[AusNOG] Ross Ulbricht (founder Silk Road) gets life without parole

[Peter Fern]

On 05/31/2015 13:50, Brayden Hull wrote:
>
> It wasn’t included in this list of charges however it will be the
> subject of another case later this year in Maryland. Even if Ross got
> the minimum, 20 years, they would be stacking on a lot more years
> thanks to the Maryland trial, if they choose to not have him serve
> them concurrently.
>

Right, so the original assertion that this is a hell of a sentence for
non-violent crimes stands.

> So basically Ross was screwed either way. Personally I reckon he
> deserved it though, if you read the prosecution’s sentencing
> submission to it helps put into perspective the real human cost.
>
> http://i.brayden.id.au/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.256.0.pdf (archive.org
> has updated their site or something and the old links are dead
> already, so I’ve rehosted it)
>

I don't think this is really the best forum for this sort of discussion,
however I don't believe you can tally the results of the choices made by
of users of the service as being directly attributable to the operator
of the service.  But that likely stems from my belief that people should
be allowed to choose what they put in their bodies; that the 'War on
Drugs' is one of the largest perversions of justice in recent history,
causes significant harm by making the trade impossible to regulate and
promoting criminal activity, and has had negative effects on cultures
around the world, without producing any significant increase in public
safety (in fact, a strong case can be made that the opposite is true).

I'm not suggesting that Ulbricht was a good guy, nor that something like
Silk Road is an optimal way of dealing with the problem (that would be
IMO legalization and regulation), but it does appear (not having any
experience with it myself) to have been a significant improvement for
users who would have made the choice to purchase these substances
anyway, but would otherwise have done so on the street, with no way to
gauge the reliability of the seller, or whether what they were paying
for was actually what they were likely to receive, rather than some
other collection of random chemicals.
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