alt Hacker NewsRoss Ulbricht granted a full pardon
Comments
Trump freed him because libertarians voted for him - he openly said so. Meanwhile, he's waging a war on fentanyl! He should've freed Snowden instead.
i wonder if he'll pardon snowden.
Libertarians are the cheapest fucking buys of all time.
They will sell their souls to a man who would grind them into a paste and sell that paste as a protein snack to his cultists-- in exchange for a hollow, symbolic win that either impacts them in no way whatsoever or maliciously hurts people they don't like.
At least with other political groups you have to, you know, BRIBE them.
Libertarians are so used to receiving absolutely nothing that they will mistake the scent of a steak for a full meal.
What's even going on? Why is everyone treating this guy as some kind of political prisoner all of a sudden?
I would've expected responses like this for Aung San Suu Kyi or Dawit Isaak or someone, but _this guy_? Really?
Oh, I guess he is an e n t r e p r e n e u r... I get it now.
So Trump keeps his promises to the ones who supported him. Makes one think how what other promises he has made to other people and groups having funded and supported his campaign.
For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law.
This is the best news I've heard in a while
Gentle reminder that we have 1,459 more days of this shit. We really don't have to upvote every crazy fucking thing this guy does, or HN will be nothing but that for the next four years.
Based.
Obligatory "This is good for bitcoin"
I think this pardon just reflects Trump's transactional politics. Ulbricht has sympathizers in high places now because crypto is all over this administration.
In the long run letting political influence trump (no pun intended) the criminal justice system is a very bad thing.
By world standards our criminal justice system is a strength of the country. A pity if we lose that.
I'm genuinely surprised of the reactions on this thread. Trump just announced that cartels down south are terrorist organizations. This means that some of the members will likely die by the hand of the us govt. How is running an open market for drugs, weapons, etc different? Seems contradictory to me, what am I missing?
Hard to square the circle with this. Trump is against China's drug imports (and more generally China's imports), but releases someone convicted of running a "import some drugs from China" business because... well crypto money. Oh money that's it. No contradiction!
Interesting. I wonder who pushed Trump to do this. Gotta be Musk. Who else?
It's baffling to me that there are actually comments on Hacker Gosh Darn News of all places suggesting that Ross justly belonged in prison.
He successfully created a tool to undermine one of the most unjust and predatory policies of the US State - the policy of drug prohibition.
He's a damn hero. I don't understand why Trump, who most of the time seems like a simply awful human being with no end of appetite for state power, has chosen to do this, but I'll certainly take it.
It's beyond obvious that voting and other mechanics of representative rule have not succeeded at simple policy change such as ending prohibition. I look forward to several decades of truth trumping power in the form of the internet undermining states, until the asinine mode of political organization known as the nation state is deprecated entirely.
Since no one is posting it, here's Trump Truth Social post on the matter:
"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
Trump haters in absolute shambles here.
We're just letting sex traffickers of children off the hook now? Gross. Putting my head in the sand for the next 3 years and 11 months.
I can’t believe Trump did something right. If Harris were prez he’d be languishing there till who knows when.
I’m not necessarily going to comment on his behaviors directly, as everyone else has already stated that in part or in whole. My grievance, my perspective, is that it’s yet another white man getting a slap on the wrist for wrongdoing while doing nothing to correct any of the underlying problems or pardon others who engaged in similar or lesser behaviors.
The war on drugs has always been farcical, deliberately engineered to target minority groups who were opposing power dynamics at the time. It’s why - despite popular opinion to the contrary - cannabis remains broadly illegal at the Federal level and enforced globally through a web of treaties. It’s always been about creating the means of entrapment for those inconvenient to power.
Pardoning Ross smacks of a gift to cryptobros to earn their loyalty to the current powers that be, rather than an acknowledgement of a past mistake. It is nakedly political, pardoning a white man from an otherwise good background while others languish in prison on far less serious charges or convictions. Were any of the drug dealers on his black market similarly pardoned? Were any of his consumers? Of course not, because Ross was a Capitalist making profit in an untapped market, and the others were individuals who were not.
The entire thing is nauseating, and is enough to wash my hands of all involved were the need to dismantle this farce of a war not so grave.
Now that I didn’t expect
Just a reminder: the condition for accepting a pardon is acknowledging that you did commit the crime in question and accept the court's finding of guilt.
In contrast: Biden didn't pardon Leonard Peltier, the president commuted his sentence. Peltier maintains his innocence.
deserved the pardon. privacy should be for all, not just the billionaires.
So if you start a website and facilitate thousands of drug deals and get lots of people to ask the president to pardon you, and you’re white, you can get a pardon. But for everyone else you can’t. Even if you’re in prison for possession of drugs for more than ten years.
Also if you try to overthrow the government you get pardoned which I would have guessed approaches treason.
These are pardonable offenses and conditions.
...her?
At the same time he is threatening to tariff China 10% due to their responsibility for fentanyl, lol
I have nothing in particular to say about the dead comments in this very young thread, but they're sort-of-interesting comments to have been killed so quickly!
Is it due to HN policy? I guess they're subjective and ideological, and prone to starting arguments rather than debates.
Maybe "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity." or "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."?
I'm honestly just curious as a conscientious internet citizen lol
This conversation is presently flagged. Why? When Ross was sentenced HN had a discussion about it with more than 600 comments. His conviction has been discussed numerous additional times in other threads throughout the years. His pardon is plainly on-topic for HN, and this discussion is a necessary followup to those previous discussions.
Paraphrasing an aphorism I saw elsewhere: "Crime is legal now".
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I don't see how this benefits the American economy, jobs, or national security. I do see that for a cohort of people in the Libertarian community this was held to be a central Tenet: Ulbricht was their "hostage" just as the Proud Boys thought their leader was.
But, I can't see how this becomes net beneficial in Congress, or in the wider economy. At best it's providing lower friction movement of goods and services. They tend not to go to Federal Tax collecting exchanges, so I cannot for the life of me see how this helps the exchequer, but maybe thats the point?
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The right decision.