of running
the silk road"
zik wrote 8 min ago:
There wasn't any evidence that actually happened. It appears that
it may have been fabricated by the same investigators that later
robbed him of some millions of dollars worth of bitcoin. Then when
it went to trial the murder-for-hire charges were completely
dropped due to lack of evidence.
He was convicted of:
1. Conspiracy to traffic narcotics
2. Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) (sometimes referred to as
the âkingpinâ charge)
3. Computer Hacking Conspiracy
4. Conspiracy to Traffic in Fraudulent Identity Documents
5. Money Laundering Conspiracy
lionkor wrote 18 min ago:
Yes but he did get scammed as that wasn't a real hitman
alt187 wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
The hitman was a conman for a murder on a fictitious person. While
he fully believed he was committing a real assassination, you can't
convict people for killing imaginary people.
wahnfrieden wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
You can convict for murder for hire in that circumstance.
croes wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
This doesnât sound like an imaginary person
URI [1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/murdered-silk-road-emplo...
px43 wrote 22 min ago:
I'm not convinced that you looked at the article you linked.
> Thatâs because he was the Silk Road employee implicated in
an elaborate, and fake, murder-for-hire scheme, created in part
by a corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent.
kevinsync wrote 6 hours 9 min ago:
I have nothing in particular to say about the dead comments in this
very young thread, but they're sort-of-interesting comments to have
been killed so quickly!
Is it due to HN policy? I guess they're subjective and ideological, and
prone to starting arguments rather than debates.
Maybe "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
battle. That tramples curiosity." or "Please don't pick the most
provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the
thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."?
I'm honestly just curious as a conscientious internet citizen lol
dang wrote 4 hours 8 min ago:
Jtsummers is correct.
Just to add one point, flagged comments are mostly flagged by users
(as opposed to mods). We can only guess why users flag things, but
from looking at a sample in the current thread it's probably because
they're mostly flamewar-style comments and/or political-battle style
comments (or both). Those aren't good for HN because what we want
here is curious, thoughtful conversation.
qqqult wrote 5 hours 43 min ago:
Nothing wrong with HN in particular. Every polarising discussion on a
platform with moderation or up/down voting system ends up this way.
This structure is fantastic for technical discussions just not
amazing for politics
Removing moderation or voting systems (simple chronological comment
sorting) creates another set of issues so this problem can't be
solved without entirely changing discussion formats
potato3732842 wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
> This structure is fantastic for technical discussions just not
amazing for politics
No, it's not. Because the same magnification effect causes the
causal, simple and correct sounding to float to the top and the
nuanced " so I dealt with this for 20yr and here's the deal" takes
that nobody wants to hear because they're not simple and easy wind
up at the bottom but above the flagrantly wrong crap and the
trolls.
There's a reason that nothing with real stakes adopts this format
and technical discussions that matter still mostly happen in some
sort of threaded format that doesn't allow voting or any sort of
drive-by low effort interaction to effect much.
Format like this is good for driving interaction, which is why
public facing websites use it for their comment sections.
bbor wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Interesting -- what other system could you possibly have, other
than votes...? I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting.
I guess traditional forum threads (sometimes with votes, a-la
GitHub) are nice, but ultimately that's just trading "correct
sounding" for "early commenter".
Otherwise, the only thing that comes to mind is StackOverflow
functionality where OP can mark a single answer as "accepted" and
push it to the top instantly (which obv. wouldn't translate well
to general discussions).
Jtsummers wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
> I have nothing in particular to say about the dead comments in this
very young thread, but they're sort-of-interesting comments to have
been killed so quickly!
[dead] is different than [flagged][dead]. [dead]-only (no [flagged])
means they're auto-dead, they aren't killed by someone reviewing the
comments (moderator or users flagging). One of the two commenters was
shadow banned years ago but still gets vouched for occasionally
(including by me at times). The other one was shadow banned (looked
through their history) 11 days ago, with a comment from dang at the
time stating as much. They also get vouched for on occasion, based on
their comment history.
> Maybe "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
battle. That tramples curiosity." or "Please don't pick the most
provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the
thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."?
dang does usually respond to people with something like that first,
then for people who get repeatedly flagged or repeatedly engage in
certain kinds of behavior, he bans them.
hypeatei wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
This is a rare Trump win. There are many things to criticize him for,
but this pardon isn't one of them. I don't think anyone, after
researching this case, would be okay with the life sentence handed down
to Ross.
latentcall wrote 4 hours 31 min ago:
Most people in real life donât even know who this guy is. This is a
guy that online people know. I will agree itâs a win, he was
unfairly sentenced. I just wish I would have been able to buy from
SR. I did get to browse it before it was seized.
wkat4242 wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
Life no but probably more than he did in the end. He was really
turning into a syndicate boss. The deep ars technica article was
pretty depressing.
johnneville wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
I would find this easier to celebrate if it was a commutation and not a
pardon, or if it was a pardon that went hand in hand with a change in
the laws he broke.
umanwizard wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
> a pardon that went hand in hand with a change in the laws he broke
Trump doesn't have the power to unilaterally change laws
(fortunately!)
ktallett wrote 6 hours 1 min ago:
Because their isn't a change in law doesn't mean the convictions were
secure and bound by law before.
sidibe wrote 6 hours 31 min ago:
Among other things this guy was trying to have people murdered.
UncleOxidant wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
I guess this is why he was upset about Mexico sending drug dealers
and murderers - he didn't want competition for our homegrown drug
dealers and murderers.
qdhazEWT wrote 6 hours 37 min ago:
Trump refused to pardon Assange and Snowden. I suppose he has
priorities.
In 2021, presumably during SBF's (big Democrat donor) FTX scam, Trump
thought that Bitcoin was a scam: [1] Now he is best friends with the
"crypto", AI, and H1B bros.
URI [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57392734
llamaimperative wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
> âAll my Republican donations were dark,â [SBF] said, referring
to political donations that are not publicly disclosed in FEC
filings. âThe reason was not for regulatory reasons, itâs because
reporters freak the fâk out if you donate to Republicans. Theyâre
all super liberal, and I didnât want to have that fight.â
> Given that he donated nearly $40 million to Democrats in the 2022
election cycleâand he admitted to giving an equal amount to
Republicansâhis total political contributions may have actually
been around $80 million.
URI [1]: https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...
s1mon wrote 6 hours 38 min ago:
I really wonder who benefits from this. Trump only does things that are
good for him, or those close to him. I realize he's been making
connections to the crypto world, and has his own meme coins. Does
pardoning Ross somehow make crypto more valuable?
drak0n1c wrote 1 hour 48 min ago:
Partisan caricature is not a reliable starting point for logical
inference or deduction. To answer your question - on the campaign
trail he attended a convention of libertarian organizers and promised
them that if he won he would free Ross, and has followed through on
that promise today.
orionsbelt wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
Itâs also just good politics. There are a vocal group of voters
that are in favor of this, so it gets those people on his side. And
no reason not to (politically), as most people just donât care
about this topic, or if they do and disagree with the decision, this
isnât going to be the action that moves the needle for them on how
they feel about Trump or the Republican Party.
mannerheim wrote 6 hours 34 min ago:
A video from Reason magazine a few days ago[0] mentioned a deal
between the Libertarian Party leadership and Trump in which they
selectively didn't run their candidate in several states in order to
help Trump. If this is true, Trump could have reneged, but evidently
decided whatever political blowback for pardoning Ulbricht (which is
probably small potatoes at this rate) wasn't worth the credibility
cost.
[0]:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhDKYYdD2vY
tonymet wrote 6 hours 36 min ago:
Trump made the deal at the Libertarian National Convention to garner
their support.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
Absolute no brainer, he should be celebrated. Countless lives were
saved via the harm reduction effect of a peer reviewed, reputation
based platform. Of course if we had less draconian drug policy, it
wouldn't be necessary but here we are.
potato3732842 wrote 5 hours 53 min ago:
Yup. Drugs and the accompanying business disputes (there's a reason
street dealers are armed or have armed people around) that would be
normal in any other industry are sooo many people's (who would other
wise not be violent criminals) entry point to violence. Letting
parties remain at arms length yet transact successfully is such a
huge step forward compared the prior status quo. Anything that gets
buyers and sellers (either at the retail or distribution level) in
illegal industries farther from each other is a win as far as I care.
woodruffw wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
> Countless lives were saved via the harm reduction effect of a peer
reviewed, reputation based platform.
The basic immorality/pointlessness of the war on drugs aside, I don't
know how you can assert this: it's not like there's a chain of
provenance, and there's no particular guarantee that whatever grade
of pure drugs was sold on Silk Road is the same purity that ended up
in peoples' bodies.
My understanding of the Silk Road case is that, at its peak, it was
servicing a significant portion of the international drug market. The
dimensions of that market include adulteration; Silk Road almost
certainly didn't change that.
shadowgovt wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
Anecdotally, Planet Money looked into this years ago and their
reporting was that as far as they could tell, drugs on Silk Road
weren't less safe than street drugs. Most of them were likely "fell
off the truck" samples from the original manufacturers being sold
by people with an in on the supply, but no otherwise-easy access to
an out on the demand.
Their observation was that reputation mattered on SR a lot and a
well-kept reputation was valuable at scale in a way that it isn't
for being a street-corner pusher looking to stretch your buck by
cutting your supply with adulterants. The smart play was to provide
a high-quality product at a reasonable price (the latter being the
easiest part since they were bypassing the obscene markup of
official channels).
woodruffw wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
> Anecdotally, Planet Money looked into this years ago and their
reporting was that as far as they could tell, drugs on Silk Road
weren't less safe than street drugs.
Yeah, I'm not saying they're less safe. In fact, on average, I'm
willing to bet that the drugs sold on Silk Road were much safer
than their street equivalents.
My point was about large sales: Silk Road moved not just personal
drug sales, but also industrial quantities of drugs that were
almost certainly re-sold. Those latter sales are impossible to
track and (by volume) almost certainly represent the majority of
"doses" sold through SR. Given that, I doubt the OP's assertion
that SR itself represents a particularly effective form of harm
reduction.
Or as another framing: SR gave tech dorks a way to buy cheap,
clean drugs. But those aren't the people who really need harm
reduction techniques; the ones who do are still buying
adulterated drugs, which are derived from the cheap, clean drugs
on SR.
timewizard wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
You shouldn't assume that all "street transfers" of drugs are
peaceful or have a positive outcome for those involved. Harm
reduction comes in many forms.
woodruffw wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
I'm pretty sure my comment says the exact opposite. I'm
saying that SR was a massive operation that fueled street
traffic, which in turn lacked any of the harm reduction
virtues that SR is being assigned.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 5 hours 57 min ago:
The overwhelming majority of listings on the site were for personal
use quantities.
woodruffw wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
The overwhelming majority of drug sales are for personal use.
That doesn't mean that large sales weren't made, or that those
weren't in fact a significant portion of the site's revenue.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
>it's not like there's a chain of provenance, and there's no
particular guarantee that whatever grade of pure drugs was sold
on Silk Road is the same purity that ended up in peoples'
bodies.
The fact that the majority of listings on the site were for
personal use quantities suggests that the majority of sales
were to end users rather than traffickers.
It's hard to dispute that this saved lives and I would
speculate that it saved many lives.
>That doesn't mean that large sales weren't made, or that those
weren't in fact a significant portion of the site's revenue.
Nobody made any claim that large sales weren't made, of course
they were.
woodruffw wrote 1 hour 26 min ago:
> It's hard to dispute that this saved lives and I would
speculate that it saved many lives.
See below; the observation is that the people who were buying
individual quantities of drugs from SR were not at serious
risk of harm in the first place, relative to typical at-risk
populations. Anecdotally, the people I know who bought drugs
from SR during its heydey were very much
test-everything-twice types.
By contrast, the large sales that SR facilitated almost
certainly ended up in street drug markets, where harm
reduction would have made a difference. But those people
didn't benefit from SR's community standards, insofar as they
existed: they got whatever adulterated product made it to
them.
This is the basic error in saying "most sales were small":
the big sales are what matter, socially speaking.
Devasta wrote 6 hours 12 min ago:
No no no, he is right. Its safe because if you receive a bad batch
of drugs you can leave a negative review on the page of the drug
cartel that has your name and address, no chance of that having any
repercussions for you at all.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
I haven't seen anything to suggest that anyone was harmed for
leaving a bad review.
Devasta wrote 5 hours 52 min ago:
Do you know many people who'd be willing to risk their life to
give the Sinaloa cartel a bad yelp review?
tayo42 wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
Sinaola cartel sells lsd, dmt and mushrooms in personal
quantities?
ziddoap wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
As far as I remember, those weren't the only drugs sold
there, nor was there any rule enforced regarding "personal
quantities".
Not that it matters, as it was an illustrative example.
tayo42 wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
even if its not perfect for every situation it was a lot
better then what existed.
negative reviews aren't the only review, absence of
positive reviews is a signal, along with a lot of other
positive reviews. later markets at least had reviews
outside the markets too
if you are in the bulk and resale drug market you
probably aren't getting package with your name on it to
your home.
bdndndndbve wrote 6 hours 29 min ago:
Does trump also support needle exchanges and safe consumption sites?
vkou wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
As well as online drug marketplaces? Or would running one without
legal trouble require a campaign-contribution booster pack?
What a beautiful political anschluss between people who just want
to ban contraceptives and abortifacients, and people who just want
to shoot up heroin. Not sure how you square that circle[1], but
it's 2025, and here we are.
It's very telling about libertarian priorities when a cryptobro
running an online drug marketplace who tried to hire a hitman gets
amnesty, while hundreds of thousands of people who have been
convicted of drug possession[1] do not. Likewise, somehow
reproductive rights are just not a libertarian issue, either. It's
not a party of freedom, it's a party of freedom for wealthy men.
[1] Biden gave a blanket pardon for people convicted of marijuana
posession, but that's far less important for libertarians than
Ulbricht.
hellojesus wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
I think most libertarians are against the war on drugs and would
happily pardon or commute the sentences of non violent drug
offenders, but the DPR probably takes priority for them because
of the free trade issue compounded with the popularization of a
non state-backed currency.
He has both drugs + crypto vs just drugs. *Ignoring the
accusations of hit ordering, which I would imagine all librarians
cannot excuse.
vkou wrote 1 hour 1 min ago:
If they are actually trying to maximize any kind of public
welfare utility function, surely commutations and pardons and
decriminalization and harm reduction for hundreds of thousands
and millions of people, and body autonomy for hundreds of
millions more should mean a wee bit more than this entirely
transactional act.
Devasta wrote 6 hours 35 min ago:
He tried to hire multiple hitmen.
maplant wrote 6 hours 37 min ago:
There is absolutely no way harm reduction was the reason Trump
pardoned him.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 6 hours 23 min ago:
It's absolutely one of the reasons why it was politically
beneficial for him to enact the pardon.
yuppiepuppie wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
Wasnât he in jail for hiring a contract killer?
Iâm all for the freeing him of his crimes when it comes to his crypto
anarchic philosophy. But I find it hard to pardon someone for contract
killing essentially. Also Iâm not an apologist for the FBIs handling
of this case either.
adrianmonk wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
According to Wikipedia[1], he was convicted of charges related to
hacking, narcotics, money laundering, and more.
But during the trial, evidence was presented that he made
murder-for-hire payments, the court found that he did by a
preponderance of evidence, and the court took this into account when
sentencing him.
So, he wasn't convicted of it, but it is part of the reason he was
sent to jail for a very long time.
---
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht
UberFly wrote 6 hours 31 min ago:
Some info from a previous thread:
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33045520
hypeatei wrote 6 hours 37 min ago:
No, that charge was dropped. IIRC, it was on shaky ground and they
were just trying to throw the book at him.
tzs wrote 6 hours 23 min ago:
The charge was dropped, but the court did hold a hearing on it when
deciding on sentencing. They heard the evidence for and against and
ruled by a preponderance of the evidence that he did in fact do it.
beezle wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
Wonder if he can be charged with that now? Was there anything in
the pardon related to this? AFAIK there is no time limit on
bringing charges related to murder?
UncleOxidant wrote 6 hours 21 min ago:
Then why would they drop the charge if they thought the evidence
pointed to the fact he did it.
mmooss wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
Possibly because he was already facing a long sentence and it
wasn't worth pursuing that charge.
tzs wrote 6 hours 8 min ago:
Separate courts. He was indicted and tried for all the
non-murder stuff in a New York federal court. He was indicted
separately in a Maryland federal court on a murder-for-hire
charge.
The New York court convicted him, and then considered the
murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They
found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that
was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. He
appealed, and the Second Circuit upheld the sentence.
The prosecutors in Maryland then dropped the murder-for-hire
charge because there was no point. They said this would allow
them to direct their resources to other other cases where
justice had not yet been served.
DannyBee wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
Ironically, he was only pardoned for drug related crimes, so
he could still be charged with murder related ones if they
were not dropped with prejudice (i didn't look)
This is all AFAIK, they haven't released the text broadly
yet, but his lawyers/etc say he was pardoned for crimes
related to drugs.
Even what people call a 'full and unconditional' pardon is
usually targeted at something specific, not like "a pardon
for anything you may have ever done, anywhere, anytime' which
people seem to think it means sometimes.
It's more of a legal term of art to describe pardons that
erase convictions, restore rights, etc.
Rather than clemency which, say, commutes your sentence but
leaves your conviction intact.
comex wrote 55 min ago:
Just to nitpickâ¦
Most recent pardons have been announced in documents
labeled "Executive Grant of Clemency", so I don't think
"clemency" and "pardons" are as distinct as you're saying.
And while I know you said "usually", I can't help but note
that Hunter Biden was pardoned for any federal thing he may
have done, anywhere, anytime in the last 10 years. Some of
the last-minute pardons were pretty broad as well.
mannerheim wrote 4 hours 5 min ago:
One issue with any potential trial for murder-for-hire is
that the allegation as presented in the Maryland indictment
has two problematic witnesses: DEA agent Carl Force who
acted as the hitman, now in prison for embezzling
cryptocurrency from the Silk Road case, and Curtis Green,
the would-be victim in this case, who has previously
insisted that Ulbricht was innocent of plotting his murder
(and was also recently imprisoned for cocaine distribution
last year, although I don't think that would be too
relevant). Maybe the other allegations might have more meat
on the bone, but they didn't make it on to any indictment.
mmooss wrote 5 hours 7 min ago:
Murder is usually state-level jurisdiction, and the
President can only pardon federal jurisdiction.
DannyBee wrote 4 hours 53 min ago:
Yes, i'm aware - there are federal murder statutes, but
they are mostly about murder of federal police officers,
hate crime murders, etc.
However, murder for hire is also federal crime - see 18
USC 1958 and the DOJ CRM on this: [1] So depending on the
pardon text and interpretation, he may or may not be
chargeable with this statute still federally.
I agree this has zero effect on charging him at the state
level, and most states do not have statute of limitations
on these types of crimes (or they are very long)
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-res...
ty6853 wrote 5 hours 11 min ago:
The judge wrote at sentencing the murder for hire 'counted'
as an element of the criminal enterprise. So if he was
pardoned for his crimes that includes the murder for hire
per the judgement of his case.
DannyBee wrote 4 hours 56 min ago:
Even if correct, he would still be chargeable at the
state level in any related state.
The only thing it would protect him against would be the
federal murder for hire statute (18 USC 1958).
I doubt the pardon will be considered to cover that, but
we'll have to wait to see the text.
shadowgovt wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
Fascinating. It is news to me that a federal court can
consider the evidence for crimes not proven beyond a
reasonable doubt in a criminal sentencing. Learn something
new every day.
Since he was sentenced federally, he'd be under the federal
sentencing guidelines, but I imagine those are pretty harsh
around the money laundering and drug trafficking (since
they're tuned to provide a hammer to wield against mostly
narco-enterprises). I suppose the additional preponderance of
evidence gave the judge justification to push the sentence to
the maximum allowed in the category?
FireBeyond wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
Itâs extremely common in for example diversion cases and
others, where the defendant has to stipulate that they are
agreeable to things being presented as in charging
documents and evaluated based on preponderance by a court,
not by a jury and not subject to principles of reasonable
doubt.
rsanek wrote 6 hours 18 min ago:
this would be a criminal charge preponderance of the evidence
wouldn't be enough to convict
selimthegrim wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
Sentencing phase
cjbgkagh wrote 6 hours 18 min ago:
'preponderance' is the clue, criminal is 'beyond all reasonable
doubt', civil is preponderance. Ross was being charged under
criminal law.
qingcharles wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
This. Evidence that isn't strong enough to criminally convict
can be used for other purposes (e.g. sentencing,
knowledge/intent, civil forfeiture, civil damages etc).
(see OJ Simpson paying money damages for a crime he was
acquitted of)
l0ng1nu5 wrote 6 hours 38 min ago:
I haven't reviewed the info for a while but it was pretty clearly
entrapment as I recall.
cratermoon wrote 3 hours 42 min ago:
By accepting the pardon the accused concedes to guilt in the crime.
mmooss wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
Didn't Ulbricht actually run the Silk Road? Did someone from the
FBI persuade Ulbricht to do it?
jxi wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
I think they're talking about just the murder-for-hire. It may
have just been undercover agents the whole time and no murders
actually occurred.
verteu wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
Attempting to hire a hitman who turns out to be an FBI agent is
still a crime, and likely not entrapment in the legal sense.
px43 wrote 16 min ago:
It was entrapment because federal agents posing as crime
bosses were threatening Ross that if he didn't hire the
hitman there would be serious consequences. He was
manipulated and forced into the position he was in.
macinjosh wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
Yes the FBI had root or admin access to the Silk Road system and
could have very easily changed or otherwise affected logs/record
IDs that the technical case rested on. Two of the FBI agents on the
case were later punished for corruption on the case.
mannerheim wrote 6 hours 38 min ago:
He was in jail for running a darknet drug marketplace. Hiring a
contract killer was a crime he was neither charged with nor convicted
of.
meowface wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
The judge factored it into the sentencing, though. He likely did
actually try to hire a contract killer - twice. In both cases he
sincerely believed the murders were successfully committed, and he
sent a lot of money to the assassins after being sent (doctored)
"proof" of their killings.
I think it's fair to say judges shouldn't factor non-charged
allegations into sentencing, but I think he's at least morally
culpable, here, and should at the very least be expected to now
show public contrition for repeatedly trying to murder people drug
kingpin-style.
I doubt he will ever admit it, but now that he's free I still would
like it. I don't care about people enabling drug sales but I do
care about people with a God complex who feel entitled to end the
lives of those they oppose (in one case because he thought someone
stole from him, and another because he thought they would dox him).
busymom0 wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
A judge and system who would give him 2 life sentences for this
should not be trusted when he also factored in things which he
wasn't charged and convicted of.
FireBeyond wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
It is common that several outcomes are subject - with the
defendants specific agreement - to be evaluated by a court on
preponderance, not a jury. This was not judicial malpractice.
busymom0 wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
I am sorry but there's no way giving him more than 2 life
sentences has any justification whatsoever. Even the people
who actually sold drugs on his site got out in 2 years. And
the person who hired someone for hitman also only got 6
years. This is exactly the type of case where pardon makes
100% sense.
Ps. El Chapo got shorter sentence than Ross.
FireBeyond wrote 2 hours 58 min ago:
> Even the people who actually sold drugs on his site got
out in 2 years.
And Ross made millions from those people selling drugs on
his site. Quite possibly more than any person selling drugs
on his site.
And attempted to hire hitmen to prevent anyone stopping it.
Not even as a potential "crime of passion", but solely to
protect his money train.
And there's this whole false narrative of "youthful
indiscretions". He didn't start building the site til he
was 28 and was mostly running it in his early 30s.
ac29 wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
> Ps. El Chapo got shorter sentence than Ross.
They both had greater-than-life sentences, which in
practice is the same thing.
bb88 wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
There are only mandatory minimums -- not mandatory maximums in
sentencing.
I feel like me might disagree on Ulbricht, but overall
mandatory maximums make a lot of sense.
Aloisius wrote 6 hours 30 min ago:
Ulbricht was indicted in federal court in Maryland on a single
murder-for-hire charge.
The case was dropped after NY conviction since he was sentencing
to life, so there was little point in continuing.
Clearly that was a mistake if a lack of an attempted murder
conviction helped him get a pardon.
lupire wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
What would give you a hint that attempted murder conviction would
prevent his pardon? Trump pardoned over a thousand attempted
murdered already this week.
maplant wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
I had no idea this was a campaign promise. Why? I donât understand.
TeaBrain wrote 5 hours 44 min ago:
Crypto currency proponents benefit from the existence of dark net
marketplaces because they are some of the main places for the
non-speculative use of crypto currencies. I think Ross and his
pardon represent a sort-of metaphor in crypto-currency proponents'
eyes for the government's toleration of these dark net crypto
marketplaces.
heavyset_go wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
Wouldn't be surprised if he is sitting on a billion dollars of hidden
crypto somewhere.
beeflet wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
It would have to be bitcoin, which isn't very hidden
bigiain wrote 3 hours 48 min ago:
So "parked" rather than "hidden" then.
I also suspect Ulbricht quite likely has keys for wallets the FBI
didn't find out about (and it's corrupt agents didn't steal).
stevenwoo wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
If you meant Trump, it's not hidden, they released a Trump meme
coin and the rug pull was after the inauguration timed with the
release of the Melania meme coin, though entirely speculatively
makes more sense for the investors to be foreign governments buying
influence less obviously than the last Trump administration like
Saudi Arabia hiring his son in law.
hilux wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
To the libertarians.
duxup wrote 5 hours 48 min ago:
It's a trite thing to say, but when it comes to Trump it fits the
pattern of inside dealing ... I'm guessing he personally will profit
from this somehow / someone promised a donation / money.
UniverseHacker wrote 6 hours 20 min ago:
Trump went around to a huge number of niche communities and promised
to fix their core concerns in exchange for their support. The crypto
and libertarian communities are obsessed with freeing Ulbricht. It
was honestly a brilliant strategy, and probably the reason he won.
Ironic that an authoritarian fascist was able to get elected by
enlisting the help of anti-authoritarian communities with a single
issue promise.
Spooky23 wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
Itâs not ironic at all. The MAGA movement is really similar to
how Mussolini came to power.
The campaign against barbarians (Steve Millerâs) crusade, Elons
ânot enough white babiesâ stuff, sucking up to the church
(Vatican City is a Mussolini scheme), aspirations for conquest of
Greenland and Panama, etc are all analogous to the maga playbook.
Most people are clueless. There are idiots who think they are
getting $1 eggs next week. Riling up weirdos like libertarians lets
the movement punch above their weight.
exoverito wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
Unfortunately you could level the same type of name calling towards
Democrats. It's now public record they colluded with all the major
media outlets, coerced big tech to censor and debank opponents,
imprisoned whistleblowers, violated bodily autonomy with
unconstitutional mandates, weaponized the courts to conduct
lawfare, and now issued an unprecedented number of pre-emptive
pardons for unspecified crimes committed by Fauci, Hunter Biden, et
al.
I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but Biden
was escalating the Ukraine war in the final days of his presidency,
and celebrated Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Crazy
how things have changed so much. The left unanimously viewed Bush
and Cheney as obviously psychopathic war criminals, and now almost
all the Neocons have jumped over to the Democrats. The left used to
be extremely skeptical of globalization as evident by the Seattle
WTO Protests, mass immigration as evident by Bernie Sanders'
comments on its effect on workers' wages, and Big Pharma's perverse
incentives to keep people sick and regularly consuming drugs. Yet
the media has utterly psyop'd the progressives... it's kinda
disturbing.
Spooky23 wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
People in power in this era do that.
The democrats are broken. They keep running women, and not
getting messages out that appeal to the average voter. They lost
their core reliable voters (old people, Catholics, unions) and
are alienating more traditional voting blocs like African
Americans and some Hispanic populations with the constant drama
over trans issues. Nobody heard about anything this election
cycle other than abortion and transgender issues. Itâs a big
tent party, but when progressives steal all the oxygen, the
wheels fall off the train.
They need to run a tall white dude with good hair who talks about
economic opportunity, fair play and protecting the future.
My parents live in the country. A farmer (whose father was the
county Democratic Party chair) has a massive sign âTrump. I
donât like him, but we need himâ. Thatâs the 2024 election
unfortunately.
NekkoDroid wrote 37 min ago:
> Nobody heard about anything this election cycle other than
abortion and transgender issues.
The only place I've seen anything about "transgender issues" is
from the Republicans saying that that is the only thing
Democrats are running on.
dralley wrote 3 hours 2 min ago:
Old people actually leaned bluer this year relative to past
elections.
UniverseHacker wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
Authoritarianism is also popular with the democrats right now,
but I donât see how anything I said is name calling: I used
terms with a specific meaning appropriate for the context- the
only reason they have a negative connotation is because of what
they actually mean. Do you know of other terms with the same
meaning and more neutral connotations?
llamaimperative wrote 5 hours 42 min ago:
> Ironic that an authoritarian fascist was able to get elected by
enlisting the help of anti-authoritarian communities with a single
issue promise.
Ironic? It's the oldest trick in the book bro
monero-xmr wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
I am active in libertarian circles and Ulbricht was a cause celebre.
The 2024 election was a game of inches, and many libertarians I know
voted Trump purely on this issue. It is possible this was a key way
Trump eked out a victory.
dralley wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
Libertarians are very hard to take seriously because of shit like
this. Nothing about Donald Trump is Libertarian.
robocat wrote 4 hours 13 min ago:
They just won something they cared about: perhaps you should be
taking them even more seriously than you did.
And even if you are not a fan of a political group, you are the
one being judgemental here on a factor that is very unlikely to
be universal within the group.
Treating anyone according to political labels is divisive.
rafram wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
They got a single guy out of prison, but pretty much everything
else in Trump's platform is diametrically opposed to
libertarianism. It's hard to think of anything less libertarian
than tariff-funded big government!
monero-xmr wrote 2 hours 24 min ago:
Tariffs are not good for free market diehards. However the
nuance is that foreign countries like China do not operate on
a fair playing field, they want free access to our markets
but prevent our champions from entering their's. Something
must be done here. I'm not convinced tariffs are the best
tool, but at least it's something.
In terms of small government, there is news about the
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) every single day.
There will be a massive downsizing in the federal workforce
and the regulatory state over the next 4 years. This move
towards small government is the thing that excites me most.
dralley wrote 1 hour 26 min ago:
Trump has is proposing a 10% tariff on China, and a 25%
tariff on Mexico.
Also he's handing out tariff exemptions to his political
allies like candy.
There's not some high minded principal or strategy here.
It's graft and spite. Trump even seems to be holding out
the tariff threat as leverage to force the sale of TikTok.
Look you can agree with this stuff if you want but none of
it is remotely aligned with libertarian principles. Even
squishy ones.
NekkoDroid wrote 34 min ago:
> Trump has is proposing a 10% tariff on China, and a 25%
tariff on Mexico.
Wasn't it 60% for China, 25% for Canada and Mexico and
10% for the rest of the planet?
beeflet wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
yeah but freeing ross was a key campaign promise made by trump to
sway libertarian voters
mindslight wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
Very little about the Libertarian party is libertarian. Yet
another party carrying water for authoritarianism, with the
difference being that the implementation is through corporations.
monero-xmr wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
Libertarians are a self selecting bunch. Very few were raised
into this philosophy. You can appreciate that my self
identification as a libertarian is a careful, reasoned decision
and not one that was flippantly made. It is the philosophy that
is the most accurate and truthful to me.
mindslight wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
Read my comment again. I self-identify as a libertarian as I
see individual freedom as paramount. But I kept going with
the analysis to realize that the Libertarian Party does very
little to represent that ideal.
monero-xmr wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
My apologies, I thought you were accusing libertarians of
authoritarianism (the irony!).
I find the Mises Caucus at least useful in pushing to do
more than simply be an affinity group for people pretending
to play politics. I find partying with LP officials to be
very hilarious, what a group of odd balls. But the party
itself has no hope of electoral victory, which is why
everyone should vote Republican in the current iteration of
two-party politics from the libertarian lens.
Cornbilly wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
Libertarians are a joke because they refuse to realize
that allowing corporations unlimited freedom means that
the individual has less freedom. Their entire ideology
just removes the boot of the state and replaces it with
the boot of the corporation.
dralley wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
The boot of the state is very much going to remain
intact in this administration.
monero-xmr wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
Libertarians are not a joke. Some of the most powerful
people on earth are libertarians. The people who write
off libertarians are blind.
I prefer corporations because I can voluntarily choose
to take my business elsewhere, or even better, create
my own competitor. Why I dislike the government is that
it's the ultimate monopoly, with guns, and operated
mostly by power-hungry sociopaths who will use that
power to destroy innocent lives.
Given the corporation or the state, I take the
corporation every time.
mindslight wrote 22 min ago:
Don't be fooled by powerful people who claim to be
libertarian, but are actually only interested in
promoting freedom for themselves while denying the
same to others.
Your second paragraph is setting up a false
dichotomy. It's not the corporation xor the state.
The point is that when the nominal state disappears,
the corporation(s) step into the power vacuum and
become the inescapable state. To be able to take your
business elsewhere or create your own competitor, you
need individual rights. While the underlying physics
supports this directly for some abilities, for others
you need coordinated collective action. This often
takes place through the state, meaning that blanket
calls to dismantle parts of the current government
can often serve as cover for enabling newer
less-constrained government. Think yin-yang and
NP/Turing completeness circular reductions, not
towering software builds.
mindslight wrote 4 hours 13 min ago:
My point is that even if there were an electoral victory,
the Libertarian Party would not bring individual freedom.
They are operating from an assertion that starting with a
list of moral axioms, every implication will be morally
right by construction. By itself this is terribly
mistaken (see Godel), but it goes askew even sooner when
a few poor axioms are allowed to remain through
"pragmatism", regulatory capture, etc.
As for the current political environment, I'd say that
bureaucratic authoritarianism is at least the devil we
know and can be routed around by individuals, whereas
autocratic authoritarianism is at best a wildcard that
stands to destroy a good chunk of the laws that have
actually been restraining naked power.
mannerheim wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
Biden could have taken the wind out of Trump's sails by commuting
Ulbricht's sentence when he was in office. If you don't think a
group's interests are worth listening to, don't be surprised when
that group votes for someone who does.
defrost wrote 5 hours 42 min ago:
However both Libertarians and Trump are transactional.
ty6853 wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
I don't judge anyone too hard when they're willing to bend a
bit to get someone out of jail after the key has been thrown
away. I didn't vote Trump but I will admit the possibility of
Ross being released made me pause when I marked my ballot, even
his mom's image flashed in my mind and I felt guilty for not
helping.
defrost wrote 6 hours 35 min ago:
* Ulbricht's conviction became a cause célèbre in American
libertarian circles.
* In May 2024, candidate Donald Trump said that if re-elected
President, he would commute Ulbricht's sentence on his first day in
office
~ [1] I doubt Trump cares about Ulbricht as much as he cares (for
whatever reason) about the continued support of various American
libertarians (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and various crypto elites).
While he has made many promises this is significant for being one
that he has kept.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht
apsec112 wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
RFK Jr is definitely not a libertarian (even compared to someone
mainstream like Gary Johnson or Jared Polis), he supports strong
state intervention in many areas of the economy and society
acegopher wrote 6 hours 38 min ago:
because the crypto bros love him
1oooqooq wrote 6 hours 22 min ago:
who else will buy new treasury DOGE coins?
anotherhue wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
Paraphrasing an aphorism I saw elsewhere: "Crime is legal now".
rhabarba wrote 6 hours 36 min ago:
Providing online forums is legal now.
daveguy wrote 5 hours 7 min ago:
Running an elicit drug and whatever else you want to sell market is
legal now.
chillingeffect wrote 4 hours 11 min ago:
This was a pandering to get Libertarians' votes. It has nothing
to do with the crime itself. I wouldn't commit any crimes and
expect to get away with them unless I anticipated becoming the
pawn in someone's scheme to get elected.
llamaimperative wrote 5 hours 44 min ago:
Given there are at least thousands if not millions of people who
"provide online forums," and pretty much this single one is in
prison, I have to wonder if there's something unique about this
case?
I don't know anything about this guy. Is there really nothing
unique about his case?
opesorry wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton is an excellent book covering
Silk Road and what makes this unique
bdhcuidbebe wrote 5 hours 30 min ago:
Dread Pirate Roberts is legend, look up the silk road
marketplace.
Theres probably a movie or two about it too
llamaimperative wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
Oh so it was a marketplace, not a forum. Like one that allowed
people to openly transact illegal goods? That makes more sense.
It's weird that GP seemed to purposely obscure that.
bdhcuidbebe wrote 5 hours 7 min ago:
Yes, it was the biggest drug market on the dark web at that
time, and the 50,676 bitcoins seized by the feds from then is
today worth 5,3 billion dollars to give you an idea.
Also there was a long side story with disappeared bitcoins,
presumably stolen by federal investigators.
shadowgovt wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
Silk Road was, at its height, uniquely successful and making an
absolute mockery of the United States government's capacity to
regulate drug trafficking. In addition, he fashioned himself an
anti-establishment persona, going by the handle "Dread Pirate
Roberts" online.
He was unique in his magnitude of success. Governments can
successfully magnify their enforcement ability by making an
example of outliers.
llamaimperative wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
It was a forum that mocked the government's ability to regulate
drug trafficking and therefore he was prosecuted?
I find that hard to believe.
velocity3230 wrote 10 min ago:
> I find that had to believe.
Inconceivable!
pavel_lishin wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
Hiring a hitman is legal now.
DannyBee wrote 5 hours 30 min ago:
To be fair - he was not pardoned for that, he could still be
charged for it.
He was only pardoned for crimes related to drugs.
johnneville wrote 5 hours 24 min ago:
do you know that is actually the case ? i've been trying to
find the text of the pardon and haven't been able to yet. can
only find Trump's description of it as "full and unconditional"
edit: i see your other comment with the context
DannyBee wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
They unfortunately have not released the text yet.
It should eventually pop up here: [1] (among other places)
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-recipients
zoklet-enjoyer wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
He was never tried for that. Don't believe the disinformation.
kyleyeats wrote 6 hours 21 min ago:
The seven offenses in question: distributing narcotics,
distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to
distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal
enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to
traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit
money laundering
ty6853 wrote 5 hours 36 min ago:
A judge bypassed the jury and prosecutor and sentenced him as
if he hired hit men and admitted doing so. The sentence
upgrade was based on a preponderance of evidence, whereas they
would have had to proven beyond a reasonable doubt had he been
charged.
FireBeyond wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
Framing this as judicial activism is false. Many sentencing
arrangements include - with the agreement of the defendant
(since it is their rights in this case) - to have other
related activities factored in exactly this manner.
It happens all the time in pleas and diversion agreements, so
donât frame it as a reckless lone judge going off the
reservation.
1oooqooq wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
blatant entrapment and gaslighting for more than a year by law
enforcement dedicating 24h to it.
the real criminals for that prank were never even tried.
lolcatzlulz wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
Looks like the "real criminal" was charged.
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/silk-road-drug-ve...
l0ng1nu5 wrote 6 hours 36 min ago:
âIf a law is unjust a man is not only right to disobey it, he is
obligated to do soâ - Thomas Jefferson
silverquiet wrote 4 hours 49 min ago:
I wonder how this sentiment is going to play out in Luigi
Mangione's trial.
lq9AJ8yrfs wrote 5 hours 32 min ago:
Maybe Thoreau? That's more authentic and gets at similar themes.
On more than one level considering his circumstances and run-ins
with law enforcement.
âUnder a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place
for a just man is also a prison."
DannyBee wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
1. There is no evidence jefferson ever said this
2. There is no evidence anyone else ever said this, either
The closest you get is MLK.
See [1] But MLK also talks about moral obligation and not other
forms of obligation.
He was not trying to create a free for all where everyone gets to
decide which laws are okay or not, because he (and jefferson) were
not complete morons.
URI [1]: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffe...
l0ng1nu5 wrote 5 hours 24 min ago:
Touche, however there is plenty of evidence of people throughout
history making this assertion, including MLK.
He was trying to create a more just, egalitarian society. I don't
understand how you can consider acting in accordance with leading
research on successful drug policy "moronic"?
nateglims wrote 4 hours 27 min ago:
Successful drug policy meaning what here?
l0ng1nu5 wrote 4 hours 13 min ago:
Least amount of harm to both the individual and society as a
whole whilst recognizing people's fundamental right to bodily
autonomy.
scythe wrote 5 hours 29 min ago:
MLK was himself referencing Saint Augustine:
>Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust
laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no
law at all."
Considering that his rhetoric was very much based on
Christianity, it's clear what standard of "unjust" he was
applying.
dragonwriter wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
> Considering that his rhetoric was very much based on
Christianity, it's clear what standard of "unjust" he was
applying.
Considering the diversity of standards of justice within the
history of Christianity (which, in just the US,
includesârelevant to this topicâMLK, sure, but also the
Southern Baptist Convention, founded explicitly in support of
slavery), I don't know that having rhetoric grounded in
Christian theology tells much of substance about the standard
of justice one is appealing to.
bdangubic wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
lol
Aloisius wrote 6 hours 21 min ago:
He tried to have multiple people murdered.
lupusreal wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
Jefferson did, certainly. He was instrumental in starting a war
from what I understand.
Ross though? The government alleged it but never bothered to
prove it. Furthermore the government agents involved were
laughably corrupt, so anything they alleged needs to be taken
with a massive grain of salt. For all anybody here know, they
fabricated the entire assassination story to distract the public
from their plot to loot Ross's money (which unlike the
assassination stuff, has been proven in court.)
adriand wrote 6 hours 22 min ago:
Is it unjust to prohibit the sale of illegal drugs, weapons, etc.?
Society has good reasons for regulating certain goods. I regularly
see people in my community who are enslaved by fentanyl and I
wouldnât wish it on my worst enemy. The society I live in decided
to make selling it illegal. What is unjust about that?
mystified5016 wrote 5 hours 41 min ago:
What is just is decided both by an individual and the society
they exist in. "It is one's moral obligation to fight injustice"
is a pretty common tenent to hold. Injustice can be city laws
encouraging anti-homeless spikes. Injustice can also be genocide
in a remote country. Those injustices get fought in very
different ways. One can be handled by individual vigilanteeism
and peacefully petitioning local governance. The other might
require global war.
In my personal belief, everyone[0] has the right and moral
obligation to fight the injustice they care about at the level
they can manage. If that's handing out water at the protest or
inventing penicillin, do what you personally can do to improve
the world.
[0]the average layperson, obvious exceptions for power/money
apply
adriand wrote 4 hours 33 min ago:
Sure, but the facts matter. Making millions of dollars by
operating a marketplace for illegal drugs is not even close to
the same ballpark as protesting a draconian anti-homeless law,
let alone resisting genocide!
The only reasonable argument for drug legalization, in my
opinion, is the libertarian one - the idea that you should be
free to take the drugs you want to take. I am sympathetic to
this argument. I am someone who is able to make wise decisions
about the drugs I take. But I also recognize that millions of
my fellow citizens are not. The harm to society from drug
addiction and overdoses outweighs the benefit to me getting
high whenever I want.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 6 hours 4 min ago:
As I recall weapons weren't permitted on the platform.
The society didn't decide, the ruling class decided to use drug
policy to attack their own citizens.
History shows that prohibition is an abject failure. The fent
epidemic is symptomatic of this failed policy.
If they actually cared about the epidemic, addicts would have
access to regulated, pharmaceutical grade heroin whilst also
having ready access to treatment.
But then we'd have empty prisons and the police would be free to
solve real crimes so we can't have that.
adriand wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
> addicts would have access to regulated, pharmaceutical grade
heroin
We tried that, it was called the opioid epidemic and Purdue was
the pharmacist. We had readily available, doctor-prescribed,
high quality narcotics available to anyone who wanted them and
the result was an epic disaster that cost thousands of lives.
> weapons weren't permitted on the platform
My mistake.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
>We tried that, it was called the opioid epidemic and Purdue
was the pharmacist.
Not really, this was a case of a private company deliberately
pushing narcotics for profit without oversight or any
associated increase in access to treatment options.
Now the "opioid epidemic" has been replaced with a "fentanyl
epidemic" which is objectively a much more dangerous drug
with absolutely no regulation and murderous cartels instead
of doctors - and we're still throwing people in prison for
the crime of being addicts rather than treating it as a
medical issue.
I don't know the stats (or if it's even possible to
accurately collect statistics due to prohibition) but I'm
fairly certain this costs more lives than the short lived
opioid epidemic.
foogazi wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
So we like drug markets now ?
How are cartels terrorist organizations?
hellojesus wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
I like free markets.
0dayz wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
Not exactly, fentanyl epidemic was specifically started by one
family seek profit and ousted doctors to over prescribe it
while claiming it was mildly addictive.
The war on drugs have caused immeasurable harm due to failure
to understand most people use drugs either as escapism or as a
tendency.
That's why it has failed.
tayo42 wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
I think you have fentanyl and oxycodone mixed up
jsheard wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
Is Trump pushing for broad drug decriminalisation? I feel like
that would be necessary for this pardon to make sense on the
basis of current drug laws being unjust.
Last I heard he was promising to make drug dealers eligible for
the death penalty:
URI [1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-w...
ndriscoll wrote 6 hours 9 min ago:
There are healthier middle grounds we could explore where e.g.
advertisements are banned and individuals could register
themselves as being banned from participating in certain
addictive vices because they don't consistently have the
willpower to quit or don't want to tempt fate trying it (and make
it a crime to sell to an individual who has voluntarily banned
themselves), but it's hard to argue that The War on Drugs has
been in any way just.
I expect in such a society, certain groups (e.g. Mormons) would
normalize banning yourself from vices the day you turn 18.
clueless wrote 6 hours 25 min ago:
so we all individually can just decide a law is unjust? that'll be
fun
XorNot wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
I mean strictly speaking the people voted for Trump, so
collectively they're all okay with this.
Of course Trump's platform was enormously based on law & order
and combatting the drug trade, which he seems to think should
still be actually illegal and is not ending the war on drugs so,
I don't know - make of that what you will.
jojobas wrote 5 hours 41 min ago:
If you come to disagree with the justice of a law, your options
are to conform or, yes, decide that the law is unjust.
DannyBee wrote 5 hours 44 min ago:
Don't worry - jefferson never actually said this because he
wasn't a complete idiot.
Don't take my word for it though, the monticello folks looked
into it too - [1] It is a fun quote though, because it's one of
those quotes that people want to use to justify their own dumb
behavior.
"If you don't like the law, feel free to ignore it" - Albert
Einstein
URI [1]: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jef...
mmcwilliams wrote 6 hours 35 min ago:
Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner.
arrowsmith wrote 6 hours 5 min ago:
⦠in a society where slavery was legal, widespread, and rarely
questioned.
Murder has never been legal.
l0ng1nu5 wrote 6 hours 29 min ago:
So were most aristocrats of the time. Applying presentism doesn't
invalidate the idea.
DannyBee wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
He never actually said it, either.
pizza wrote 6 hours 0 min ago:
I donât think suggesting that his quote would imply his
slaves would be justified in violating their own enslavement is
any kind of presentism.
mmcwilliams wrote 6 hours 21 min ago:
But there were also abolitionists at the time, even amongst
that class. Jefferson not being among them does, actually,
diminish his standing and his views on justice. This quote, for
example, does not acknowledge that there are also laws which
are unjust to obey; such as the owning of human beings in
chattel slavery.
seanmcdirmid wrote 6 hours 23 min ago:
It is just hypocritical: even his time most people knew slavery
was unjust.
mbStavola wrote 6 hours 43 min ago:
Without any snark, why? What's the motivation?
mythrwy wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
Two life sentences was a bit harsh. 11 years seems about right to me.
I suspect the idea beyond "Free Ross" in some circles was that his
conviction wasn't so much about drug dealing, but rather it was more
a political prosecution for popularizing real uses of
cryptocurrencies.
qqqult wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
It was one of the promises he made at a Bitcoin conference he
attended a few months ago. It has been a popular issue in crypto
circles
foogazi wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
Just feels all around
mannerheim wrote 6 hours 29 min ago:
Possibly a deal with the Libertarian Party, which chose not to run
their candidate in several states to help Trump:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhDKYYdD2vY
lostmikeys wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
There's probably still some SR btc they wanted the keys to.
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