To get technical, why is it, Ross Ulbricht is being held more responsible as the creator of the free market, than for example, Steven Sadler, an individual who was actually disturbing and selling illegal drugs(Steven's sentence was 5 years)?
Yes, Ross created (which he has admitted and doesn't deny) Silk Road. However, Ross didn't buy, sell, or directly help disturb drugs, guns, or anything else that may have been considered illegal. So why was he held responsible(more responsible in some cases) for what others did?
In 2015(if I'm not mistaken it was 2015), it was discovered that vendors on eBay had been selling scheduled I(and II) meth-precursors (along with other things such as guns and fraud equipment). Was Pierre Omidyar(founder and current board member of eBay) held responsible and given 2 life sentences? Of course not, because why should he (or anyone who creates a marketplace like Ross) be held responsible for the illegal actions of others?
This whole case is a mess, the excessive sentence(not to mention he was held without bail in 2013) alone is a violation of the 8th Amendment.
Talk about injustice, this is absolutely disgusting.
That is how you sort the oligarchy from the rest. People sell drugs on ebay? No problem for ebay. Silk Road? Ah they get the site operator. Hey every RIAA muic video is on youtube? Hm... they dont hold youtube responsible. No. Now the same thing happens on megaupload. Ah so they go after the sys op.
BTW, Sadler was the biggest cocaine and heroin seller on Silk Road and yes, got 5 years. Not to mention that Blake Benthall, who admitted to running Silk Road 2.0 (which sold 4x as many drugs per month as Silk Road) was released in 2014 and is a free man. I believe it is because Ross is a political prisoner. The judge said as much at sentencing when she said it was clear he created the site based on a philosophy and she wasn't sure he had given that philosophy up. I think an alternative currency (bitcoin) and privacy (tor) were the real concern. The prosecutors said Ross was the first to "use the internet in this way" and must be punished for that. I think the other Silk Road sentences demonstrate that it was not about drugs. And your points about unequal treatment under the law are exactly right. I have many more examples.
Ross has no Obi-Wan Kenobi, we are his ONLY HOPE.
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