9 ms·

What people should be more concerned with is the fact that the government is selling off someone elses property before they have even been convicted of a crime.

by marme 12y ago

What people should be more concerned with is the fact that the government is selling off someone elses property before they have even been convicted of a crime. Dread pirate roberts plead not guilty and has still not had a trial yet. He has not been convicted of any crime so if these are his coins they are selling them before the trial is even finished

adamfeldman 12y ago
How is this possible?
- badfortrains 12y ago
  Civil forfeiture. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture#United_States "In civil cases, the owner need not be judged guilty of any crime; it is possible for the Government to prevail by proving that someone other than the owner used the property to commit a crime. In contrast, criminal forfeiture is usually carried out in a sentence following a conviction and is a punitive act against the offender." Or if you're up for a long read: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_...
  - easytiger 12y ago
    How is that reasonable?
    - gambiting 12y ago
      It's not. But it's not like the US Justice system is not known for its acting grossly out of proportion.
    - harshreality 12y ago
      It's a regular occurrence that people who are probably innocent have property seized under forfeiture laws, and never get the property back. Some of them are never even charged. Others are charged but beat the charges. It's worse, though. While it's possible to get the property back, you have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the property had no connection to a crime. That's a difficult thing to do.
    - jamesaguilar 12y ago
      Different standards of evidence, I guess. To be jailed for something, the standard of evidence is higher than to confiscate money gotten through that same thing.
    - Symmetry 12y ago
      It's not, but allowing it is easier for politicians than raising taxes to pay for all the policing that the voters want.
malka 12y ago
>THIS AUCTION DOES NOT INCLUDE THE BITCOINS CONTAINED IN WALLET FILES THAT RESIDED ON CERTAIN COMPUTER HARDWARE BELONGING TO ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, THAT WERE SEIZED ON OR ABOUT OCTOBER 24, 2013 (“DPR SEIZED COINS”). Seems to me that only BTC that are directly linked to SR that are sold.
- rplnt 12y ago
  What about coins of SR users? Are those included here? Shouldn't they be returned to the users?
  - orik 12y ago
    If the coins were seized on Silk Road servers they didn't belong to anyone at the time but the Silk Road. We can argue the merits of returning the coins to the last previously associated wallets; but I don't think the U.S. Gov has any intention of returning drug money to drug buyers the same way they wouldn't give gun money back to arms buyers.
    - rplnt 12y ago
      A very stretched example follows, be warned: An online shop selling clothing also happens to sell firearms illegally. Its assets are seized. What about money from pending orders for the clothing? It seems to me it's obvious in this case. Couldn't SR users start a class action lawsuit against gov for seizing their assets stored on SR servers? This is assuming not everything sold there was illegal (this might be wrong).
      - malka 12y ago
        not everything sold here was illegal. However, if I was a SR customer, I would probably not want the gov to know it.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        They could certainly petition the government for the return of money that couldn't be tied to anything illegal. But is the potential demand of return of money a hindrance for the government to auction of the Bitcoins? If anyone demands their money back, and the government agrees, or is forced by a court to pay it back, they can do so without holding BTC in the meantime. Presumably they've made an assessment and come to the conclusion that either the percentage of assets held that belong to customers of SR that said customer may have a claim to is small enough that it's easier/cheaper to deal with that if/when anyone makes a demand than trying to sort it out before auctioning off the BTC. Especially given that presumably very few customers of SR have only bought/sold legal goods, and so presumably most of them won't want to identify themselves.
sschueller 12y ago
These coins should be removed from the blockchain in a protocol update agreed upon by everyone. No government should be making money this way.
- baq 12y ago
  so it's perfectly fair to profit from selling drugs that kill people, but when the profits from illegal activity are seized, the public shouldn't be able to reuse them?
  - rplnt 12y ago
    Please entertain me how drugs sold on SR kill people.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      Pretty sure OP meant tobacco and alcohol. The government doesn't tax SR.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Brilliant precendent you're trying to set here Einstein.
  - sschueller 12y ago
    What's with the hostile response and name calling? If you don't agree with me you can write a constructive response.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      I can see how you would take it as hostile but it was not meant to be. However, trying to set a precedent on "Let's agree that this money should vanish because we all don't like where it currently is" turns into "I'm a core developer and my wife just left me so I'm just going to ruin her" in relatively few steps. What you are suggesting would be a centralized backdoor in a decentralized protocol.
spindritf 12y ago
I don't think it is in this case. Bitcoin is pretty fungible, almost like cash. If it turns out that he's innocent, he can sue the government for the money. It's not like they're selling some unique piece of art, or his family seat.
rayiner 12y ago
Disclaimer: I think civil forfeiture laws are applied without sufficient discretion in drug cases. And it's troubling that they apply not just to illegally-obtained assets, but those that are "instrumentality of a crime." That said, there's an important wrinkle here that you're glossing over, and that is usually glossed over in discussions about civil forfeiture. Civil forfeiture is not confiscation of your property as punishment for committing a crime. It's a determination that the property was never yours to begin with, because it was obtained in an illegal transaction.[1] That's why the standard for civil forfeiture isn't whether the person is guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" but rather whether the property is the fruits of a crime by the "preponderance of the evidence." Any civil dispute over the rightful ownership of property is evaluated according to a preponderance of the evidence standard, and the dispute about the status of the property can be resolved without resolving the issue of criminal guilt. The very important distinction to make here is that the issue of whether Ulbricht is guilty is distinct from whether the money is the proceeds of illegal activity. Maybe Ulbricht gets acquitted because he creates enough reasonable doubt that he isn't DPR, as he claims. Or because he succeeds in getting key evidence excluded because of a procedural failure by the feds. His acquittal doesn't mean that the money wasn't the product of illegal activity. Indeed, he has tremendous incentive to try and prove that he never owned these Bitcoins, because that goes to proving he isn't DPR! [1] At least when we're talking about cash. There's a whole host of more questionable issues when it comes to things like forfeiture of vehicles and guns used in crimes. See: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1459&context=gsulr; http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1459... see also: http://ij.org/pennsylvania-judge-calls-civil-asset-forfeiture-state-sanctioned-theft http://ij.org/pennsylvania-judge-calls-civil-asset-forfeitur... (for a particularly egregious example).
- talmand 12y ago
  How do they determine the property is the result of illegal activity if the owner of the property has yet to be convicted of illegal activity? That way of thinking opens up our current problems of police seizing everything within grasp during an arrest or traffic stop claiming the property is the result of illegal activity. "Hello, I pulled you over because it's late at night and I'm wondering if you're okay. Oh, you happen to have $10,000 in cash on hand? Drug money, I'll take that." If this is the way the law is being interpreted then we gave up property rights a long time ago.
maaku 12y ago
This has nothing to do with the man accused of being DPR. This is like the police showing up to a drug deal and both the buyer and supplier scattering and miraculously getting away. The police then take the coccaine and cash onto a giant podium and ask "This belong to anyone? No? We're going to claim it if no one does." Now it is legitimately government property.
- wyager 12y ago
  Except for that people are claiming ownership of some of the SR funds. There was an article posted here recently about a guy in the UK trying to recover his Silk Road funds.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    UK guy gave his bitcoins to the Silk Road, but no one is claiming ownership of the Silk Road wallet.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    Not according to the order of forfeiture. "WHEREAS, no claims or answers have been filed in this judicial forfeiture as to Silk Road Hidden Website and the Silk Road Server Bitcoins" http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/SilkRoadForfeiture/Silk%20Road%20Partial%20Default%20Judgment%20and%20Order%20of%20Forfeiture.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/Silk...
eyeareque 12y ago
What happens if he is found not guilty, and they've already sold all of his assets?
- DanBC 12y ago
  Different burdens of proof? Criminal trial requires "beyond reasonable doubt" while civil forfiture requires "balance of probabilities"?
- smackfu 12y ago
  There's a lot of confusion around this. They are selling the Bitcoins that were on the Silk Road servers. There were other Bitcoins on his computers. He said he owned the ones on his computer, but not the ones on the Silk Road servers (because he denies being involved with Silk Road.) At that point, the DOJ posts a notice saying "hey, anyone who thinks they own these, come forward and make a claim." No one did, so they are now at the "sell them off" stage.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
This has been the way asset forfeiture has worked since the '80s. People complain about the war on terror, but it's a sideshow compared to the deep and long lasting erosion of civil liberties that has been happening as part of the war on drugs for decades and decades.

by marme 12y ago

adamfeldman 12y ago

How is this possible?

badfortrains 12y ago
Civil forfeiture. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture#United_States "In civil cases, the owner need not be judged guilty of any crime; it is possible for the Government to prevail by proving that someone other than the owner used the property to commit a crime. In contrast, criminal forfeiture is usually carried out in a sentence following a conviction and is a punitive act against the offender." Or if you're up for a long read: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_...
- easytiger 12y ago
  How is that reasonable?
  - gambiting 12y ago
    It's not. But it's not like the US Justice system is not known for its acting grossly out of proportion.
  - harshreality 12y ago
    It's a regular occurrence that people who are probably innocent have property seized under forfeiture laws, and never get the property back. Some of them are never even charged. Others are charged but beat the charges. It's worse, though. While it's possible to get the property back, you have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the property had no connection to a crime. That's a difficult thing to do.
  - jamesaguilar 12y ago
    Different standards of evidence, I guess. To be jailed for something, the standard of evidence is higher than to confiscate money gotten through that same thing.
  - Symmetry 12y ago
    It's not, but allowing it is easier for politicians than raising taxes to pay for all the policing that the voters want.

malka 12y ago

>THIS AUCTION DOES NOT INCLUDE THE BITCOINS CONTAINED IN WALLET FILES THAT RESIDED ON CERTAIN COMPUTER HARDWARE BELONGING TO ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, THAT WERE SEIZED ON OR ABOUT OCTOBER 24, 2013 (“DPR SEIZED COINS”). Seems to me that only BTC that are directly linked to SR that are sold.

rplnt 12y ago
What about coins of SR users? Are those included here? Shouldn't they be returned to the users?
- orik 12y ago
  If the coins were seized on Silk Road servers they didn't belong to anyone at the time but the Silk Road. We can argue the merits of returning the coins to the last previously associated wallets; but I don't think the U.S. Gov has any intention of returning drug money to drug buyers the same way they wouldn't give gun money back to arms buyers.
  - rplnt 12y ago
    A very stretched example follows, be warned: An online shop selling clothing also happens to sell firearms illegally. Its assets are seized. What about money from pending orders for the clothing? It seems to me it's obvious in this case. Couldn't SR users start a class action lawsuit against gov for seizing their assets stored on SR servers? This is assuming not everything sold there was illegal (this might be wrong).
    - malka 12y ago
      not everything sold here was illegal. However, if I was a SR customer, I would probably not want the gov to know it.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      They could certainly petition the government for the return of money that couldn't be tied to anything illegal. But is the potential demand of return of money a hindrance for the government to auction of the Bitcoins? If anyone demands their money back, and the government agrees, or is forced by a court to pay it back, they can do so without holding BTC in the meantime. Presumably they've made an assessment and come to the conclusion that either the percentage of assets held that belong to customers of SR that said customer may have a claim to is small enough that it's easier/cheaper to deal with that if/when anyone makes a demand than trying to sort it out before auctioning off the BTC. Especially given that presumably very few customers of SR have only bought/sold legal goods, and so presumably most of them won't want to identify themselves.

sschueller 12y ago

These coins should be removed from the blockchain in a protocol update agreed upon by everyone. No government should be making money this way.

baq 12y ago
so it's perfectly fair to profit from selling drugs that kill people, but when the profits from illegal activity are seized, the public shouldn't be able to reuse them?
- rplnt 12y ago
  Please entertain me how drugs sold on SR kill people.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    Pretty sure OP meant tobacco and alcohol. The government doesn't tax SR.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
scrollaway 12y ago
Brilliant precendent you're trying to set here Einstein.
- sschueller 12y ago
  What's with the hostile response and name calling? If you don't agree with me you can write a constructive response.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    I can see how you would take it as hostile but it was not meant to be. However, trying to set a precedent on "Let's agree that this money should vanish because we all don't like where it currently is" turns into "I'm a core developer and my wife just left me so I'm just going to ruin her" in relatively few steps. What you are suggesting would be a centralized backdoor in a decentralized protocol.

spindritf 12y ago

I don't think it is in this case. Bitcoin is pretty fungible, almost like cash. If it turns out that he's innocent, he can sue the government for the money. It's not like they're selling some unique piece of art, or his family seat.

rayiner 12y ago

Disclaimer: I think civil forfeiture laws are applied without sufficient discretion in drug cases. And it's troubling that they apply not just to illegally-obtained assets, but those that are "instrumentality of a crime." That said, there's an important wrinkle here that you're glossing over, and that is usually glossed over in discussions about civil forfeiture. Civil forfeiture is not confiscation of your property as punishment for committing a crime. It's a determination that the property was never yours to begin with, because it was obtained in an illegal transaction.[1] That's why the standard for civil forfeiture isn't whether the person is guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" but rather whether the property is the fruits of a crime by the "preponderance of the evidence." Any civil dispute over the rightful ownership of property is evaluated according to a preponderance of the evidence standard, and the dispute about the status of the property can be resolved without resolving the issue of criminal guilt. The very important distinction to make here is that the issue of whether Ulbricht is guilty is distinct from whether the money is the proceeds of illegal activity. Maybe Ulbricht gets acquitted because he creates enough reasonable doubt that he isn't DPR, as he claims. Or because he succeeds in getting key evidence excluded because of a procedural failure by the feds. His acquittal doesn't mean that the money wasn't the product of illegal activity. Indeed, he has tremendous incentive to try and prove that he never owned these Bitcoins, because that goes to proving he isn't DPR! [1] At least when we're talking about cash. There's a whole host of more questionable issues when it comes to things like forfeiture of vehicles and guns used in crimes. See: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1459&context=gsulr; http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1459... see also: http://ij.org/pennsylvania-judge-calls-civil-asset-forfeiture-state-sanctioned-theft http://ij.org/pennsylvania-judge-calls-civil-asset-forfeitur... (for a particularly egregious example).

talmand 12y ago
How do they determine the property is the result of illegal activity if the owner of the property has yet to be convicted of illegal activity? That way of thinking opens up our current problems of police seizing everything within grasp during an arrest or traffic stop claiming the property is the result of illegal activity. "Hello, I pulled you over because it's late at night and I'm wondering if you're okay. Oh, you happen to have $10,000 in cash on hand? Drug money, I'll take that." If this is the way the law is being interpreted then we gave up property rights a long time ago.

maaku 12y ago

This has nothing to do with the man accused of being DPR. This is like the police showing up to a drug deal and both the buyer and supplier scattering and miraculously getting away. The police then take the coccaine and cash onto a giant podium and ask "This belong to anyone? No? We're going to claim it if no one does." Now it is legitimately government property.

wyager 12y ago
Except for that people are claiming ownership of some of the SR funds. There was an article posted here recently about a guy in the UK trying to recover his Silk Road funds.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  UK guy gave his bitcoins to the Silk Road, but no one is claiming ownership of the Silk Road wallet.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Not according to the order of forfeiture. "WHEREAS, no claims or answers have been filed in this judicial forfeiture as to Silk Road Hidden Website and the Silk Road Server Bitcoins" http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/SilkRoadForfeiture/Silk%20Road%20Partial%20Default%20Judgment%20and%20Order%20of%20Forfeiture.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/Silk...

eyeareque 12y ago

What happens if he is found not guilty, and they've already sold all of his assets?

DanBC 12y ago
Different burdens of proof? Criminal trial requires "beyond reasonable doubt" while civil forfiture requires "balance of probabilities"?
smackfu 12y ago
There's a lot of confusion around this. They are selling the Bitcoins that were on the Silk Road servers. There were other Bitcoins on his computers. He said he owned the ones on his computer, but not the ones on the Silk Road servers (because he denies being involved with Silk Road.) At that point, the DOJ posts a notice saying "hey, anyone who thinks they own these, come forward and make a claim." No one did, so they are now at the "sell them off" stage.

InclinedPlane 12y ago

This has been the way asset forfeiture has worked since the '80s. People complain about the war on terror, but it's a sideshow compared to the deep and long lasting erosion of civil liberties that has been happening as part of the war on drugs for decades and decades.