7 ms·

Finally, a pardon that makes sense. Ulbrecht certainly broke the law, but the sentence was far too severe.

by underseacables 6y ago

imposterr 6y ago
How do you figure that the sentence was too severe?
- UShouldBWorking 6y ago
  Is Larry Page responsible for the worst things ever sent through Gmail? Is Zuckerberg going to jail for people sharing illegal content on his site?
jiveturkey 6y ago
maybe. i mean, he hired a hit man.
- zionic 6y ago
  *claims the feds
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    *claims the transcripts that came out at his trial, which AFAIK neither he nor his defense attorneys disputed. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/the-hitman-scam-dread-pirate-roberts-bizarre-murder-for-hire-attempts/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/the-hitman-scam-...
    - mikeyouse 6y ago
      He literally wrote in his journal about how he hoped that having these people murdered would make it easier to run his drug empire.. Ulbricht isn’t a good person, he had a very bad lawyer which probably cost him several decades of imprisonment but just because he was a “hacker” who did his crimes with new technology doesn’t somehow make him better than any of the other people in prison for the same crimes. Seriously, sit down and read the journals they admitted into evidence, the guy is a sociopath focused on getting rich through selling drugs he knew were killing people.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        I love the fact that in the 2010s, and for someone as technical as Ulbricht, that writing in a journal about criminal conspiracies did NOT sound any kind of alerts. Of all of the hoops he was jumping through to stay undetected, all of the OpSec he had to have practiced, yet he kept a detailed journal. Oops? Just don't know how to respond
        mikeyouse 6y ago
        It was so mundane and psychotic.. Literally from line to line just error logging servers and talking about ordering half million dollar hits. > being blackmailed with user info. talking with large distributor (hell's angels) > got word that blackmailer was excuted, created file upload script, started to fix problem with bond refunds over 3 months old > reconfigured nginx to not time out. almost all errors have disappeared. > sent payment to angels for hit on tony76 and his 3 associates, began setting up hecho as standby, very high load (300/16), took site offline and refactored main and category pages to be more efficient https://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-laptop-ross-ulbricht/ https://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal...
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
For running Silk Road perhaps, but I never fully understood the whole "hired hits" part of this case. Did Ulbrecht actually think he was hiring hitmen to commit murder? Was it just bravado? Because I can't understand supporting Ulbrecht's clemency if he really thought he was hiring assassins to kill 5 people. Edit: To be clear, because I've already got what feel like knee jerk downvotes, I honestly don't understand the hitman charges in the case and would like if someone has any more info. I mean, the chat logs looked pretty damning, but then all of those charges seem to have been thrown out, so I'd like to understand the reason for that. Were the chat logs forged in some way? Was it a technicality? Did the Feds just not care because they had enough in the drug charges?
- tptacek 6y ago
  The evidence presented suggests that he did believe that; moreover, despite repeated claims to the contrary on message boards, his murder-for-hire scheme was brought to trial; it was a predicate on his conspiracy charge.
- nullc 6y ago
  He was never charged with most of that so he didn't have an opportunity to defend against it. I personally found it hard to read as something he believed was real, ... assuming he actually had those conversations at all. One of these discussions goes something like this: Crook: Sorry dread pirate, I don't want to extort you but a big bad nasty dealer is demanding money from me. DPR: Put him on, let me see if I can work it out. Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: This big bad dealer. DPR: Okay why don't I pay you what the 'other guy' was demanding, and you make him go away forever. Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: Can do. I can't be the only person that read that as a subtext of "I know I'm just talking to you, but I want to make it clear that you're not going to get to try this stunt multiple times"-- arguably an assault. But I would just assume that getting death threats is just a cost of doing business as an extortionist. Of course, there is no allegation that anyone actually died at all. Keep in mind that much of this evidence was collected by a couple of phenomenally corrupt officers who compromised the silkroad systems and robbed it blind (some of whom have now been convicted but it appears there may have been an additional one who wasn't caught). Ulbrecht's defence was denied access to large amounts of potentially exculpatory evidence because the prosecution completely concealed the corrupt officers from the case. It is absolutely a miscarriage of justice to hold the murder for hire allegations against him when the prosecution dare not have charged any of it because doing so would have forced them to expose that the chain of custody of their evidence went through extremely corrupt LE who had a tens of millions of dollar incentive to keep all the attention on someone else while they lined their pockets. But I'm just some internet hothead. Here is what the National Lawyers Guild said: > “The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial.” Because of this I think we can never know the truth, but it a basic bedrock principle of our legal system that when the prosecution is corrupt and engages in misconduct such that we can't be sure of the truth, we'd rather let a guilty person walk than wrongfully convict or reward unethical and inequitable conduct by the state.
manojlds 6y ago
Reading the American Kingpin, it doesn't feel like someone I would want pardoned.
refurb 6y ago
Agreed. This isn't a "Ulbrecht never should have gone to jail", this is "putting someone in jail until they die is too severe a sentence". I mean, people who have actually murdered other people are usually at least given a chance at parole.

Finally, a pardon that makes sense. Ulbrecht certainly broke the law, but the sentence was far too severe.

imposterr 6y ago

How do you figure that the sentence was too severe?

UShouldBWorking 6y ago
Is Larry Page responsible for the worst things ever sent through Gmail? Is Zuckerberg going to jail for people sharing illegal content on his site?

jiveturkey 6y ago

maybe. i mean, he hired a hit man.

zionic 6y ago
*claims the feds
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  *claims the transcripts that came out at his trial, which AFAIK neither he nor his defense attorneys disputed. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/the-hitman-scam-dread-pirate-roberts-bizarre-murder-for-hire-attempts/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/the-hitman-scam-...
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    He literally wrote in his journal about how he hoped that having these people murdered would make it easier to run his drug empire.. Ulbricht isn’t a good person, he had a very bad lawyer which probably cost him several decades of imprisonment but just because he was a “hacker” who did his crimes with new technology doesn’t somehow make him better than any of the other people in prison for the same crimes. Seriously, sit down and read the journals they admitted into evidence, the guy is a sociopath focused on getting rich through selling drugs he knew were killing people.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      I love the fact that in the 2010s, and for someone as technical as Ulbricht, that writing in a journal about criminal conspiracies did NOT sound any kind of alerts. Of all of the hoops he was jumping through to stay undetected, all of the OpSec he had to have practiced, yet he kept a detailed journal. Oops? Just don't know how to respond
      - mikeyouse 6y ago
        It was so mundane and psychotic.. Literally from line to line just error logging servers and talking about ordering half million dollar hits. > being blackmailed with user info. talking with large distributor (hell's angels) > got word that blackmailer was excuted, created file upload script, started to fix problem with bond refunds over 3 months old > reconfigured nginx to not time out. almost all errors have disappeared. > sent payment to angels for hit on tony76 and his 3 associates, began setting up hecho as standby, very high load (300/16), took site offline and refactored main and category pages to be more efficient https://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-laptop-ross-ulbricht/ https://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal...

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

For running Silk Road perhaps, but I never fully understood the whole "hired hits" part of this case. Did Ulbrecht actually think he was hiring hitmen to commit murder? Was it just bravado? Because I can't understand supporting Ulbrecht's clemency if he really thought he was hiring assassins to kill 5 people. Edit: To be clear, because I've already got what feel like knee jerk downvotes, I honestly don't understand the hitman charges in the case and would like if someone has any more info. I mean, the chat logs looked pretty damning, but then all of those charges seem to have been thrown out, so I'd like to understand the reason for that. Were the chat logs forged in some way? Was it a technicality? Did the Feds just not care because they had enough in the drug charges?

tptacek 6y ago
The evidence presented suggests that he did believe that; moreover, despite repeated claims to the contrary on message boards, his murder-for-hire scheme was brought to trial; it was a predicate on his conspiracy charge.
nullc 6y ago
He was never charged with most of that so he didn't have an opportunity to defend against it. I personally found it hard to read as something he believed was real, ... assuming he actually had those conversations at all. One of these discussions goes something like this: Crook: Sorry dread pirate, I don't want to extort you but a big bad nasty dealer is demanding money from me. DPR: Put him on, let me see if I can work it out. Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: This big bad dealer. DPR: Okay why don't I pay you what the 'other guy' was demanding, and you make him go away forever. Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: Can do. I can't be the only person that read that as a subtext of "I know I'm just talking to you, but I want to make it clear that you're not going to get to try this stunt multiple times"-- arguably an assault. But I would just assume that getting death threats is just a cost of doing business as an extortionist. Of course, there is no allegation that anyone actually died at all. Keep in mind that much of this evidence was collected by a couple of phenomenally corrupt officers who compromised the silkroad systems and robbed it blind (some of whom have now been convicted but it appears there may have been an additional one who wasn't caught). Ulbrecht's defence was denied access to large amounts of potentially exculpatory evidence because the prosecution completely concealed the corrupt officers from the case. It is absolutely a miscarriage of justice to hold the murder for hire allegations against him when the prosecution dare not have charged any of it because doing so would have forced them to expose that the chain of custody of their evidence went through extremely corrupt LE who had a tens of millions of dollar incentive to keep all the attention on someone else while they lined their pockets. But I'm just some internet hothead. Here is what the National Lawyers Guild said: > “The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial.” Because of this I think we can never know the truth, but it a basic bedrock principle of our legal system that when the prosecution is corrupt and engages in misconduct such that we can't be sure of the truth, we'd rather let a guilty person walk than wrongfully convict or reward unethical and inequitable conduct by the state.

manojlds 6y ago

Reading the American Kingpin, it doesn't feel like someone I would want pardoned.

refurb 6y ago

Agreed. This isn't a "Ulbrecht never should have gone to jail", this is "putting someone in jail until they die is too severe a sentence". I mean, people who have actually murdered other people are usually at least given a chance at parole.