The only thing missing in the Ross Ulbricht story is Compassion
These days, the Silk Road story has been reignited in the podcast scene as former FBI agent Chris Tarbell has been doing the rounds to promote his new cybersecurity firm.
As an FBI agent, Tarbell was involved in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht for creating the Silk Road website, more than a decade ago.
The unprecedented harshness in Ross’ sentence has been widely controversial for years and a tainted moment in Bitcoin history.
It is also the reason there is a #FreeRoss movement with more than half a million signatures on his petition, and an impact DAO trying to raise awareness on why this man, who has already spent 10 years in prison, deserves to get out of federal prison and rejoin society.
Who was Ross Ulbricht?
Ross Ulbricht was a 26-year-old libertarian who created a free market experiment on Bitcoin in 2011 and has ended up serving a double life sentence without parole, plus forty years… So essentially a decades-long slow death stuck between the walls of a high security federal penitentiary.
Ross was an idealist. He thought everyone should be free to do as they pleased as long as they didn’t harm anyone.
He thought if people wanted to get weed, they should be able to get it as easily as if they bought anything else on amazon. (Who would’ve thought 10 years in the future, this would be normalized in most places where marijuana is legalized).
When creating the Silk Road, Ross wanted to create a platform that enabled free individuals to transact privately, but also guaranteeing a good user experience. Making sure sellers had to uphold a reputation through karma points and trying to promote a civil and safe marketplace.
There was no judgment over what people chose to sell or buy; and for that reason Ross also understood that no payment processor would ever be a part of something like it.
Bitcoin became the perfect enabler.
And with it, the Silk Road became the first free market online that used bitcoin as a currency and put user privacy at its core (through TOR). And as such, it became a magnet for anyone in the world wanting to take advantage of an anonymous marketplace.
Dread Pirate Roberts and the prosecution of the Silk Road
During the 2 years the Silk Road operated, it is uncertain how many admins operated the site under the infamous username Dread Pirate Roberts (aka DPR).
The government has always declared that Ross Ulbricht was the only DPR. However, it was reported that while Ross Ulbricht was in jail, somebody accessed the Silk Road servers with the DPR login.
Besides that, after the trial and the harsh sentencing that locked Ross up forever, it was also revealed that corrupt undercover agents had gained access to the admin logins during their investigation, and that they had stolen bitcoin from the site and could’ve easily manipulated evidence.
It was also made public that evidence that could have resulted in reasonable doubt was prevented from being used by Ross Ulbricht’s defense team.
And while this was happening, a full blown smear campaign had started in the media that painted Ross as a ruthless violent drug kingpin, before any actual jury had even judged him or seen any evidence of the wild accusations that proved to be non-existent at the trial.
Does Ross Ulbricht deserve a Double LIFE SENTENCE without parole?
When asked about his charges on the podcast interviews, Tarbell (a former FBI agent one would assume works in the land of fact and evidence) was unable to name the charges that were brought against Ross. However, he easily babbled outrageous mentions of the murder-for-hire allegations and sales of baby parts which were never actually part of the trial, or even charged at all.
If you’ve never heard about Ross, the fact that he has been sentenced to DOUBLE-LIFE (WITH NO PAROLE) must have you wondering what kind of horrible crimes landed him this life-long sentence.
Especially since no-one was murdered and no children were victims of any actions Ross partook in. In fact, Ross “was never prosecuted for causing harm or bodily injury and no victim was named at trial”.
He was charged with:
- Aiding and abetting/distribution of narcotics by means of the internet (because others used the Silk Road to buy and sell drugs to be delivered via postal service to the customer’s home)
- Continuing criminal enterprise (because the Silk Road was a hierarchical structure that hired workers; considering the system admins and technical support were “aiding criminals” via the website)
- Computer hacking conspiracy (because people sold hacking tools on the Silk Road)
- Fraudulent ID trafficking conspiracy (because people sold fake IDs through the Silk Road)
- Money Laundering Conspiracy (bitcoin back then was mostly seen as a money laundering scheme and some users may have used the Silk Road platform to cash out of their bitcoin and launder money)
And for the sum of these charges (in which the crimes were mostly executed by other people and for the benefit of other people) Ross will spend the rest of his life in prison. Well, technically, double his life, and forty more years…
(El Chapo, the infamous deadly druglord proven to have caused torture and murder got a lesser sentence).
The accusation that made the most impact in his sentence was the fact that he was considered a “Drug Kingpin” in charge of a Criminal Enterprise, and was treated with the same harshness as the leaders of any violent drug cartel.
But the Silk Road was not a violent market, and it wasn’t enforced by street violence and murders which are usually the reasons Kingpins are considered to be a threat to society.
Actually, to many, the Silk Road was a pioneer in harm reduction practices and allowed for drugs (and other goods) to be bought and sold from the safety of the users’ home without hurdles. It operated under the assumption that people who wanted drugs would always end up finding a seller for those drugs, but through the Silk Road the process became safer, accountable and good behavior from all parties was incentivized. “Silk Road was a far better way for people to buy and sell drugs than on the streets”.
Through the creation of the Silk Road, Ulbricht imagined a very different relationship to drugs and to market freedom. But by creating the website he also bypassed very important power pillars in the U.S. and, because of it, many believe he was perceived as a threat to upend the System.
The creation of the Silk Road was most certainly a political statement: the political statement of a 26-year-old libertarian idealist who thought he could empower the world to have free private access to buy drugs with magic internet money.
Ross has been paying the price for it by spending the last 10 years locked up in a federal penitentiary, separated from his family and loved ones, and trying to hang on to a tiny sliver of hope that people will not forget him, that people will care; that maybe his punishment doesn’t have be the one he’s been sentenced to: keeping him in a cell until he dies.
The 10 Year Perspective
In 2013, the same year that Ross was arrested for the Silk Road, Edward Snowden was fleeing the United States to reveal to the world that the NSA (with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and the aid of governments worldwide) was running several global surveillance programs on individual citizens (and was tracking down Bitcoin users).
Snowden was called a traitor, a terrorist, a dissident, a coward… he was also called a heroic whistleblower whose disclosures brought to the forefront of our society fueled debates over mass surveillance and citizens’ right to privacy.
Ten years ago people weren’t aware of how surveillance capitalism was stripping them of their privacy.
Ten years ago, bitcoin wasn’t on the balance sheet of publicly traded companies.
Ten years ago, most people who wanted to buy weed couldn’t do it from the comfort of their homes with an app from their preferred dispensary.
Privacy, Bitcoin and marijuana no longer carry the stigma it carried back then. The world today is very different from the world that went after Ross Ulbricht and made an example out of him.
As the world changes, we want our institutions to be agile and to be able to update themselves with the times; however speed has never been the public institutions’ forte.
This year, as marijuana is legalized in most American states, dispensaries make profits for stores in every corner; at the same time, millions of people are still locked up for having bypassed the “prohibition era” and supplied customers with the drugs they had the free will to consume.
The #WarOnDrugs has proven to be better at massively incarcerating minorities than actually offering preventive education or treatment for addicts. But worse of all, it has clearly taken the road of punishment instead of the road of compassion. Is that really the world we want to enforce into being?
Don’t we want to live in a society where everyone gets a chance at becoming better versions of themselves?
We deserve a society where we all get a chance to make amends for our past. A society that identifies that it is lagging behind, and chooses to take big actions to course-correct.
As the Second Look Act promoted by the Sentencing Project supports, many believe 10 years gives a lot of perspective, and that everyone should get a chance at having society look back on them and their crimes, and evaluate the opportunity to give them a Second Chance.
Like Ross, many nonviolent offenders are serving disproportionate lengths of time in prison, living in inhumane conditions, because of the person they used to be. Regardless of the efforts they put into being better people or the steps they take to improve society.
Who is Ross Now?
There are many ways for you to get a glimpse at who Ross is today; the best place for you to start is by visiting freeross.org/meet-ross, following him on twitter at @RealRossU or going to his Medium page.
Even from behind bars, his actions show that Ross has had exemplary conduct in prison and that he is a generous person motivated to help others and to contribute positively to society.
He has been mentoring many of his fellow prisoners to help them earn GEDs and get into college. He leads meditation groups and supports those struggling the most inside by being a suicide watch companion.
He is proving to be a compassionate human being, even living in the harshest of realities.
Shouldn’t that mean something to us?
When people do their best to make amends, shouldn’t it open the door to forgiveness?
The case for Ross Ulbricht to be Pardoned
As one of the many people deeply invested in the #FreeRoss movement, I invite those listening to Anthony Pompliano and Lex Fridman’s interviews to look at this case beyond the hollywood-esque exhibitions of police prowess Tarbell focuses on.
It may be entertaining to some to listen to the former FBI agent spend most of the conversation portraying himself as this cybersecurity supercop, shilling his new Cybersecurity company, omitting the proven corruption at the heart of the Silk Road case and gratuitously throwing out there mentions of child pornography THAT WERE NEVER PART OF THE SILK ROAD… But, when asked about the bigger questions, he hides under the cloak of “it’s not my job to have an opinion”.
Well, society’s job is to have an opinion on the matters that seem unjust to so many. To have conversations about it. To seek change. And the arrival of these interviews is a great opportunity to raise some of the unanswered questions that still cloud the case, to talk about the charges brought against him and argue against the value of such disproportionate sentencing.
Does society really benefit from this? From having a non-violent first time offender locked up until the end of his days?
Is this world really a safer place by putting people up in cages and stripping them away from their families and loved ones…?
Shouldn’t we hope for a world that doesn’t simply lock people up and forget about them?
Shouldn’t we want non-violent criminals to get an opportunity at rejoining and contributing to society?
At this point, 10 years down the line since Ross is in prison, we need to ask:
When has it become OK for someone to be locked up in their 20s for non-violent crimes without the opportunity to get out until they die, no matter how much effort they put into making amends?
Shouldn’t he get a Second Chance?
Shouldn’t he get Compassion?
Support the #FreeRoss movement in their campaign for Clemency:
- Sign the petition.
- Donate to freeross.org, the platform run by his mother Lyn and his family working relentlessly to free Ross.
- Tweet #FreeRoss, let’s show the world WE CARE, specially on #FreeRossFriday.
- Join the IMPACT DAO supporting Ross’ Clemency and put your talents to use for the cause.
- Help the #FreeRoss movement reach the White House so that they enact policy change that could lead to Ross’s pardon, as well as benefit the many people still trapped by laggy institutions.
Join the #DPRHumanBlockchain, help us #FreeRoss.
