Since we're all busy celebrating that Ross will be free Day One, did you know that the US Government is using Ross' conviction to go after Tornado Cash?
In the Tornado Cash case, the government directly cites the Silk Road prosecution, arguing that neither Ross, nor Roman Storm, needed to have conspired with the users of their software to be held accountable for the crimes they committed.
The Government calls Storm's and Ulbricht's cases "analogous" – and its the same argument applied to convict Roman Sterlingov.
Unless Ross' conviction is overturned, anyone developing software that the Government doesn't like is fair game.
The dangerous precedent his conviction set will continue to be used to be used by the US Government to overstep its boundaries and hold software developers accountable for crimes they did not commit.
Ross Ulbricht should never have been in prison. And neither should others prosecuted under the same flawed argumentation.
Freeing Ross is not enough. Overturn US v. Ulbricht day one.
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To be fair, a prosecutor or even a defender should use any precedent that buttresses their case. That's how the legal system works - two sides engaging with everything they can in a clash to hopefully extricate the truth and justice. I know that using the Ulbricht case in this way is not popular in Bitcoinland, but to not do so would be litigiously irresponsible.
i don't think you need to be Devil's advocate for the US legal system.
Look to the 2A. Gun manufacturers are not liable for the crimes committed by guns. Neither should software developers.
"To ban individuals from using/developing privacy tech because criminals use privacy tech is to tell the law abiding that their liberty depends not upon their own behavior, but the behavior of the guilty and the lawless" - Lysander Spooner
How can we use this strategy against our corrupt and utterly useless governments…?
Trump will never overturn or pardon Ulbricht. If he does anything it will be commute the sentence. The case law will still stand.
Normally a president can't do that, but Trump controls all three branches, so he can indeed just order his Supreme Court cronies to fix this.
Of course he can also just order anyone he doesn't like executed.
I feel like this fact isn't talked about enough. The supreme court gave the president immunity from prosecution in the most be decision ever. That alone should've been enough to kill his political career in the land of the free but his supporters are way too far up his ass to see the truth.
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