So, here’s a thought to mull over.
Most crimes committed with firearms are pursuant to drug trafficking. Gangs fight other gangs to control drug territory, because it’s extremely lucrative. When I lived in Chicago, the gangs were hyper-local; the police had dismantled the leadership of the large gangs, leading to the fracturing of the gang structure, and creating more, and smaller gangs, all fighting over turf, and where and to whom they could sell drugs.
When you move that off the streets and anonymize all of it, you remove the motivation to commit violent acts. A gang on street A is no longer competing with a gang on street B for customers; now they might be competing with someone across the country, or in another country entirely. Not only that, but you de-motivate adulteration of drugs; if you sell low-purity trash, or cut your percs with fent, your customers now have a plethora of other options to try.
The Silk Road made drugs and the drug trade safer for everyone. If this had become the norm, instead of p2p sales, we could have seen significant drops in violent crimes associated with the drug trade.
Or just decrimilize them and dont let a guy who tried to order assaninations out of prison.
Eh, we let healthcare CEOs roam the streets…
President of a civilized country should not have this power.
Key word here is civilized.
Keep in mind that a big part of why Ulbricht was in jail was paying to have multiple people murdered
False. Those charges were all dismissed. Dont spread misinformation.
He paid money to have people killed in order to protect his profits
The fact that he wasn’t convicted of it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen
Allegedly*
Fact: nobody was actually killed.
Fact: He wasn’t convicted, so this is just the government claiming someone they dont like did something without proving it (again the proof lacking is the payments, because nobody died)
Speaking of convicted, pretty sure at least two of the FBI agents assigned to investigate him WERE convicted and sent to jail for personally stealing funds from silk road during the investigation. The whole thing was mishandled from the beginning and the people he ‘ordered to kill’ weren’t even real people, they were fake identities created by the same FBI agents that were posing as the hitmen and mishandling evidence. Reeks of entrapment.
Ok, you’ve got me on the wording. He wasn’t in jail because he paid for hits, but my point being no matter your thoughts on drug policy, Ross should be in prison
Correct me if I’m wrong: IIRC the feds sent back mock pictures to ‘confirm’ the victims were killed, so I don’t know if anyone was assassinated in reality but, as you said, Ulbricht payed to have them murdered.
Did you just restate exactly what the person above you already said?
I was clarifying and adding more details, and also restating to make it clear I wasn’t disagreeing at all or trivializing it.
You’re correct. They were all scams, including one by the US government
That doesn’t mean they’re scams. Ross really did earnestly pay to get people killed, he just got caught in a honey trap trying to do so and that’s a good thing
I have seen this repeated multiple times on Lemmy. When I look this up, I find:
- Dismissal with prejudice: https://freeross.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Doc_14_Dismissal_Indictment_7-26-2018.pdf
- The DEA agent responsible for this entrapment sentenced to prison for corruption: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-dea-agent-sentenced-extortion-money-laundering-and-obstruction-related-silk-road
- The target of the alleged crime (Curtis Green) advocating for Ross and claiming that his own messages were altered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0w8aOK1NRE
- The fact that the payments to the hitmen were made via bank wire transfer: https://imgur.com/why-would-dpr-send-easily-tracked-80k-wire-transfer-hit-when-he-did-all-other-business-bitcoin-PEozMNM
So, the charges are dismissed with prejudice, the DEA agent imprisoned for corruption, the alleged victim testifies in his favor. What makes the other narrative compelling? I see people citing the court document in which the claims were made… But what is the value of that document if the result was a dismissal with prejudice? Shouldn’t that support the innocence narrative?
I am genuinely curious. I’m not necessarily advocating his innocence, I want to understand what other people know that makes them so convinced that he is guilty of this.
Just to note, charges dismissed with prejudice means that the prosecution can’t correct the errors and re-file the case. It’s usually done when the judge has pretty compelling evidence that the charges are garbage, or there’s really egregious prosecutorial misconduct.
when the government puts a gun in the hands of someone under pressure and whispers in their ear “do it. Kill them. Pull the trigger” I’d say they’re innocent 100% of the time
If you manipulate someone into doing a violent crime, the person who did the manipulation is the criminal
I’ve never heard about this.
Can you provide a source?
Google dude. It was all over the news back when it was new news.
Google didn’t turn up anything conclusive.
Are you sure you’re not misremembering this or making it up? It should be pretty easy for you to provide a source if it’s true.
Was it? It wasn’t mentioned in the article and I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before.
“Ulbricht was found guilty of charges including conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking.”
Fuck it. I’m gonna rob a bank, give Trump half, and get pardoned.
Don’t be fooled - Trump cut a deal with the Libertarian Party promising he would do this if he won the election. It seems that yet again, he can conceive of no morality greater than transactionalism.
Fooled by what?
Well now I’m wondering who this could fool and how…
How does that fool people? It sounds like you’re scared that some people may consider his pardon to be semi-good & it bothers you that he might be capable of some good too?
They can’t think like that. Trump has to be hated so he can only do bad things.
But he won the election, why does he have to keep his word to the libertarian party? What are they gonna do if he doesn’t follow through?
Compromising with voters? What a violation of politician ethics. Democrats would never to that
Democrats: My way or the highway! Fall in line and support what we tell you to. This is how you’re supposed to feel about these issues.
Trump: Lets make a deal. You vote for me and I’ll do XYZ for you.
Now, no one can say anymore that Trump has never done anything positive.
Have any other good pardons come through?
Leonard Peltier is free
Yes, I was also very happily surprised to hear that. There’s just so much more coverage about all the cynical pardons. I’m hoping there were more truly deserving pardons than just these two. I know Biden did something for non-violent drug offenders, but I think I heard that a bunch of those people were already out.
Probably one of the best pardons to come out of Biden, TBH.
So what you’re saying is, Trump loves child exploitation and drug trafficking.
now normally a german surname running a dark web website would be a massive red flag, but do the Ulbricht’s get a pass because of Walter?
Legend. Huge congrats to Ross and his family for this outcome. Here’s to many more DNMs coming up in the future!
Amazing outcome
I have to say… even with the Elon influence, I didn’t see that one coming. Ulbricht stole capital from the rich and enabled stuff including human trafficking considered evil by the religious right. But I guess he also stuck it to The Man, for which he is being rewarded.
Human trafficking was not allowed. Not even CCs were allowed. Silk road didn’t let you sell anything that harmed others.
Also, how did Ulbricht steal from the rich?!?
He’s also partially responsible for why cryptocurrency has any worth at all.
Human trafficking is considered evil by everyone unless your a pedo or psychopath
now we know why he was pardoned
Human trafficking? Stealing from the rich?
He pioneered an online marketplace for drugs and also tried to have people assassinated (allegedly)
