Silk Road 2.0 Deputy Arrested

An anonymous reader writes With the Ulbricht trial ongoing in a case over the original Silk Road, Homeland Security agents have made another arrest in the Silk Road 2.0 case more than two and a half months after the site was shut down. This time they arrested Brian Richard Farrell who went by the moniker "DoctorClu." From the article: "Homeland Security agents tracked Silk Road 2.0 activity to Farrell's Bellevue home in July, according to an affidavit by Special Agent Michael Larson. In the months that followed, agents watched his activities and interviewed a roommate who said Farrell received UPS, FedEx and postal packages daily. One package was found to contain 107 Xanax pills, Larson said. That led to a search on Jan. 2 that recovered computers, drug paraphernalia, silver bullion bars worth $3,900, and $35,000 in cash, Larson said."

Comments

Odd link substitution

[MrBingoBoingo]

The original submission to /. linked to http://qntra.net/2015/01/another-big-silk-road-2-0-arrest-full-complaint/ which actually included the complaint text. I don't see how a local San Antonio news outlet is even the slightest bit local to a Washinton State man being arrested in... Washinton State.

Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[troll -1]

One day the world will be liberated and people will be free to trade. Right now we live in a Kafkaesque dystopia.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[ShanghaiBill]

One day the world will be liberated and people will be free to trade. Right now we live in a Kafkaesque dystopia.

Speaking of Kafka, what does "recovered" mean in this sentence: "That led to a search on Jan. 2 that recovered computers, drug paraphernalia, silver bullion bars worth $3,900, and $35,000 in cash, Larson said."

I always thought the "recover" was the antonym of "steal", but they are using it as a synonym.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe a single computer is still legal. Multiple computers is clearly more than a typical citizen needs and therefore suggests intent to traffic.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[circletimessquare]

we do live in a world where we are liberated and free to trade

except for items which are deemed illegal for a given reason

some of those reasons are stupid. so we change the laws. for example: marijuana is becoming legal. isn't that amazing? the population actually has a voice and can vote and change their laws. hmmm... that's not very dystopian nor kafkaesque

heroin and meth and kiddie porn and RPGs never will be legal. go ahead, put it to vote. i think marijuana should be legal. most agree with me. i don't think i want my neighbor getting grenades in the mail. most will agree with me

maybe you're a horrible repressed minority denied your god given freedom to hand grenades in the mail?

or maybe you're a hysterical drama queen who thinks all of society is hell just because you can't get hand grenades in the mail?

"think of the children" is often used as a show of how hysterical people can be panicked into giving up freedoms. well, it is equally braindead hysterical to think you're entire reality is a hellish dystopian fasicst authoritarian state of no freedoms... just because you can't get kiddie porn or meth in the mail?

i'm going to go way out on a limb here, see if you can bear with me for a moment, with a really radical mind blowing concept: we actually don't live in a fascist state. just because you can't get plutonium or bazookas in the mail, doesn't mean your country is basically the same as north korea. i know, really wacky far out concept dude. whoa

do you think society has no right to restrict material which causes harm?

it does

and it always will

forever

because some substances/ items actually cause harm and have no fucking reason to be in civil society

ever

the concept of freedom?

completely untouched by this simple truth

we, society, LIKE restrictions on, for example, kiddie porn. and we support our government, which we elect, to enforce those restrictions. and we always will. because we don't want children harmed and... most important point here... drum roll please... harming children infringes on their rights and freedoms. WHOA DUDE, FAR OUT

if some substance, like marijuana, should obviously not be restricted, because that's fucking stupid, we actually change the fucking laws. and we did. and we will on any other laws about restrictions which makes no fucking sense

this is where you get really mad at me and compare me to an authoritarian freedom crushing "statist" goon... just because i don't want people freely trading in kiddie porn or heroin. which would make you a brainless teenaged drama queen. let's hope you're not

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[blue trane]

What's the real problem with heroin? It's the warlike conditions under which it has to be obtained and used, because of the laws. Many heroin users can be productive and would not turn to crime if they could get it legally.

If someone OD's, and they had all the information they wanted about dosage, etc., then they wanted to die or didn't care, and you should have intervened before they OD'd instead of paying lip service to "human tragedies" etc.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Harlequin80]

You have forgotten the financial costs on society. If you have a society with any kind of social system, welfare, social healthcare or similar heroin cost society are large amount of money. It was why it was banned in the first place. Currently the US estimates that it spends $5 Billion on health care costs associated with heroin use. In addition it is estimated that heroin costs about $11 billion in lost productivity.

People ODing is also not a black and white situation. You take too big a dose and collapse, do we leave you to lie there till you die? Or do we take steps to save your life? Ambulances, doctors, nurses, treatment etc. Or lets say you have died. Then what? Do we leave your body there to rot, how do we deal with your assets? Your debts?

It may come as a surprise but when you live in a group your action effect the others in the group. That means your actions have a cost to the people around you. In some instances society as a whole decides the cost of an individual activity is too great for the group to accept and that activity is banned. If you as an individual do not like that you, as the individual, have to leave that group.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[blue trane]

In a democracy, I as an individual have an unalienable right to speak up and change the laws.

The financial costs are a result of the laws. We produce a vast oversupply, more than enough to take care of everyone. Heroin users can be productive and contribute to society. It is the laws that drive them underground and to crime that cause the drag.

Heroin use is a case of civil rights, not finance. We should not ask "how much does it cost?" but "is it the right thing to do, to legalize heroin?"

Finance is all about funding things today based on future returns. And as the private sector has proven again and again, when those future returns don't materialize, it is perfectly okay to create money (via the Fed) to bail out the financiers. Why can't we do the same for individuals?

Even Kenneth Rogoff agrees that it would have been better to bail out homeowners instead of banks:

Without question the best and most effective approach to the problem would have been to bail
out the subprime homeowners directly, forcing banks to take losses but keeping them manageable.
For an investment of perhaps a few hundred billion dollars, the US Treasury could have saved
itself from a financial crisis whose cumulative cost, counting lost output, already runs into many,
many trillions of dollars. Instead of "saving Wall Street," a subprime bailout would have been
targeted, almost by definition, at lower-income households. But unfortunately, this approach too
would have been politically impossible prior to the crisis.

The question is why politics makes impossible the obviously "best and most effective approach". I think we see something similar with drug prohibition. It becomes a political thing and reason goes out the window.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[blue trane]

Heroin was the best medicine I ever had. It calmed me down, made me able to function without the constant "white noise" that makes me so anxious around people. The biggest problem with heroin was its illegality.

How much music has been produced on heroin? Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, etc. Obviously you can execute lots of intricate muscle movements to control the sound produced by your instrument, while high. Listen to Charlie Parker Live at Carnegie Hall; it's documented that he shot up right before the concert. Can you hear it in his playing? Can you hear his creativity and energy?

While recording "Kind of Blue" the story goes that all the musicians would be off shooting up before takes. And Kind of Blue sold, and still sells.

In conclusion, heroin is a tool, a technology, a medicine. Give everyone access to all the knowledge we have and let each person decide for themselves. Also, do research to eliminate unwanted side effects, to produce better drugs. And just let ppl choose for themselves.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Mullen]

All of the financial costs related to heroin use comes from enforcement and criminalization of heroin, hardly any of the damage comes from use of heroin.

All crime related to heroin addiction comes from the cost of getting heroin. If it was legal or could be purchased if the buyer could be proven to be an addict, then the cost would be lower and the addict would not need to steal. All of the violence from addiction comes from the ability to not get heroin legally.

OD'ing comes from heroin purity not being controlled. If all legally sold heroin was the same purity, then addicts would OD a lot less.

AID's and the spreading of disease of heroin users comes from sharing needles and lack of access to medicine. If heroin was legal or medically dispensed, then addicts could also have access to clean needles.

Addicts are forced to operate in the shadows and out of the eye of government and medical professionals. If you made heroin legal or medically accessible, then addicts could start working on getting clean or at least not getting worse.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[circletimessquare]

Firstly, it's not magical... Will power or not, some get addicted, most do not.

see i stopped reading there. you're right, it's not magic, it's the basic science of pharmacology

what you said is akin to saying gravity makes some people fall down, but not most. or only a few take an effective dose of potassium chloride and die, the rest live. or many can take an effective dose of lsd and feel no effects

it doesn't work that way

we're not talking about sensation, mood, feeling. we're talking about biology, chemistry, science. there is no escape or bending the power heroin has over your basic circuits of biological need. on heroin, you can forego human contact, sex... food. everything. heroin roots deeper than all of the basic biological drives. and your body, having identified something that answers it's drives far stronger than your normal drives, seeks that, turns to that, a force stronger than anything your mind can hold against it (and then your mind, capable of rationalizing anything, regurgitates crap like you just wrote)

the chemistry of opiates interferes with basic biochemical pathways in the brain far deeper and stronger than any conscious control

everyone, absolutely *everyone* gets addicted to heroin, it's just a matter of time. it's simple chemistry

you should stop talking about a subject you don't understand, or stop with your paper thin bullshit junkie rationalizations

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Procrasti]

you would understand they hijack basic reward pathways in the brain stronger than any want, desire, or need we could ever have: social contact, sex, even food

I stopped reading there... drug addicts I know still seem to eat.

And what is your obsession with sex anyway? Like anyone who doesn't want social contact or sex may as well not be living their life?

The rest is irrelevant. You're placing your utility function into the heads of others... You suggest people should be into art, philosophy or science? This might surprise you, but many people have no interest in these things.

What matters is people's utility... What makes them happy... not what makes you happy. This is a fundamental theorem of economics, that everyone has a different utility function, and we should allow people to maximise their own utility, as long as it does not diminish other people's utility.

You're argument is a direct contradiction to this philosophy. You want other people to be made happy by the things that make you happy... but humans do not operate like this, they operate on their utility functions.

And again, Rat Park completely destroys your biological overriding chemical imprisonment theories of addiction. Where there are better options than heroin available, then the rats will freely choose those options, even when we previously had them addicted to heroin. There is no reason to suggest this isn't also the case with humans as the economic agents instead of rats.

Again, the fact that you are willing to impose your utility on others, through force, means you are going directly against modern economic theory. You are the negative externality, you are decreasing other people's happiness.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[rtb61]

No plea bargain, we want the trial every single time. Don't care how much it costs, we want the evidence submitted for public review, we want investigatory procedure to be shown as valid, we want the accused to have their day in court, we want a fair trial where the government proves it's case. Not once but every single time because that is justice being seen to be observed. We do not want justice based upon extortion, we do not want justice based upon accusation and torture until you confess, we do not want guilty please with small sentences under threat of huge sentences that is not justice, that is a blatant corruption, why because greedy shit heads want cheaper injustice for the majority poor (guilty until you can spend enough to prove you are innocent) whilst they themselves get their own version of injustice for the rich (they are guilty of nothing just suffering from affluenza and that apparently is also our fault for letting the get so rich in the first place).

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Harlequin80]

Nalaxone will prevent ODs in a lot of cases and counter act the immediate effects of opiates. However it does not prevent the long term damage.

I am also aware of taxes that attempt to pass the cost of an activity to the people involved. The problem with them is often the tax required is too high so you have the effect of either subsidising it from general tax revenue OR pushing the cost of something so high you are effectively criminalising it via price and people move to finding illicit sources. You see this in the current cost of cigarettes.

As for the rights. I agree. I am advocating that peoples rights are curtailed in a society. In the same way that I am not allowed to have my stereo playing at 1000db at 2am on a Saturday night. Or to burn off my garbage in a bonfire in the back yard. Or to drive my motorcyle at 200kph. Or any one of a million other laws and by-laws that make our society function.

You may feel that legalising heroin would have a net benefit on society, I may believe that legalising heroin would be a net penalty on society. These are obviously differences in opinion but the fundamentals of having an individuals rights curtailed for the benefit of society as a greater whole is already there and I'm sure that there are many many cases where you agree with curtailing an individuals rights.

I am also aware of the concept of if a government has the power to ban all the things I don't like then it will also have the power to ban the things I do.

As an aside I live in Australia which has a universal health-care system and a universal welfare system. It is not as socialist as say a northern european country but compared to the US you would find it very left wing. If you are ill you are looked after to the best of our ability irrespective of whether you can afford to pay for the care or not. Many of the arguments around rights and what people can and cannot do in the US are settled questions here. Abortion and gun control being the two most obvious ones.

One of the biggest differences you notice when going to the US from Australia is the disenfranchisement of so much of the population. The obvious poverty and the feeling that they see no way out is actually quite shocking. You can wander around any Australian city at night and feel safe and while there are homeless people the numbers are small (Brisbane has a homeless population of 50, in a city of 2 million). http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au...

So perhaps that helps explain where I am coming from when I sit in favour of restricting an individuals rights to something like heroin. I believe that it would be a significant net cost to society to legalise it and the only way for it to not be a net cost would be for society to abandon those who become victims of it. Something I am not willing to advocate.

Sorry for a ridiculously long rambling post.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Procrasti]

I believe you must restrict rights when you generate uncompensated negative externalities... So, when you harm another person, at that point we have the right to restrict your activity with legal means.

All your examples of laws fit into this category. You can clearly see that you generate uncompensated negative externalities when you play your stereo to the annoyance of your neighbours, or create pollution in your back yard... You might fail to see that I cannot safely use the roads if I can't easily judge your speed. I will likely be surprised that the 200kph motorcycle that I pulled out in front of, that I could barely see a few seconds ago, has now collided with me.

Laws that don't fit this category are simply unjust, and lower our economic welfare, and this is where the drug laws stick out like a sore thumb in our legal system.

Now, I know Australia too... there are plenty of drugs here... heroin and meth are being used right now in large quantities... You pay the medical costs anyway... The taxes you say that have to be paid for... they are being paid for... but they come from the wrong sources... they should come from tax of the product. Because right now, the rest of society pays for that... and on top of that we use the criminal justice system to harm them (and prison and criminal records are harm), lowering their economic utility, and spending our own money to do that!

A taxed market can only be economically more efficient than the current prohibition system... which means both the drug user, and the non-drug users are better off. The money that pays for the costs come from the consumption of the cause of the costs.

Yes, there'll be a black market in untaxed items... we can stamp on that... like cigarettes... but it is still only a percentage of the full market... which will continue to pay the taxes to cover the entire thing anyway... cause we control the taxes. It certainly beats handing the entire market to the criminals as we currently do with illegal drugs.

This is true in the US, the UK, Australia.

Re:Homeland Security? Everyone is a terrorist

[Procrasti]

The only question I have, and it is an impossible one to answer, is would the economic losses of legalised heroin be higher or lower than the economic losses caused by heroin when it is illegal.

I've already proven that the total economic costs (in terms of individual utility, which is how we measure things economically) must be decreased under a prohibition market vs a regulated and taxed market... Because utility is literally the thing people chose to do, in fighting it with prohibition you have chosen to take on the negative externalities (say increased universal medical costs) yourself, plus the costs of enforcing the prohibition, plus the negative externality costs you are imposing on the users. You literally pay taxes to imprison non-violent, non-theft drug users, to corrupt police and create powerful gangs that operate in stolen property and forced prostitution.

Would legalising it increase its usage? If yes, would that increased usage cause economic damage and would that damage exceed that currently being suffered while it is illegal?

Well... you see... economists study this thing called elasticity... which is exactly how much usage increases or decreases with change in price (including costs such as risking prison time)... It's a well known fact that the demand elasticity for addictive substances is highly inelastic. In simple terms, varying the price has little effect on the amount demanded. You don't see drug users significantly increasing or decreasing their usage no matter how expensive it becomes, or even how cheap it becomes.

I've seen alcohol kill people. It still shouldn't be illegal. You've never seen someone discover alcohol? You don't think people have lost their jobs over it?

Any chance you've ever met a heroin user that you didn't know used it?

I would take your anecdote, and follow your gut instinct and not take heroin because you've seen what it can do to people, and you don't want to end up like that... and you should spread that message. However, that in no way justifies the current criminalisation of free personal choices. It's not for the government (or others) to make our decisions for us.

silly

[HBI]

I mean I know people running criminal enterprises aren't all that bright usually, but you'd think the smart play would be to avoid obvious telltales like an overlarge amount of shipments to your house.

The right way to do this would be to open up a shell storefront and conduct a legitimate trade for its cover value, and get your shipments there. How about one of those mailbox places?

Re:silly

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's unlikely that they caught him by monitoring his UPS deliveries. We won't hear about how they REALLY caught him, because it likely involves surveillance techniques of questionable legality.

Always presume parallel construction

[Anonymous Coward]

The stories about how these people get caught are usually "convenient", but I'm guessing it's parallel construction derived from classified capabilities (most likely that Tor is fully penetrated by the NSA).

Defense in depth, people.

Yes, sometimes people get caught due to stupid oversights, such as being the only dorm room's network node on campus that is connected to Tor at the moment that the bomb threat was emailed. That's why god invented VPN gateways running on VPSs and so forth, though.

Land of the Free, indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine [..] carries a mandatory minimum prison term of 10 years and a maximum punishment of life in prison

America, what is wrong with you? A man accused of conspiring to distribute drugs, not accused of actually distributing any drugs at all but simply conspiring to do so, faces at minimum a decade in prison and perhaps the rest of his life in prison? What the fuck? Your murderers get much less time in prison after the government has proven that they killed someone. This man is accused merely of planning or thinking of committing a crime, and if found guilty will be locked up for no less than ten full years.

Absolute insanity.

Perhaps...

[fahrbot-bot]

One package was found to contain 107 Xanax pills, ...

... the guy just has a LOT of anxiety. Wouldn't you if Homeland Security was after you? :-)