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Silk Road 2 Founder Dread Pirate Roberts 2 Caught, Jailed for 5 Years (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2015, WIRED published a list of the 'dark web drug lords who got away.' That list included the Dread Pirate Roberts 2 (DPR2), the creator of the second Silk Road site, which launched almost immediately after the FBI ended the first with the famous arrest of founder Ross Ulbricht. Under DPR2, Silk Road 2 went on to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. The FBI shut that one down too and arrested its remaining administrator. By that time, DPR2 had already passed ownership of the site on and, publicly, it looked like he had evaded prosecution.
But today, a court in Liverpool, England, sentenced Thomas White, a technologist and privacy activist, for crimes committed in part while running Silk Road 2 under the DPR2 persona, among other crimes committed under another persona. White pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering, as well as making indecent images of children, and was sentenced to a total of 5 years and 4 months in prison. White's arrest took place in November 2014, but the case has remained largely under-wraps because of the UK's strict court reporting rules, which prohibit journalists from covering cases before their conclusion. This is to stop suspects facing "trial by media," and in order to let cases run their course.
But today, a court in Liverpool, England, sentenced Thomas White, a technologist and privacy activist, for crimes committed in part while running Silk Road 2 under the DPR2 persona, among other crimes committed under another persona. White pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering, as well as making indecent images of children, and was sentenced to a total of 5 years and 4 months in prison. White's arrest took place in November 2014, but the case has remained largely under-wraps because of the UK's strict court reporting rules, which prohibit journalists from covering cases before their conclusion. This is to stop suspects facing "trial by media," and in order to let cases run their course.
Which is worse, trial by media or trial in secret? I'm sure that there are subtleties here that I'm missing by being an American, but I wonder...
As a fellow American, I think the subtleties you're missing here are that:
A) Contrary to the two extremes you presented, the Brits struck a middle-ground: temporary privacy.
B) The danger of secret courts is that they undermine actual justice by preventing the public from even having an awareness of the actions of a judiciary that is supposed to be serving their interests. In contrast, having privacy until the case concludes has no such problem, because the judiciary will be scrutinized and held to account for its actions in a timely manner.
C) When you excuse yourself from dinner and head towards the restroom, everyone knows what you're about to do (i.e. it's not a secret), but that doesn't mean there's a camera in the bathroom that records the details of your activities in there (i.e. it's still private). The two are distinct, and privacy, even in courts, can be a good thing. There's no legitimate reason to allow voyeurs tune in to family court proceedings, nor for people's names to be dragged through the mud for crimes they didn't commit. Rather than being concerned with the false dichotomy of "trial by media or trial in secret", why not be concerned with a real problem: that "innocent until proven guilty" rings hollow if your name will forever be tied to crimes you didn't commit?