Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ross Ulbricht's Lawyer Says FBI's Hack of Silk Road Was "Criminal"

Posted by samzenpus on from the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do dept.

First time accepted submitter apexcp writes Trading blows with the prosecution, defendants for accused Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht continues to press for the exclusion of evidence seized during what he says is an illegal hack an awful lot like the one that got Weev 15 months in prison. "The government posits two standards of behavior: one for private citizens, who must adhere to a strict standard of conduct construed by the government, and the other for the government, which, with its elastic ability to effect electronic intrusion, can deliberately, cavalierly, and unrepentantly transgress those same standards. Yet neither law nor the Constitution permits rank government lawlessness without consequences."

4 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis by Tokolosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution."

    "Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
  2. Go Ross, Go! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Silk Road Kingpin or not, I'm rooting for Ross here. The fact of the matter is that the Government has made a habit out of adopting these types of double standards and ignoring the civil rights that are guaranteed to us as citizens of the United States. If Ross' legal team can bring the government down a notch or two, I'll be forever grateful to them.

    1. Re:Go Ross, Go! by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you don't need to be in an altered state of mind to see that the war on drugs has failed misrably, and that the biggest problem with drugs are not the drugs themselves but the problems that arise around manufacture, distribution, and the type of people that manufacture and distribute them, as well as the people who enforce the laws.

      There is nothing so bad about any drug to include heroin(which I think is downright terrible), that is in the same leauge as the abusive authority of the DEA, which has for the past 30 years, ignored any and all constitutional safeguards and protections, to include due proccesss(civil fortieture), and habeus corpus(parallel construction), to virtually fail at its goal of keeping drugs off the streets. Giving up our rights did not do anything for us.

      You don't have to be high to see that. You need some common fucking sense.

    2. Re:Go Ross, Go! by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >We'd eliminate overnight the drug gangs

      No, its going to be a long slow proccess eliminating gangs. Cutting off their *easy* source of income is the first step. The next is breaking them up before they find something else as lucrative, because they will try something else.