Former President Donald Trump’s highly-anticipated appearance at the Libertarian Party’s National Convention on Saturday was a raucous event. The former president gave a speech before a crowd that was not exactly friendly to him.
Yet, Trump’s speech hit some points important to those who are more liberty minded. He wove in his personal story of being targeted by the government and highlighted the authoritarian tendencies of President Joe Biden. His speech was met with both boos and cheers from the audience.
But it was when he vowed to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht that he received the most applause.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: On Day One, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served #FreeRoss pic.twitter.com/qWVvEqb8vI
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) May 26, 2024
The question is: Who is Ross Ulbricht?
Ulbricht is a 40-year-old from Austin, Texas, who is currently serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. He was convicted in 2015 for creating and operating an online market website on the dark web called “Silk Road.” The site was known for helping people facilitate the sale of narcotics, among other things.
Inspired by libertarian economic theory, Ulbricht set up Silk Road under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts,” writing on his LinkedIn profile that the website would be “an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.” But U.S. law enforcement has described Silk Road as “a sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace” and “sprawling black-market bazaar” online for more than 100,000 anonymous users to buy unlawful goods and illegal services, including drugs, computer hacking, and forgery, earning Ulbricht more than $13 million.
So far, Ulbricht has remained in prison for over a decade after a series of failed appeals. According to his website, several high-profile individuals have spoken out in favor of commuting Ulbricht’s sentence, arguing that it is excessive for a first-time offender who committed a nonviolent offense.
Today I turn 40.
— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) March 27, 2024
I pray I’ll get a second chance at freedom before this next decade ends.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he was “shocked by the harsh sentence imposed on this first-time offender … Mr. Ulbricht’s sentence is disproportionate to his crimes.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) referred to Ulbricht’s plight as “the greatest violation of the 8th Amendment that I am aware of in the United States today” and that “What Ross Ulbricht did from a computer screen does not deserve 2 life sentences + 40 years without the chance of parole.”
“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” the lawmaker added.
2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy concurred:
“I have studied up on Ross’s case…There was a lot in his case that smelled rotten to me, including the initial supposed allegations of murder-for-hire, which the government didn’t actually charge in the end…Ten years is sufficient. He deserves a commutation of sentence.”
Conservative commentator Larry Elder also argued, "A double life sentence seems awfully severe for what Ross Ulbricht did.”
Shortly after Ulbricht’s sentencing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a statement celebrating the court ruling. Then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said, “Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people.”
Bharara claimed Ulbricht “went from hiding his cybercrime identity to becoming the face of cybercrime and as today’s sentence proves, no one is above the law.”
The press release said Silk Road operated “outside the reach of law enforcement” and that the inmate anonymized transactions using the service.
Ulbricht sought to anonymize transactions on Silk Road in two principal ways. First, Ulbricht operated Silk Road on what is known as “The Onion Router,” or “Tor” network, a special network of computers on the Internet, distributed around the world, designed to conceal the true IP addresses of the computers on the network and thereby the identities of the networks’ users. Second, Ulbricht designed Silk Road to include a Bitcoin-based payment system that served to facilitate the illegal commerce conducted on the site, including by concealing the identities and locations of the users transmitting and receiving funds through the site.
The statement also claimed, “The narcotics distributed on Silk Road have been linked to at least six overdose deaths across the world.” Several individuals supposedly died from drugs they ordered on the platform.
However, others argue that Silk Road was not some vast international criminal enterprise but a small community of people across the globe. Others point out that Ulbricht was not the only one who ran the website and was just one of the more high-profile voices using the forums.
Regardless of how one feels about whether drugs should be illegal, it is hard to argue that a life sentence without the possibility of parole is appropriate. As Massie argued, it is clearly a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
Ulbricht did not personally sell any drugs, nor did he force anyone to take them. Moreover, it was his first offense, meaning that putting him behind bars for the rest of his life is clearly an over-the-top punishment. It appears that his sentencing is nothing more than an effort to send a message and make an example out of him – while destroying his life in the process. If Trump wins and follows through on his promise, it will be a tremendous win for liberty.
