Ross Ulbricht Faces New Drug Charges

Alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht now faces additional drug-related charges. Ars Technica gives a run-down on the run-down, and shows an array of driver's licenses that can't look good to a jury: According to a 17-page amended indictment filed late Thursday night, the government introduced one count of “narcotics trafficking,” of “distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet,” and of "conspiracy to traffic in fraudulent identification documents." Previously, Ulbricht was indicted in February 2014 on four formal criminal offenses: narcotics trafficking conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. Ulbricht pleaded not guilty to the previous charges, and he seems likely to plead not guilty to the new ones as well.

Define torture

[AK Marc]

Torture is violence or the threat of violence to extract a result. Prison is violent, so threats of prison are threats of violence.

Adding on more charges is to play the game of "we'll get you on something, so if you don't confess to this small list, we'll send you away to prison for a long time." That's threats of violence to get a result. So this is all a game of legal torture.

Cause harm and threaten harm until you get a confession, regardless of the guilt of the people involved. That's the American Way.

Re:Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

Of facilitating voluntary transactions between consenting adults.

Consent cannot be given if one of the parties is mentally impaired and under duress due to the well-documented effects of drug addiction. It would be one thing if Silk Road had been only a marketplace for non-addictive substances like cannabis or hallucinogens, but in fact trade in heroin, cocaine and addictive painkillers was a major part of the site.

That said, I think that a government policy of offering drug users medical treatment would be better than the current policy of criminal prohibition, but let's not pretend that Silk Road was all sunshine and rainbows among people of sound mind and body.

Re:TOR

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not going to look good if you funnel your money through multiple companies to hide the real source.

Oh, you mean not unlike American companies who funnel their money through offshore arms of the org to avoid paying taxes on it?

Yeah, somehow magically that bullshit isn't called tax evasion.

The double-standard just bruised your face you fell down so hard. Sorry 'bout that.

Re:Guilty

[digsbo]

Last I heard, all our surviving presidents and most of Congress are walking around free, dude...

Re:Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

That differs from the liquor store how?

Only a small percentage of people who habitually consume alcohol become physiologically addicted to alcohol. With heroin and cocaine, the overwhelming majority of people who habitually consume these substances develop addiction. All of this is well documented. Just because one harmful substance remains legal and culturally popular does not make much of a case for condoning trade in substances shown to be vastly more harmful.