The Silk Road Trial Continues After Dramatic Revelations

[Suzanimal]

“Silk Road was founded on libertarian principles and continues to be operated on them. It is a great idea and a great practical system…It is not a utopia. It is regulated by market forces, not a central power (even I am subject to market forces by my competition. No one is forced to be here). The same principles that have allowed Silk Road to flourish can and do work anywhere human beings come together. The only difference is that the State is unable to get its thieving murderous mitts on it.”
- Dread Pirate Roberts

New York City – On Tuesday the trial of Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht will continue in a federal courthouse in the Southern District of New York City.

Ulbricht is accused of trafficking drugs on the Internet, narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, computer-hacking conspiracy and money-laundering conspiracy for his role as the creator of the Silk Road and for allegedly being the man behind the online persona that ran the marketplace, Dread Pirate Roberts. In the first week of the trial the prosecution attempted to convince the jury that Ulbricht was DPR by showcasing exhibit after exhibit of drugs purchased by undercover officer with the Homeland Security Investigations.

The government claims that Ulbricht was running the administrative side of the website during these and other drug purchases and thus should be held responsible for the purchases. The government is claiming Ulbricht is responsible under something known as “transferred intent”.This doctrine will allow the government to attempt to convince the jury that Ulbricht is responsible for the activities of the website itself, whether or not he was directly involved. Ross’s mother Lyn Ulbricht has said that if the precedent is set during her son’s trial it could “put a chill on the internet.”

Indeed, if the governments arguments convince the jury that Ulbricht is guilty of the crimes by simply hosting them it could create a dangerous situation where website owners could be held responsible for users comments on a site, or for the products sold on ebay or craigslist.

As the IB Times wrote, “If found guilty he will go down as the first person in history to be convicted for the actions of the users of his website, rather than merely his own actions.”

...

http://benswann.com/the-silk-road-trial-continues-after-dramatic-revelations/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_zz1d6MfAQ

[muh_roads]

I've heard they are having a terrible time trying to prove anything on him. He admitted to helping with making the website, but nobody can prove he is the actual DPR.

[Suzanimal]

Feds Charge Man with Crimes in Silk Road Of Which the Government Itself is Also Guilty


The Silk Road trial is filled with twists, turns and intrigue. But perhaps the most revealing facts of the case are that the federal government is guilty of every single crime it is charging against the accused, Ross Ulbricht.

1. “Narcotics conspiracy”: The CIA has been accused of, as one Mexican official puts it, “managing the drug trade.” It also has shady connections with the opium trade in Afghanistan. Further, the FDA and pharmaceutical companies have committed a massive “narcotic conspiracy” to bring highly addictive opiate painkillers to the market by approving them as safe. None of these agencies are standing trial for their crimes.

2. “Engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise”: Ulbricht is charged with continually participating in the Silk Road, though his lawyer last week stated that while Ulbricht started the organization, he soon after relinquished control. The same cannot be said for the criminals in office and in power with the federal government. And they aren’t simply pushing drugs or operating outside the confines of the goverment- approved market. They have been stealing wealth, waging illegal wars and unmitigated, violative spying, illegally detaining and torturing at Guantanamo, and facilitating militarized police brutality. They conspire with corporations to centralize control and wealth. These are all crimes against citizens, but unsurprisingly, the DOJ is not going after the instigators.

3. “Conspiracy to commit computer hacking” It is immensely hypocritical that the prosecution is charging Ulbricht with conspiring to commit computer hacking. The FBI openly advertises for hackers (and admits that it violates drug laws by hiring potheads, since they can’t find hackers who don’t smoke weed). The US hacked Iran’s nuclear systems and hacked North Korea before claiming that North Korea hacked Sony. Hacking is bad, kids, except when the federal government does it.

4. “Money laundering” While the government may not be guilty of laundering money (that we know of), it has created an environment where such actions are enabled and acceptable. HSBC laundered money for terrorists. It was found guilty of laundering money for drug cartels (who sell the drugs the government bans!) and ordered to pay $800 million in fines. On its face, it seems as though the valiant government stepped in to punish the big, evil bank. In reality, the $800 million dollar fines went back into a system that works closely with big banks whose regulators protect the financial criminals.

5. “Ordering Murders for Hire” While Ulbricht is not being charged with ordering the deaths of six of his competitors, the prosecution is certainly highlighting it. Unfortunately, the federal government the prosecutors work for is guilty of the same crime. In addition to hiring and funding soldiers to wage crony wars around the world based on lies, the drone war is particularly indicative of “murder for hire.” Drone operators play video-game like programs to assassinate mostly innocent civilians in pursuit of government-decreed terrorists. Even more “hit”-like is the president’s disposition matrix and history of ordering the deaths of human beings–including American citizens without charge or trial.

What the Silk Road trial boils down to is the confrontation of freedom and authoritarianism. It is the desperate attempt of the government to cling to control over enterprise, competing currencies, freedom, and the inevitable destruction of the matrix.

The government being guilty of everything it alleges against Ulbricht is a sad statement on the power it currently wields and reason enough to side with the defendant.

http://www.notbeinggoverned.com/feds-charge-man-with-crimes-in-silk-road-of-which-the-government-itself-is-also-guilty/

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

It's nice to see agorists who put their theory into action, but I wonder if ideologues are the best people to run these kinds of websites. I'm all for buying victimless products on the dark web market. From what I know Agora is a far safer and more secure drug market and (despite the name) I don't think it's run to put libertarian ideals into action. As far as I can tell, whoever runs Agora just wants to make money, and that may have something to do with its increased precaution.

[Suzanimal]

Secret Journal Allegedly Shows Ross Ulbricht Planned a Silk Road Bank


Silk Road, for its more than two and a half years online, was an unprecedented online narcotics emporium. But according to a journal found on the laptop of its alleged creator Ross Ulbricht, Ulbricht wanted it to be even more: a “brand” that extended from communications tools to banking.

In Ulbricht’s trial Wednesday, prosecutor Timothy Howard read aloud from a journal that was found on the defendant’s Samsung 700z laptop, which was seized at the time of his arrest in a San Francisco library in October, 2013. The journal, which goes back at least as far as 2010, seems to provide the most detailed look yet at Ulbricht’s plans for his libertarian contraband market. And the journal reveals that before his arrest, Ulbricht had allegedly planned to create chat software, a currency exchange, and more, all under the “Silk Road brand.”

The young Texan had allegedly planned to expand the Silk Road into a “brand people can come to trust and rely on,” according to a 2011 passage from the journal. “Silk Road chat, Silk Road exchange, Silk Road credit union, Silk Road market, Silk Road everything!”

Ulbricht’s journal credits that ambition in part to a “mentor” who he calls Variety Jones. “He has helped me to see a larger vision,” Ulbricht writes.

That roadmap for Silk Road was never detailed in public by the Dread Pirate Roberts, the pseudonymous figure who ran the Silk Road and often authored posts on its user forums describing the Silk Road market in revolutionary, libertarian terms. But when I interviewed Roberts in 2013, he did allude to plans for a “next phase” of the site, including the sale of consumer electronics, possibly re-introducing the sale of firearms (which had been earlier banned from the site), and as Ulbricht seems to write in his journal, secure communication tools. At the time of our interview that last topic had become particularly relevant thanks to the first published leaks from NSA contractor Edward Snowden. “One other big [development] I’d like to mention that is coming whether we do it or not is communication privacy,” Roberts told me.

If it wasn’t clear before that the state is your enemy, it should be now that the biggest covert intelligence agency in the biggest government on the planet has been stealing nearly everyone’s private communications. We have the technology right now to make this impossible for them. End to end encryption and Tor need to become the standard for communications globally, just as SSL has. You must demand it from your communications providers. Again, if Silk Road can play a role in this transition, I’m more than happy to provide.

Ulbricht’s journal, which the prosecution began to dig into for the first time today in Ulbricht’s trial, appears to provide a goldmine of evidence for his guilt. Prosecutor Howard read aloud a passage from 2010 that details growing the first 10 pounds of psychedelic mushrooms in a cabin in Bastrop, Texas to serve as the Silk Road’s first products, launching the site on the anything-goes web host Freedom Hosting, and watching the site’s first transactions. “I was so excited I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Ulbricht writes of the Silk Road’s early days.2

The journal goes on to describe recruiting the site’s first staffers, described by the names SYG, Digitalalchemy and Utah, as well as meeting his soon-to-be adviser Variety Jones. Later, Ulbricht even describes partly confessing his Silk Road secret to someone named Jessica. “I felt compelled to reveal myself to her. It was terrible,” he writes. “I told her I have secrets…I’m so stupid.”

“Everyone knows I work on a bitcoin exchange,” Ulbricht adds. “Everyone knows too much. Dammit.”

Ulbricht’s journal will likely serve as the centerpiece for the evidence the prosecution has assembled to prove the narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, counterfeiting and other charges he faces. Aside from the journal, FBI computer scientist Thomas Kiernan on Wednesday showed pictures he took of Ulbricht’s seized computer showing that he was logged into a Silk Road administrator panel called “mastermind” at the time of his arrest. Prosecutor Howard went on to lay out a maelstrom of evidence pulled from Ulbricht’s laptop, including a PGP private key that had been used for “signing” messages as the Dread Pirate Roberts, html code that matched the code on the Silk Road website, and an application for “economic citizenship” in the Caribbean island of Dominica that had been filled out with Ulbricht’s full details.1

Ulbricht’s defense attorneys have suggested that they’ll show that while Ulbricht did in fact create the Silk Road, he gave it up to the administrator who would become the Dread Pirate Roberts. Roberts, they argued to the jury in their opening statement, eventually “lured” Ulbricht back to the site to serve as the “perfect fall guy.” The defense has yet to explain how a detailed journal of planning and managing the Silk Road ended up on Ulbricht’s computer.

In the meantime, however, much of that journal evidence reads like evidence of a massive operational security misjudgement on the part of an overconfident online drug lord. “I imagine someday I may have a story written about my life and it would be good to have a detailed account of it,” the journal reads in one entry.

The prosecution also cited chat logs found on Ulbricht’s computer that seemed to show him communicating with Silk Road staffers, some of which were almost absurdly irony. “Put yourself in the shoes of a prosecutor trying to build a case against you,” prosecutor Howard read aloud at one point, allegedly quoting Ulbricht. “When you look at the chance of us getting caught, it’s incredibly small.”

1Updated 1/21/2015 5:40pm with more evidence presented by the prosecution.

2Correction 1/21/2015 10:55: An earlier version of this story mistated the context of a quote from the journal found on Ross Ulbricht’s computer, and quoted the journal as stating he had grown 10 kilos of psychedelic mushrooms when he had in fact grown 10 pounds

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/ulbricht-allegedly-planned-silk-road-brand/

[muh_roads]

People that write journals...**smacks forehead** lol

Looks like Jury Nullification is his last hope now.