Secret Service Agent Pleads Guilty In Bitcoin Theft 82
An anonymous reader writes: A former Secret Service agent has pleaded guilty to charges related to the theft of $800,000 worth of bitcoins during a high-profile investigation into the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Reuters reports: "Shaun Bridges, 33, appeared in federal court in San Francisco and admitted to money laundering and obstruction of justice....In court on Monday, Bridges admitted his theft made Ulbricht believe that another individual was stealing from Silk Road and helped lead Ulbricht to try to hire someone to kill that person."
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to see justice working both ways, almost gives you faith in the process.
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To my knowledge he has not yet been tried for the attempted murder bit. And I don't know if they're going to bother, given he's already in jail for life.
So, your entire premise is false. Without the "attempted murder bullshit", the drug and money laundering charges were solid enough to put him away.
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Not in the court of public perception. Without the attempted murder bullshit the silk road story remains one of consenting adults empowering other adults to make choices with regard to their own persons that no person including government persons has the moral authority to deny them.
In the court of normal public perception making money by breaking the law means you're a criminal and deserving of punishment, regardless of whether you did it via the internet or not.
If drug laws are wrong, change the drug laws.
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Anything that serves as a vehicle to enable the masses to bypass our wealthy elite controlled government and police state is a good thing.
"If drug laws are wrong, change the drug laws."
Right, let me just dial up my lobbying group and have a rider put in to the latest save the puppies bill that is primarily targeted at shortening the length of time pou
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Well, we'll just have to wait and see about that. - "Sentencing for Bridges was scheduled for December."
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While article 1, section 6, clause 1 of the Constitution provides some immunity for officials, it's pretty specific. It protects Congress, so it wouldn't apply to the Secret Service. It doesn't protect against being charged with a felony, treason, or "breach of the peace," the last of which is pretty vague. Basically, it subjects Congress to being charged with certain misdemeanors. It protects members of Congress while they're on duty or on their way to or from sessions of Congress. The purpose was to prote
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Actually, any government employee can get that protection since under the Westfall act, with the certification of the AG, they can say the employee acted as part of his duty and substitute the government itself as a defendant.
Course, that isn't so likely in a criminal case since it would basically be the same people filing the charges as excusing him.
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no.
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Well, even if it were, that doesn't make it forbidden, either.
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Nope.
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No. It wouldn't even have been entrapment if the the agent had gone to Ulbricht "you should kill the guy who's been stealing Bitcoins" and Ulbricht could simply have said "no". It would be entrapment if the agent corrupted Ulbricht into doing so.
The Illustrated Guide to Law - Entrapment [lawcomic.net]
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Entrapment of whom? The person who wasn't charged with attempted murder? That's the only entrapment I can imagine and there was no charge.
A govt employee charged with a crime? Shock!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A govt employee charged with a crime? Shock!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
> He's a government employee, a
_Former_ government employee. The courts don't provide anywhere near as much lenience for former employees as for active employees of law enforcement agencies.
And if you are convinced that the US government and its courts will not turn a blind eye to criminal acts by federal employees, please review the revelations about NSA criminal and unconstitutional activities published by Edward Snowden for a recent striking example. www.wikileaks.com is filled with criminal activity by many governments: the USA is not immune. Turning a blind eye to colleague abuses is a common problem.
Re:A govt employee charged with a crime? Shock!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just federal employees. We see local cops getting away with murder a couple of times a week it seems.
Re:A govt employee charged with a crime? Shock!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a big country: there are a _lot_ of local police doing good work, and it's hard, usually dull, sometimes quite dangerous work. The local officers with their boots on the ground doing the real day-to-day work are worth their weight in BitCoins.
But yes, corruption and brutal enforcement with the public as "the enemy" are terrible, easy habits to fall into for individuals and for whole departments. Some corruption is inherent in _having_ a culture large enough to require law enforcement. It's why it's so important that police, prosecution, courts, and lawmakers are kept at odds, so they can and do limit each other's power.
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It's a big country: there are a _lot_ of federal employees doing good work, and it's hard, usually dull, sometimes quite dangerous work.
My point is that the local cop on the street is every bit as much a government bureaucrat as some FDA regulator in Washington. A government agent is a government agent, and the "small government/law & order" types seldom are willing to admi
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there are a _lot_ of local police doing good work
Until that work includes investigating and arresting their corrupt co-workers, I'll consider them part of the problem and not a part of the solution. A cop that doesn't enforce the laws broken by other cops is an accomplice, not a "good cop"
sometimes quite dangerous work.
More like "mostly NOT quite dangerous". LEO doesn't even make the top 10 in most deadly professions. That is reserved for jobs like logging, fisherman, construction trades, mining, etc. Last year there were 117 fatalities out of 900K+ sworn LEOs in the US. Of those, 49
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Courts (especially where the judges are elected) and lawmakers have to be perceived as being "tough on crime", else the right-wing law-and-order types will have a fit.
I think you're referring to the reality where soccer moms have conniption fits if a criminal who should have been in jail rapes and murders their daughter. They don't want to hear about statistics or about how rare it is when it's their daughter and neither would I and neither would you.
/. at least, points out how insanely unlikely it is to be caught up in a school shooting, or about how few people are actually killed, or about how it could ha
Oh, and there's also the infamous school shootings. Nobody, on
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> More like "mostly NOT quite dangerous". LEO doesn't even make the top 10 in most deadly professions.
I'm afraid I've had this discussion before, on Slashdot. Please note that I did not say "deadly". I said "dangerous". And not being on the top 10 most fatal list does not mean a profession is safe, anymore than not being on the New York Times bestseller list means a novel is bad. Fatalities among police are continuing to drop, in the last few decades, partly due to better training, better equipment for
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I said "dangerous"
Fair enough. The only point that I'm trying to make is that the job is less dangerous than a lot of LEO try to make it sound. I also understand that some area of patrol are more dangerous than others. Back to what I was really trying to reply to, whatever danger is inherent in the job, it does not justify the blue wall of silence and the inability of "good" officers to police the bad ones. The watchers seem to be unwilling and unable to watch over themselves, are resistant to someone else watching over
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Re:A govt employee charged with a crime? Shock!!! (Score:5, Informative)
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It's the most heinous of crimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:A govt employee charged with a crime? Shock!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
That Shaun Bridges was even charged at all is amazing. He's a government employee, and in most of the world it's very rare for government employees to be charged with a crimes because fellow government employees refuse to prosecute them. Thank your lucky stars, America, you are not like Australia where the press reports alleged corruption, the police ignore it, and it piles up and up and up: https://archive.is/KUTAy#cases [archive.is]
Nah, it's pretty much the same in America.
The difference in this case is the nature of the crime and the victim chosen. No, not Ulbricht. The victim was the federal government, because they were going to seize that money anyway. You steal from the government, or attack the government in any way, they're going to drop the hammer on you. If your victim is an individual, well, it depends in large part on the socioeconomic status of that individual. A government employee can get prosecuted for killing a poor black man, for example, but it's rare. If you're a government agency and your victim is the entire nation, you're almost certainly going to get away with it. At most you'll be told to stop, but no one will be going to jail... well, except the guy who ratted the agency out. There's a good chance he'll go to jail, if he can be caught.
Basic lesson in life (Score:1, Funny)
Basic lesson in life: Don't steal. The government hates competition.
How can you "steal" a bitcoiin? (Score:1)
Its just a load of data. Illegal copying sure, but stealing?
Re:How can you "steal" a bitcoiin? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Since patent and copyright violations, and even theft of trade secrets can be prosecuted as theft, yes, it could certainly be considered theft. Whether Bitcoins are considered currency or not, they're considered valuable trade goods by the owners of the Bitcoins, and they have a pretty clear market value. The extortion and obstruction of justice engaged in by this agent hopefully make it even easier to prosecute.
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Someone says "I'ts terrible the way that Muslims keep sex slaves and kill non believers". Someone else says .... "ah but Christians in the time of the crusades did the same, so you can't say its terrible or you are a hypocritical islamaphobe".
If you're a christian condemning another entire religion for terroristic acts of a fractional percentage of its followers in the name of their faith, that doesn't necessarily make you an islamaphobe, but it does make you a hypocrite. And it's not just "in the time of the crusades", there's been plenty of christian themed atrocities in modern times as well...
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Does the "attempted murder" thing become just a case of entrapment? We have this admission here and the knowledge that the guy who planted the idea in Ulbricht's head and helped coax him down that road was a DEA agent.
In general, police should not allowed to do evil that good may come of it. One of the things that bothers me about these cases is that when the police merely create the appearance of evil, they're still coarsening society. When people think evil abounds, it increases their own temptations. That applies from here, to the knowledge that there are tons of cops online posing as underage girls to try to capture would-be lawbreakers there as well. Merely posing as an enabler of crime creates some serious moral hazards.
If the USSS agent had taken the bitcoins under orders or as part of the investigation then it could be a case of entrapment. But since he stole the bitcoins for personal use (or not in an official, sanctioned capacity) it's plain simple theft.
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it's plain simple theft.
And murder committed in the comission of another crime is treated as aggravated murder. Even if you didn't pull the trigger but only drove the getaway car, if the bank guard got killed, you can be found guilty.
The theft is the aggravating offense. Bridges caused someone to attempt murder. So he should be charged with aggravated attempted murder.
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"When people think evil abounds, it increases their own temptations."
'Evil' does abound but part of being human is to be able to control one's own animal urges regardless of temptation.
"That applies from here, to the knowledge that there are tons of cops online posing as underage girls to try to capture would-be lawbreakers there as well."
There are probably 'tons' more real underage girls on the net than there are cops posing as underage girls so the police are not 'creating the appearance of evil'.
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Why do people think that any time law enforcement is within shouting distance it is entrapment?
What would a normal person do if someone stole $800,000 from them? Call the cops. What did DPR do? Solicit a hitman. That's not entrapment, that is a criminal that is already disposed to paying to have people killed..
Bought to you by... (Score:3)
Gangs..
Attempted murder
death
lives ruined
crappy black market substitutes
corruption
graft
and a smug sense of superiority...
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Replace "The war on drugs" with "prohibition".
Won't we ever learn?
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Yes, and one of those things is the governmentalization of words. Before newspeak, we called that "slavery", and when slavery was illegal, we didn't need to check at the border for it. It was just plain illegal and those witnessing it did something about it.
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Yes, things that hurt another person. Smoking pot or doing a line aren't similar to slavery/human trafficking. Conflating them is profoundly incorrect.
You don't think that anyone's hurt by heroin or crystal meth addiction?
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Maybe we should stop declaring war on things, instead of countries. You know, especially since it NEVER WORKS.
I'm not suggesting ignoring the problems, but throwing money at it and addressing the problem with jack-booted Nazi thuggery is not the answer, that's for certain.
How was he caught? (Score:2)
Anybody with the inside scoop on exactly how he was caught, given that bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?
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The wallets can be anonymous. But it's a simple matter to trace Bitcoin through a series of wallets. Once the real owner of one of these is identified, one can trace certain transactions back the other way.
For Bitcoin to be of any use, eventually it will be spent on actual goods. And these can be traced. Very few people have the discipline to maintain multiple completely separate lives.
You are missing something... (Score:1)
WoD breeds corruption. (Score:2)
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Creating laws against possession and distribution of anything corrupts the entire legal system
Chemical weapons? Land mines? Nuclear bombs?
Wait a minute (Score:2)
If I read this right, it appears that his theft was the impetus for Ulbricht trying to hire a hit to kill someone.
I'm not sure if there's some follow-on charge that could be applied there, but it almost seems like there should be because if Bridges hadn't stolen the bitcoin, Ulbricht wouldn't have wanted to kill someone for the theft.
Sweet entrapment stimulus program (Score:2)
Well here is the way out of the economic doldrums. The government just needs to hire a fake terrorist, a fake sex worker and a fake drug dealer to stand outside your door every morning. They spam you with various goodies and opportunities. If you turn them down, you don't get a tax credit but you don't go to jail either. If you do take them up on it, everyone involved gets "statistical accomplishments" and it keeps the lawyers busy!
Synthetic decision tree spam (i.e. entrapment, stings) are pernicious and li