Libertarian Party Urges Trump To Pardon Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht

 This week, the Libertarian Party called on President Donald Trump to  pardon Ross Ulbricht, the entrepreneur and computer programmer who is  currently serving a double life sentence with no possibility of parole  for operating the Silk Road online marketplace, which was notorious for  its online drug trade. 

Despite the fact that Ulbricht has immense support among the public and respected organizations, the Supreme Court recently denied his petition for a review in his case.   Darryl Perry, chair of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire,  presented the pardon resolution at the party’s recent convention in New  Orleans last weekend.

“If for some reason President Trump does not choose to accede to our  resolution that we passed today, then I think that we just need to elect  a libertarian president in 2020 to get this shit done,” Perry said. 

The Free Thought Project spoke with former Libertarian Party  Vice-Chair Arvin Vohra, who is planning a run for president in 2020.  Vohra hops that Trump will grant this pardon, but if not, it will become  one of his top campaign promises. 

“Ross Ulbricht is a great American tech innovator, who should be  out creating more innovations, jobs, and opportunities. I have pledged  to pardon him, along with Edward Snowden and all nonviolent prisoners  who have neither harmed anyone nor stolen anything. I join the  LP in asking my 2020 opponent, current president Trump, to do the right  thing for the American economy and the American conscience, and pardon  Ross Ulbricht,” Vohra said. 

Considering the fact that last week the Hammond Ranchers were pardoned by Trump, and the fact that Kim Kardashian was able to convince him to pardon a woman serving a life sentence for drug charges, it is not so far fetched to ask for a pardon in this case as well. 

In the video below, Lyn, Ross’s mother, speaks about his condition in prison:  

Before Bitcoin became the newest tech and investment craze, it was  seen as the currency of the black market which was used to buy and sell  drugs on the infamous “dark web.”

 In fact, Ulbricht was one of the early  adopters of Bitcoin and he created one of the first websites that  popularized the cryptocurrency, called The Silk Road. 

The Silk Road was an anonymous online marketplace that became a  target for politicians and law enforcement because of the large volume  of drugs that were being sold through the site. 

On the Silk Road, drug  users and vendors were able to trade anonymously using Bitcoin, making  it one of the first major commerce platforms to adopt the  cryptocurrency. This constant reinvention of the Silk Road brand and the myriad of  spin-off marketplaces is reminiscent of the battle that took place  between online file sharing websites and the global record and film  industries. Whenever the government took down a file-sharing site, ten  more would spring up in its place, making it very difficult for  authorities to keep up with the overgrowing connectivity that the  internet provides. 

Even though Ulbricht did nothing but create a website—just like the  famous billionaires Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos—he was treated like El  Chapo in court because his invention worked against the system, instead  of for it. One important point that was heavily overlooked by the media during  the Ulbricht trial was the fact that the Silk Road actually made the  world a safer place by undermining prohibition.

 Even though drugs are  illegal, large numbers of people still use them on a regular basis and  these people are often put into dangerous situations because of these  prohibitions. The Silk Road allowed people to purchase drugs from the comfort of  their living room to avoid the risk of getting mugged in a dark  alleyway. It also allowed them to read reviews of the products that  their potential dealer was selling, saving them from tainted drugs and  dirty batches that could put their lives at risk. 

Ulbricht should have gotten the Nobel Prize for his visionary  application of a new and revolutionary technology, but instead, he was  arrested in October 2013 and has been sitting in federal prison ever  since, awaiting a break in his case, or the end of the drug war.