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It's no longer the era of industry.

We're in a technological era,
fundamentally.

The fascists, they have the resources.

But we have imagination.

We are making the tools
to take back our sovereignty.

When we make a giant "fuck you" to the
system, it's breaking that stranglehold

on the tools of power
that's used against us.

The fascists always use the narrative of,

"We are the white knights in shining armor
protecting against the threats.

We come here and we move out
the dark with pure whiteness. "

That's a false narrative,

because there is corruption
in those castles.

The real base of power lies with us.

We are the darkness.

A trial, which potentially,
could have very far-reaching implications

has just started in New York City.

A jury will decide a case that could
impact the future of Internet privacy.

Thousands of drugs came through
the black website called "Silk Road. "

The government overstepped their boundaries
to acquire the info they claim they have.

This is not going away.

This is gonna be the biggest takedown
of what is currently in existence.

On January 13, 2015,

a criminal trial began
for the accused leader of the Silk Road,

a black market in an area of the Internet
known as "the deep web. "

The deep web is vast,

thousands of times larger
than the visible Internet,

what's called the "surface web. "

But the deep web is not a place.

It simply accounts for all of
the unindexed content online...

banking data, administrative
code for governments,

corporations and universities.

It's like looking under
the hood of the Internet.

Over time, the deep web became
inhabited by people of all types

who wanted to use
this terrain for privacy.

This hidden area of the deep web
is called the "dark net"

and it's accessible
with a software service called "Tor,"

originally developed by the US military
and now open source and publicly funded.

And while law enforcement and the media have
painted a picture that Tor and the dark net

are nefarious tools for criminals,

it's important to understand that
they are largely used for good

by government agencies, journalists
and dissidents around the world.

In the summer of 2011,

an ad for the Silk Road
appeared on the dark net.

The Silk Road was an underground
exchange for any type of goods,

but mostly it was used for drugs.

There have always been
drug markets online,

but none with the scale, sophistication
and ease of use as the Silk Road.

It would not remain underground for long.

Hundreds of thousands of users
use the impossible-to-trace website

which sells drugs,
forged documents and even hit men.

It's called the Silk Road.

Just look at some of the 13,000 items
offered through that underground site.

Ultra clean cocaine, clean and real LSD,

high grade MDMA, also known as "Molly"...

all with fast and free shipping.

It generated roughly $1.2 billion in sales

with nearly 960,000 users,
both buyers and sellers,

in the US and more than a dozen
other countries worldwide.

YouTube videos like this one
with 15,000 views

tell anyone how to download
an untraceable technology known as Tor

that pulls data from thousands
of computers worldwide

to create this wide open marketplace.

This hidden Internet is underpinned
by a virtual currency called "Bitcoin. "

Bitcoins offer anonymized transactions,

which can be almost impossible
for the police to trace.

Heroin, opium, cannabis, ecstasy,
psychedelics, stimulants...

opioids. And here they are.

So, oxycodone, all of those.

Codeine, black tar heroin.
You name it, they have it.

They're all listed in the light of day.
It's unbelievable.

The Silk Road's success was largely due
to an innovative combination

of Tor and Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a technology that
uses cryptographic code

to create digital currency.

The sender transmits their Bitcoin code
through a ledger called the "block chain"

to arrive at the recipient.

Bitcoin is not perfectly anonymous.

But if used carefully, it facilitates
online purchases without revealing identity.

Bitcoin was an ideal currency
for the Silk Road,

because it allows for anonymity

and is outside the control
of banks and governments.

I really became aware of the Silk Road
when Adrian Chen at Gawker,

did his profile.

I think in a way, that story, as much as
it documented the Silk Road,

it created the Silk Road, too. I mean...
it drove so many people to the site.

I think it probably was an
order of magnitude increase

in users on the Silk Road.

So from that point on,
I felt like I had missed the story

and I wanted the next big story
on the Silk Road.

But I was also just fascinated
with the community that was...

you know, being created there.

eBay doesn't have that kind
of user community.

This was like a really tight-knit
movement of people.

It was a fascinating thing
just to lurk around in.

It's a certifiable,
one-stop shop for illegal drugs

that represents the most brazen attempt

to peddle drugs online
that we have ever seen.

It's more brazen
than anything else by light-years.

I mean, they had a really big,
you know, target on their back.

And they even had been taunting,
to some extent, law enforcement

and, you know, the powers that be
by doing this in the open.

And that's actually part of what
this marketplace is all about.

It's not so much about selling drugs
as much as it is to say...

to make a political statement
of sorts, right?

"This shouldn't be prohibited.
We're free to do what we want

and we have the technology to do it.
So there. "

The news around the Silk Road
came almost entirely

from law enforcement
and government officials

with little insight from those
who were behind the market itself.

So the core architects and vendors
of the Silk Road were sought out

using encryption keys to verify their
identities and preserving their anonymity.

This is the first time
they have spoken publicly.

The Silk Road forums were a better
community than I've ever seen in real life.

There were many threads that had great
political and philosophical discussions.

Sure there were illegal things going on,

but this was a real community
of like minded people.

The Silk Road didn't appear
to have a single leader.

There were the regular posts
from the systems administrator,

but otherwise the service appeared to be
primarily community-run.

Then on February 5, 2012,

after a highly successful
first year of business,

the Silk Road administrator
made an announcement...

I need an identity
separate from the site,

and the enterprise
of which I am only a part.

I need a name. Drum roll, please...

My new name is... Dread Pirate Roberts.

- You're the Dread Pirate Roberts, admit it.
- With pride.

The Dread Pirate Roberts was cribbed
from the mythical character

from the novel and film
"The Princess Bride,"

and the choice was no accident.

In the original story by William Goldman,
the Dread Pirate Roberts

was a nom de guerre handed down from
user to user and passed along eternally.

The man I inherited it from was not
the real Dread Pirate Roberts either.

The real Roberts has been retired 15 years
and I have been Roberts ever since.

I shall retire and hand the name
over to someone else.

This Dread Pirate Roberts, or DPR,

would come to spearhead
the Silk Road forums

and was generally assumed to be
the creator and owner of the site.

The Dread Pirate Roberts
to me seemed to be

kind of the most interesting figure
in that whole world.

On the Silk Road forums, he was
constantly posting these manifestos

and love letters to his users
and libertarian philosophical treaties.

And he even had like this...
Dread Pirate Roberts book club

where he hosted discussions
of Austrian economics

and free market philosophy.

At the same time, nobody knew who he was.

He had never spoken to the press before.

I approached him on the Silk Road
forum mid-2012 and...

started kind of just like trying
to persuade him to talk,

chipping away at him
and just bugging him constantly.

The actual trigger, I think
that made him decide to talk

was this competing
dark website called "Atlantis. "

They were really much more aggressive
in their marketing than the Silk Road.

They put out this YouTube video

advertising Atlantis as the new,
better dark web drug site.

So when I went back
to the Dread Pirate Roberts

and said, "You know,
I'm going to do this story.

It can either be about Atlantis
or it can be about you,"

I think he realized that,
you know, that...

he was a savvy business guy who realized
he had to talk at that point.

He did have a kind of political message
that he wanted to get out,

and I could see that in what
he was posting on the forums.

So I kind of played up to that
and I told him like,

"I can be the vessel for you to talk about
what the Silk Road really represents,"

and I think that that appealed to him.

So it took eight months, but finally
he did agree to an interview.

Of course, he didn't tell me
anything about himself...

where he lives, you know,
his age, identity,

anything that could be
remotely identifying.

"I didn't start the Silk Road.
My predecessor did.

"From what I understand it was
an original idea to combine Bitcoin and Tor

"to create an anonymous market.
Everything was in place.

He just put the pieces together.

"The most I'm willing to reveal is that I am
not the first administrator of Silk Road. "

He was incredibly secretive, of course,

about the inner workings
of the Silk Road and...

you know, his own identity, of course.

I mean he was hunted by every law
enforcement agency that you can imagine.

"The management of Silk Road
is a collaborative effort.

"It's not just me making sure
Silk Road runs smoothly.

"More often than not, the best ideas
come from the community itself. "

But he did tell me some interesting things
about how he viewed himself and...

and the way that the Silk Road works.

"We don't allow the sale of anything that's
main purpose is to harm innocent people

"or that it was necessary to harm
innocent people to bring to market.

"For example,
anything stolen is forbidden.

"Counterfeit money and coupons
which are used to defraud people.

"Hit men aren't allowed
and neither is child pornography.

No substance on Silk Road
falls under those guidelines. "

This went beyond just, you know,
like legalizing marijuana or even heroin.

He wanted to see a new relationship
between individuals and the government,

where the government was...
you know, basically hamstrung

and couldn't control
what people bought and sold.

"At its core, Silk Road is a way
to get around regulation from the state.

"The state tries to control nearly every
aspect of our lives. Not just drug use.

"Anywhere they do that,

"there's an opportunity to
live your life as you see fit,

despite their efforts. "

I shouldn't generally
say this kind of thing,

but I really liked the Dread Pirate
Roberts that I interviewed.

I thought he was, you know...

a really super-interesting guy
with a really coherent philosophy.

He came across to me as this kind of
middle-aged, wise man figure, you know?

But not everyone on Silk Road
believed in libertarian philosophy.

Bringing an end to the drug war was
the agenda that truly united the community.

A huge reason why DPR
put the website up,

and allowed the market to begin with,
and took the risk

was because... needed to be
a violence reduction

in purchasing drugs.
'Cause it's gonna happen

and the reason it's gonna happen
is because of the War on Drugs.

The violence isn't just from the people
buying and selling the drugs...

The violence is from
the police departments...

and the federal agents
prosecuting this war.

And not to mention the horrendous violence
we commit overseas on people.

We're the biggest bully on the planet
when it comes to drugs.

The fact that more than 50%
of this country has said to the DEAD...

we don't want you
prosecuting this war anymore.

They need to demonize drugs.

The War on Drugs is, you know,
all about fear, uncertainty and doubt.

I could see that the Silk Road
wasn't just another cyber-criminal scheme.

This was a guy who saw himself
as the leader of a movement.

"One thing I've learned playing
Dread Pirate Roberts

is that your actions are sure
to please some and infuriate others.

"But we can't stay silent forever.
We have an important message.

"And the time is ripe
for the world to hear it.

"What we're doing isn't about
scoring drugs or sticking it to the man.

"It's about standing up for our rights
as human beings and refusing to submit

"when we've done no wrong.

"Silk Road is a vehicle for that message.

All else is secondary. "

The Silk Road functioned because
the Dread Pirate Roberts was trusted.

At any point, he could've shut down the Silk
Road and run away with everyone's Bitcoins.

We've seen that happen
with a bunch of other dark web businesses.

But he didn't, and I think
people believed that he wouldn't

because they felt that he was
a true believer in this kind of radically

libertarian, crypto-anarchic
philosophy that, you know,

goes back to the cypherpunks of the 1990s.

Twenty-five years ago, in the Bay Area,
a burgeoning group of mathematicians,

crypto-anarchists and hackers
began to meet in each other's homes.

This tight-knit group came to be
casually known as the "cypherpunks. "

These original members
were not socially motivated,

but more concerned with the hard math
of cryptographic technology

and the broader philosophy of anonymity,
individual liberty and privacy.

The government has this clear policy
of access to all plain text,

meaning whatever you're saying,
they want access to.

If it's stored on your hard disk,
they want access to it.

If it so goes over the wire,
they want access to it.

If you are proxying speech for someone
else, they wanna know who it is.

The cypherpunks were instrumental
in the growing movement

towards privacy and anonymity online.

And they would pioneer the way
into the hidden corners of the Internet.

Maybe the big turning point
for the cypherpunks,

I think, was WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

and Jacob Appelbaum's idea
of what it means to be a cypherpunk.

You cannot trust a government

to implement the policies
that it says that it's implementing.

And so we must provide
the underlying tools,

secret cryptographic codes
that the government couldn't spy on

to everyone as a sort of use of force.

And a government no matter how hard
it tries, if the cyphers are good,

cannot break into
your communications directly.

Force of authority
is derived from violence.

One must acknowledge with cryptography,
no amount of violence

- will ever solve a math problem.
- Exactly.

And this is the important key.
It doesn't mean you can't be tortured.

It doesn't mean they can't try to bug
your house or subvert it in some way,

but it means if they find an encrypted
message it doesn't matter if they have

the force of the authority
behind everything that they do.

They cannot solve that math problem.

This movement is not about
the destruction of law.

This movement is not about
the destruction of law.

It is about the construction of law.

These are guys who want to create
encryption tools that everybody can use.

It's not just for the elite.

It's trying to shift the way
that the Internet works

to provide secrecy and anonymity
and privacy to everyone...

you know, so like...
it's a much more populist movement.

There is a community of people
in the security and cryptography space

who want to live in a world where
the government cannot record their emails,

cannot listen to their telephone calls,
cannot see who they're spending time with.

And they're trying to build tools.

They're trying to build
protocols and services

that can facilitate that kind of anonymous
and private exchange of information.

I actually think this all comes down
to wanting to live a free life.

And the recognition which
really predates all technology,

that an observed life
is not a completely free life,

that a zone of privacy
is just a core human value.

And the technology
to me is just an incarnation

of those basic human values.

And I think that the people
who are trying to build

currencies that are free of tracking
and government control

and technologies that let you
have a private conversation

and those kinds of things
are just people who are seeing

that the technology can both enable
and disable that space.

There are more cypherpunks
than ever before.

They want to entirely cripple
the government's ability to enforce law.

They want cryptography to make the rules
instead of law enforcement.

Cody Wilson is a crypto-anarchist
best known for developing the Liberator,

a 3D printable gun that was downloaded
100,000 times in two days.

When a group of baby boomers are told,
okay now 3D printers will print guns,

they can do nothing but say,

"Well, it's been nice living in
the world I used to know. "

We want to question the very foundation,
evacuate the very foundation

that this order, moral,
ethical, political, is founded on.

To see beyond good and evil
and to allow something else to happen.

This is where the figure of DPR
is so interesting to me.

Like is he a liberal?
Like is he a Misesian like he says he is?

He believes in libertarian
market principles,

and you know man against the state
and all these these principles of freedom

and axioms of... or is he someone else?

Like who I hope he is or someone
like I would try to hope to be,

who's just looking for a way, a mechanism,

to help peek beyond
good and evil a little bit. And...

is he more enthusiastic about what he's...
what he's allowed to be opened up,

the doors he's opening.

Of course, there will be
a dark side to the dark web.

And if we want to enable this...
this true crypto-anarchic future,

anyone who's working on that, I think,
has to reckon with the fact that...

they're going to be enabling
really nasty things

along with this kind of information freedom
revolution that they're taking part in.

By August 2012, business was booming.

The Silk Road had become a thriving,
anonymous and unregulated black market.

The Internet being used in this way,
posed a major threat to the government,

greater perhaps than selling drugs.

Even as a law enforcement officer,
I still wouldn't know

where to go and buy crack
on the streets or buy heroin,

but I do know how
to go online and find it.

It's downloading some software
and the next thing you know you're there

and you can purchase a service
or drugs very easily.

Since when does a teenager become
obsessed with the daily mail delivery?

Fidgeting and pacing made
this Fisher's mom suspicious.

So when her family's mail arrived,
she grabbed it and found a cartoon DVD box

addressed to her son with something extra,
a package of white crystals.

So she confronted her 14-year-old
and both their lives changed forever.

I don't think anybody really cared
in law enforcement

until Senator Schumer went, "Oh, my God,
we've gotta do something about this. "

Today I'm calling on the DEA
and the Department of Justice

to immediately shut this site down
before more damage is done.

Because if you think about what
law enforcement at the federal level

has to do to even start a case,

I don't think this case
would've been started

if it wasn't for
some political impetus by

you know, a senator saying,
"We need to look into this. "

The FBI today shut down what it's calling
the most sophisticated Internet site

in the business of selling hard drugs,
including heroin, cocaine and LSD.

Anyone trying to log on to the website
today found this notice:

"Shut down by the FBI. "

It was a sophisticated
electronic smokescreen

and it took federal agents
almost two years.

They were able to infiltrate the site,
but they made some of these purchases

themselves using undercover identities.

The secretive Dread Pirate Roberts was
arrested in the most unlikely of places...

this local public library
in this San Francisco neighborhood.

The FBI seized $3.6 million

of Bitcoin's biggest haul
in its five-year history.

When the criminal complaint
first appeared in October,

it describes this 29-year-old
kid named Ross Ulbricht.

Not only do they say that he has run this
billion-dollar plus black market conspiracy

and they accuse him of drug trafficking
and money laundering

and somehow computer
hacking charges, as well,

which is something that I had never
associated with the Silk Road.

But then also in this criminal
complaint there is outlined

his plot to pay for the murders

of a potential informant
and a blackmailer.

It seems at least one Silk Road user

threatened to reveal the identities
of thousands of others.

So investigators say Ulbricht tried to
execute a Murder-For-Hire on that user,

offering $150,000
to a would-be hit man because...

"This kind of behavior
is unforgivable to me.

Especially here on Silk Road,
anonymity is sacrosant.

It threw me for a loop. It was really not

the Dread Pirate Roberts
that I had ever imagined.

This connection between Ross Ulbricht,

who plenty of evidence suggests
that he was involved in the Silk Road.

They, after all, seized his laptop
while he was logged in to the Silk Road.

He was caught red-handed.

But these two personalities,
these two personas,

do seem to be almost schizophrenic.

It's so difficult to imagine
that they are the same person.

And so the FBI's whole case
is based on the idea if they can show

that Dread Pirate Roberts
is Ross Ulbricht?

Right. That's the most
important part, right?

Because he was trying to hide
his identity on the site as well.

So the first thing they're gonna
have to do is definitively link him

as the person who runs the site.

Oh, man, it was like
it was yesterday, actually.

I was on my computer and...
I was on Facebook.

And there's this guy that I know
and he's very into like Bitcoin

and cryptocurrencies and stuff like that.

He posted this article and it says,
"Ross Ulbricht Arrested. "

And I pull up Lyn's...
G - chat and I'm like,

"What is going on? Like why is... "
And I'm looking at Ross' page...

Picture, you know, about being arrested.
What is this?

She says, "We don't even know.
We're leaving Costa Rica right now. "

I mean, they were on their way,
but it blew my mind.

I mean totally blew my mind.

Ross William Ulbricht grew up
in a suburb of Austin,

the only son of Kirk and Lyn
with an older sister named Callie.

It's a loving, tight-knit,
middle-class family.

The Ulbrichts earn their income
from properties they built

and rent on the Costa Rican coast.

Ross was an avid outdoorsman,
an Eagle Scout like his father,

and displayed an early aptitude for math.

Ross earned a full scholarship
to the University of Texas at Dallas

studying Physics.

He graduated in 2006 and then won
another full scholarship to Penn State

to pursue a Masters
in Material Science and Engineering.

It was at Penn State that Ross began
a deep interest in libertarianism,

particularly the work of Ludwig Von Mises
and the Austrian School of Economics.

Yet by 2009, having completed his Masters,

Ross seemed to be having
a change of life plan

telling his mother he no longer had an
interest in pursuing a career in science

and instead wanted to become
an entrepreneur.

Ross moved back to Austin and opened
his own used book company, Good Wagon,

donating a portion of the proceeds
to an inner city youth program

and to a prison literacy project.

I remember him saying, when we had coffee,
the last time we saw each other,

I remember him saying that he wished
he had joined a fraternity in college.

And I remember saying,
"Well, that's surprising. "

You know, I didn't really understand
that perspective,

and I just remember him thinking,

well, he focused a lot
on his studies in school

and maybe didn't create the social network

that he was looking for...
in... in school.

But as far as where we saw each other
going or where we saw ourselves going...

I think we both had a strong desire

to be in control of our destiny.

You know, again like when he started
the book company, totally natural.

Not even something that I would've
questioned, where there are a lot of people

that would never start their own business.
But for Ross, sure, you know, why not?

But the business floundered
and Ross eventually shut it down.

And if a post on his Linkedln page
was any indication,

Ross had experienced a kind of epiphany
on the next way forward.

Ulbricht wrote,
"Now my goals have shifted.

"I want to use economic theory as a means
to abolish the use of coercion

"and aggression amongst mankind.

"To that end, I am creating
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. "

From this moment, in late 2010,
Ross became something of a free spirit,

eventually leaving
his parents' home in Austin

to live with his sister Callie
in Sydney, Australia

and then returning briefly to Austin.

Throughout this period,
as far as his family knew,

Ross' means of employment was working
on freelance projects in computer finance.

I am Rene Pinnell, age 29.

Today is December 6, 2012

and we are in the Jewish
Contemporary Art Museum...

and relationship to partner
is best friend.

So, Ross, how did you come
to live in San Francisco?

You twisted my arm until I said,

"Fine, I'll come. "

I get a phone call from Rene,
"Ross, call me up.

I've got an opportunity for you. "
I'm like, "Okay. "

He's like, "Yeah, I'm doing
a startup here in San Francisco.

I want you to be a part of it. "

The more I thought about it,
and the more he...

laid out the pros and cons...

the more it all just seemed like cosmic
and the right thing to do.

So... yeah.

I bought my ticket and two weeks later
I showed up at his doorstep.

As Ross Ulbricht was making his way
from Australia to Austin,

and eventually to San Francisco,

the Silk Road was online
and growing steadily.

So naturally it sparked the attention
of federal law enforcement

and specifically the wing of the DHS
called Homeland Security Investigations,

housed in the old Customs House
in Baltimore, Maryland.

You have postal inspectors in Seattle
and Customs and Border Protection...

intercepting mail shipments coming
from overseas full of drugs,

full of... full of currency.

And one thing that happens is
they all lead back to the Silk Road.

And you have a number
of independent investigations

sort of cropping up
around the same timeframe

following different leads,
but all leading back to the same place.

At the same time, the New York
Cyber-Crime Division of the FBI

began their own investigation,
headed by Agent Chris Tarbell.

There were people essentially online 24/7

as part of the team
that was monitoring, gathering,

even just the little bits of evidence.

Informants were activated.

The site was crawling with law enforcement
posing as vendors and buyers

from the very beginning
of Silk Road's existence.

In early 2012,

HSI partnered with Tarbell's
FBI investigators as well as the DEA

to mount an undercover operation called
"Marco Polo"

with the intention of penetrating
the inner sanctum of the Silk Road.

I had a package seized from China in
January 2012 and thought nothing of it.

I kept business as usual,
which was a stupid move.

Fast forward to June 28th, 2012

I was raided by ATF, DEA,
Secret Service, local police department

and even a postal inspector.

I was not detained.

Rather, I was held in a van outside for
what they call "investigative detention. "

They kept me out of jail.
I was never booked or charged

because my seized computers were more
useful to them if I was not behind bars.

I'm also assuming they did this
with a number of Silk Road vendors

to get a sort of organized crime
ring of their own.

The operation gained traction

when an undercover agent
using the vendor name of "nob"

was allegedly able to establish direct
communication with the Dread Pirate Roberts,

which would lead
to a shocking turn of events.

Nob complained to DPR about the small-fry
nature of most deals on the Silk Road.

"It really isn't worth it
to do below 10 kilos," the agent wrote.

DPR offered to help find a buyer for nob

and allegedly turned to one of his most
trusted partners known only as "chronicpain"

to put the deal together.

Chronicpain had been one
of the core administrators

of the Silk Road from the beginning,

a frequent contributor to the forums
who shared the Silk Road vision

for reducing harm in the drug trade,
but these halcyon days were about to end.

In order to facilitate this drug deal,

chronicpain gave the informant
his home address.

Federal agents immediately apprehended
chronicpain at his Salt Lake City home

and were surprised to discover
that this 47-year-old family man

named Curtis Clark Green
was a dark net criminal.

At some point they're going
to catch one of those people.

And what do you do in a typical drug case?

You roll that person over
as a cooperating witness.

And in this case, one of them
they got really lucky

and he was an administrator on the system.

Green had access to other Silk Road
users' accounts and financial records,

including Dread Pirate Roberts.

"I have to assume he will sing,"
DPR wrote to nob, the undercover agent.

"I'd like him beat up. "
Then, the next day, he allegedly wrote...

"Can you change the order
to execute rather than torture?"

A murder was staged. And a photograph
of Green's bloody body was sent to DPR,

who paid for the hit in Bitcoin.

There would be five more alleged
Murders-For-Hire,

including ordered hits against
a blackmailer, a scammer

and an apparent contract
with the Hells Angels.

The names of two of these victims
were found to be fictitious.

And authorities have no evidence
of any murders being carried out.

The alleged attempted murder
of Curtis Green allowed the authorities

to obtain an indictment
against Dread Pirate Roberts,

charging him with drug offenses, attempted
witness murder and Murder-For-Hire.

Of course, they still had no idea
who the Dread Pirate Roberts actually was.

So the embedded agents
continued to communicate with DPR,

and DPR continued to respond.

In June of 2013, Ross moved into an
apartment that he found on Craigslist.

Allegedly, he did not give his roommates his
real name and was known as Joshua Terrey.

At the same time, IRS agent Gary Alford
was investigating the Silk Road

and through a simple Google search
was able to locate an early email

on the open Internet discussing
the launch of the Silk Road marketplace

and connect that email to an account
owned by Ross Ulbricht.

One month later, postal inspectors
at the Canadian border

seized a package of fake IDs
with Ross' image

that were en route to his home address.

Ross was visited at his apartment
by several DHS agents.

The agents handed Ross
a false California driver's license

that bore his picture,
but a different name.

Ulbricht denied ownership
or knowledge of the fake IDs,

and the agents simply left.

If you suspect somebody
may be involved in a...

large-scale criminal enterprise,

going and knocking on a door
with some... you know,

some evidence of fake IDs is important...

because you can see the guy face-to-face.

You may get some useful information
out of an interview.

You may or may not want to take him
into custody on the spot.

Let's sit back and let's...
let's really go after this

in a you know, much more
global way, if you will,

because there's a lot more
here than just one count of,

you know, fake IDs.

The next big break in the case

would be achieved by FBI agent Tarbell
and his cyber-crime team,

who had somehow located the Silk Road
servers in Germany and Iceland.

How these hidden servers were found
has been a matter of controversy,

but the FBI had their own copy
of the Silk Road server,

and now they hoped to finally unmask
the Dread Pirate Roberts.

I decided there was a flaw
in this setup somewhere,

I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

But there was a flaw and I called up
my partner and said:

"There's a flaw, we've got
a limited amount of time,

We need to make our money and get out.

Over the course of a year,
a Chicago-based agent from the DHS

named Jared Der-Yeghiayan
had been embedded in the Silk Road,

now posing as a high-ranking
moderator named "cirrus. "

With both the evidence connecting Ross
to the launch of the Silk Road

and the incident with the fake IDs,
Ross became one of the primary suspects.

On October 1st in a coordinated effort
between Der-Yeghiayan from the DHS

and Tarbell's FBI squad,
a sting operation was launched.

According to Der-Yeghiayan's testimony,
he staked out Ross' new residence.

And using his pseudonym of cirrus,

Der-Yeghiayan initiated a conversation
on the Silk Road with DPR.

Moments later,
Ross went to the Glen Park Library,

apparently to use their Wi-Fi.

And when Der-Yeghiayan saw that DPR
was logged back into the Silk Road,

he gave the order for Tarbell
and his squad to move in.

It's an excitement that you
couldn't even buy off Silk Road.

All the drugs you could buy
on the site, you...

It's not the same excitement as catching
the guy. It's an adrenaline rush.

Ross was apprehended
before he could encrypt his laptop.

He was allegedly logged into
a Silk Road administration panel

for customers needing DPR's attention.

He was a dream for drug users,
because he was very technically adept

and he was able to hide both
the website that he put together

and the actual sales of illegal drugs

that the drug sellers
would... make on his website.

The Silk Road was seized and shut down,
and charges were announced

against a number of core partners
and vendors from the site.

Ross was held for over a month
in a jail in Oakland,

awaiting extradition to New York.

Ross's family was able to raise
over a million dollars for his bail.

But the prosecution argued that due
to the alleged Murders-For-Hire,

Ross was too dangerous to release
and so his bail was denied.

I thought it was the wrong decision.

He wouldn't have been a flight risk
and he's never been

and is not a danger to anyone.

For him to say "I'm gonna put a hit out
on someone" is ludicrous.

I can understand it being one
of these other DPR workers...

getting all egotistical
and crazy and maniacal

and doing it, that I could see.

There was more than one person
using the DPR account?

I believe it was at least
2 other people,

if not 3 at one point.

It doesn't matter.
That's why they're dredging up this hit.

Contract baloney.

But because of the involvement
of a Senator and...

all that other shit
they're gonna cook him.

The data seized from the Silk Road servers
included all internal private messages,

which revealed that many people
collectively ran the site.

One vendor with the user name
"Variety Jones"

was active from the beginning
of the Silk Road.

Jones gave many of the orders
for running the Silk Road,

even instructing the systems administrator
to create the Dread Pirate Roberts persona.

But Ross Ulbricht remained
the primary focus of the investigation.

Ross has been incarcerated for over a year

in the Metropolitan Detention Center
in Brooklyn awaiting trial.

Six weeks of that time
was in solitary confinement.

Ross plead not guilty and denies
being the Dread Pirate Roberts.

His trial was set for November 10,
2014 in New York City.

If convicted, Ross faces
a minimum sentence of 30 years

with a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Are you taking a video?

- Should we...
- He's a hairy fucker.

These big guys are generally not too...

I would let him off somewhere.

Where is he?

You know, it's hard.
It's hard on a family.

It really is, especially when
you love that person so much

and you believe in them so much

and you have such a daunting
Goliath of an opponent.

It's... challenging.

It's kind of like a death, in a way,
when you go like, "No, that can't be true,"

and then you're like,
"Oh, yeah, it's true. "

And you go through that kind of shock.

His dad, my husband...

of course, he's trying to keep our business
going so we have a livelihood.

And his sister is in... Australia

and she's been helping, too, from there.

I'm Ross' sister and I can tell you

he has been a man of his word
and honor all his life.

I was shocked to hear the news of his
arrest, but felt even more dismayed

at what the media was writing
about him, not even knowing him.

You know, I read things by people
who have not a clue who Ross really is.

He's been tried and convicted
in the media.

Nothing has been proven at all.

I don't know what's happened to the
presumption of innocence in this country,

but it is a constitutional right here
that we are innocent until proven guilty.

Ross sent me this picture
of himself about a week ago.

It was taken a couple
of weeks ago in prison.

I guess sometimes they go around
and take pictures for the families.

He is doing well...

as well as can be expected,
of course, under the circumstances.

And finally, after five months of delays,

he has had access to the discovery,
the evidence that the prosecution has.

And so he's been working
very hard going through that.

We are asking the prosecution,

"How did you find the server,"
and they're not saying.

We have to know how they found the server

in order to see if Ross' Fourth
Amendment rights have been violated.

And how would anyone know if the evidence
had been tampered with or anything else

if it's not revealed
how they found the server?

There were 14 searches
and seizures in this case,

which is a... a fishing expedition

into a person's total property.

Unlimited rummaging through all of
their things to see what they can find.

When the criminal complaints
first appeared in October,

I think the supporters
of the Dread Pirate Roberts

and the Silk Road just scattered.

Because suddenly this thing that had
seemed like an idealistic community

built around non-violence and...
you know, libertarian free commerce,

suddenly seemed instead like
this bloody criminal conspiracy.

And a guy who probably otherwise
would have been a kind of...

political cause c�lebre,

who would have had all of these
supporters calling for his freedom,

instead was treated as a...
was an immediate pariah.

He was seen as a criminal.

So there's a lot of... circumstantial...

evidence, if you want to call it that.

There's a lot of technical bits
and pieces involved.

It got really crazy in the middle of that.

Sort of one thing is taking down
this online drug market.

Another thing is pinning a number
of Murders-For-Hires on top of it.

It just seems really, really far-fetched.

The 29-year-old seemingly
clean-cut entrepreneur

was living a secret life
as a digital drug lord.

They're claiming that he's living
in a manner of a head of a cartel.

The distinctions between Ross Ulbricht
and the head of a cartel,

you don't have to see too many movies to
recognize what the differences are here.

Then when the indictment finally came out,

there were suddenly no charges around
these Murder-For-Hire accusations,

only the drug trafficking and money
laundering and computer hacking.

They had six charges. They used them
against him to deprive him of bail

and yet two and a half months later...
the prosecutor didn't indict him.

What they did instead was they
called it an "uncharged crime. "

Well, if something's a crime,
don't you charge someone for it?

And if it's not a crime,
why is it there...

Because it's prejudicial to a jury

to have that sitting there unproven
just... just smearing him.

The portrayal they want
is of someone who they could

present to a jury
of not having redeeming value.

It's a way of poisoning the atmosphere

so that the jury doesn't focus
on the allegations,

but focuses on this atmospheric
that the government has created

that in some sense is a diversion
appealing to the emotional aspect of it

so that if the proof is weak, the benefit
of the doubt doesn't go to the defendant,

where it belongs,
under the presumption of innocence,

but it goes to the government because there
are these awful things lurking out there

which aren't part
of what we're supposed to find.

The government doesn't have to
prove them beyond a reasonable doubt,

but they've injected them in the case

in a way that is toxic
to an impartial evaluation

of what the evidence
is on the charged crimes.

So people come in with a preconceived notion
and that's halfway there to guilt.

Previously, the Murder-For-Hire was in there
as a charge and then it was dropped.

But it's not gone away.

It's included
as what they call an overt act

in the conspiracy and to sell drugs.

And so they actually made it
one of the things to support

the larger drug conspiracy

to either get a trial or get him to plead.

It seemed like this bait and switch
that the government had accused him

in this almost informal way of murder

so that when he was charged with these
non-violent crimes in the end,

he would still be seen
as a violent criminal.

I think that that has
really been effective in...

in coloring the portrait of Ross Ulbricht.

Ever since Ross' arrest,

he and his best friend Rene Pinnell
have remained in regular contact.

Rene declined to give
substantive interviews to the press

for fear they would be used
against Ross in court,

but agreed to answer questions via email.

# I'm a little teapot, short and stout #

# Here is my handle here is my spout #

# When I get all steamed up
hear me shout #

# Tip me over and pour me out #

Yay!

Because of the severity of the charges,

Ross was not able to grant
an interview from prison,

which left only a scattering
of his personal photographs and movies.

But from the exhaustive discussions
with friends and family

and the public knowledge of
Ross's trajectory from Physics

and Engineering major to running a
small home-spun book-selling company,

it was difficult to understand how he could
possibly have been the sole mastermind

of the Silk Road,
a vast and complex Internet service

with over a million users worldwide.

Ross was certainly bright
and studious with a deep interest

in libertarian economic theory, which
clearly echoed the mandate and philosophy

of many of the posts
of the Dread Pirate Roberts.

But he had no experience whatsoever
in computer coding

or scaling large Internet companies.

So how did Ross connect
to what little is truly known

about the Dread Pirate Roberts?

DPR was motivated
by a pacifistic philosophy

and an agenda of creating victimless
exchange and reduced harm in the drug trade.

This ethos would be embraced by the chief
architects and vendors of the Silk Road

and reverberate
through the entire community.

There were quite a few people
that I didn't sell to

just because I could tell that they were
obviously not mature enough to handle

using these drugs, and didn't know enough.
It was like "Go read first...

"go figure it out and then come back
to me and I'll sell you something"

"but I'm not gonna pop your cherry
and kill you, potentially. "

The heroin in particular I was very careful
about who I sold it to because...

it was not stepped on.
It was the best heroin on Silk Road.

The Silk Road appeared to be
a successful experiment

in creating a pacifistic community,

overseen by a figurehead
with a deep-rooted ideology.

But these core ideals
of the Dread Pirate Roberts

were completely at odds
with the Murder-For-Hire allegations.

Did DPR become corrupted

and turn his back on the mandate
of non-violence and harm reduction?

Were there other people
using the DPR account

who were responsible for these actions?

Or was there some other truth

behind these alleged murder hits
that produced no victims?

We don't know the first piece of evidence

that lead the feds down
this chain of investigation

to the San Francisco library
where Ross Ulbricht was arrested.

All we know is that at some point
they located the Silk Road servers

in a data center in Iceland
and imaged them.

They copied all the data
off of them, and seized them...

but we don't know
how they found those servers.

The whole idea of the Silk Road was
that it ran as a Tor-hidden service,

which means that Tor
protected its physical location

and made it very difficult
to locate the computers that ran it.

So the mystery of how the FBI,
or the DEA, or possibly the NSA,

located those servers is still unsolved

and, in fact, hasn't been mentioned
in any of the legal documents

surrounding Ross Ulbricht's trial.

I think his defense
has seized on this as...

something that the government
doesn't want to talk about.

And if that's the case, then it does raise
these Fourth Amendment issues

of can the government use
essentially hacking techniques

to dig up evidence on a criminal suspect?

And if so, what kinds
of warrant do they need?

If in fact there was some kind
of violation of the Fourth Amendment,

in that initial part of the investigation,

that really was the first clue
that lead them down this entire chain

to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht,

it could be a giant problem
for the prosecution

that then taints every other piece
of evidence that they found subsequently.

The government has prosecuted
other people for doing

essentially what the government
did here, which is...

trying to get underneath
the public face of a website.

And they have alleged
that getting that information

that's not supposed
to be publicly accessible

by sophisticated computer,
inquiries or activities,

that that is a violation of federal law.

So here's... and that's why they always say,
we didn't do anything wrong,

we didn't do anything in violation,
but they really know what's at stake here,

because they've actually
prosecuted people for the same thing.

And the government's affidavit,
the affidavit from Agent Tarbell

about how they got
to the Silk Road servers

has been met with incredulousness
by the Internet community.

The Tarbell declaration,
to put it politely,

seems vaguely disconnected from the truth.

If you, depending on which
security expert you ask,

you will get it's vaguely disconnected
to the truth to something filled with...

it is a massive pile of bovine excrement.

What Tarbell's story was is he was
typing away at his computer,

visiting the Silk Road website and the
CAPTCHA was transmitted in the clear,

and he somehow saw the IP packets
go directly to the server.

And so he then connects to that server
and gets the CAPTCHA.

Game over, they found the backend server.

Unfortunately,

this was playing fast
and loose with the truth.

Because the logs provided
to the defense

show that what Tarbell found
was not the CAPTCHA image,

but instead a php MyAdmin page.

The server was running some stuff
over the clear, but not the CAPTCHA.

So Tarbell's story doesn't mesh
with the FBI's own evidence.

They hacked the servers and with that access
could essentially do whatever they wanted.

Given just the institutional pressure
to take this thing down,

it's naive to think that they didn't.

Of course, it's on the table
that this is how they discovered him.

He was dealing with Tor.
He was dealing with all these technologies

which we know are the subject
of NSA investigations,

as revealed by Edward Snowden.

It's at least reasonable to assume
that there's been this kind

of parallel construction or interference
or like not playing by the rules

that the state deals out
for you to play with.

But then again,
we all know that it deals the cards.

It runs the game anyway. It's not even...

It's naive to think that
this wasn't an available option.

The issue is whether the agent
could have done what he said he did.

The theory that's been
brought forward in a testimony

by the individual agents that did it,

they were able to manipulate
part of the server

to cough up an address
that shouldn't have been given up

and that address came back to Iceland.

And that server there was hosting
the Silk Road hidden service.

I think we're not gonna know
till we go to trial

and we may never know for sure.

There's always this balance of...

trying to be forward leaning
in your investigative techniques

and making sure that you don't
trample on rights at the same time.

You wanna stay well within the bounds
of your legal authority,

because if you step over the line,
the evidence is gonna be tossed.

It's not gonna be admissible in court
and you may wind up

jeopardizing the outcome
of an entire investigation.

And so I think what agencies
will try and do is...

they'll want to step right up to the line,

and maybe get a little bit of chalk
on their toes, but don't step over it.

Ross' lawyer made a motion to dismiss
the case based on the disputed seizure

of the Silk Road servers,
arguing that admitting this material

not only violates his client's
Fourth Amendment rights,

but would set a dangerous precedent
for the rights to privacy of all citizens.

The judge, Katherine Forest,
sided with the prosecution

stating that the Tarbell declaration
was acceptable.

And the motion was denied.

Search and seizure law
in the digital age is really...

doesn't have the limitations on it that...

it does in the physical space.

And we see it not only
in the search and seizure laws,

like what is the standard upon which they
can come and grab your computer?

What kind of searches can they do
on your computer once they have it?

Do they just get everything?
We see this at the border.

Or we see this at searches into arrests.

People now carry around smart phones
that have their whole lives in them.

And if they get stopped,
law enforcement is certainly right now

in a lot of places taking the position
that absolutely anything that's connected,

that's on that device,
including logging into your accounts

that you can log into from
that device, is fair game.

If the prosecution gets away
with this warrantless seizure

of Americans' data as well as
all these other foreigners,

it could have a lasting precedent

for how the Fourth Amendment
works in the digital age.

I think that that, in fact, may be the
most lasting effect of the Silk Road.

Generally, what happens
in the criminal law field

is that there's some case
of major proportion

that is used as a means of changing rules,

or expanding exceptions
to constitutional protections,

and once it's there,
once the precedent is set,

it then trickles down
very quickly and very easily

into all sorts of ordinary cases where,
you know, the ends justify the means.

Then all of a sudden, it's now spread.

The average citizen may say, "Well,
why is this important to me? Why do I care?

"I'm not buying drugs on the network. Nobody
I know is buying drugs on the network,"

but it's not just about that.

We're a democracy and informed citizens...

understand they have a right to privacy

and that the Fourth Amendment protects
against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Information has to be encrypted.

And that goes from a large corporation
down to an individual.

And so for those who are arguing that
information should not be encrypted,

certainly that makes it easier
for law enforcement to... combat,

but it also makes it easier
for the cyber criminals to attack.

It makes total sense that criminals
are among the early wave,

along with the sort of paranoid people,
of these new tools and services.

But that doesn't mean that they're
the only people using these services.

There are a hell of a lot
of journalists that I know

and regularly communicate
with now over Tor.

But you know, for the people
who oppose this technology,

who see it as a threat,
the fact that criminals use it

is a great way to demonize it.

I definitely do believe
that there are people in the US

that don't think that the government
is doing anything wrong.

It's not necessarily
something that you're

concerned with or that you
care too much about

or that you're really passionate about until
you're standing right in the middle of it.

And it's something more dangerous
than any website could ever be

is what our government has become
and how they operate.

This goes back to that
question of the government

kind of trying to treat
the Internet differently

without following the same
kind of judicial processes.

Well, the Supreme Court has proven
that they do not agree.

You know, recently with Riley vs California
with an illegal search of a cell phone.

Precedent can be set that will limit
their ability to infringe on our rights.

Someone asked how
her political views have shifted.

Because suddenly she's standing
right in the middle of Tor,

Bitcoin, the war on drugs,
online anonymity, encryption.

And she's had a... she's had
to learn a lot of different things,

and also not only
just the whole legal system but...

everything around
the technology and the case.

After over a year in prison,
Ross delayed the trial two months,

stating that important discovery evidence
he needed to examine

had only just been delivered
to him by the prosecution.

The FBI shut down what it calls
the most sophisticated

and extensive criminal marketplace
on the Internet,

but it may be finding new life.

The arrest of Ross Ulbricht
and closure of the Silk Road

did nothing to hamper
drug sales on the dark net.

Many new markets immediately appeared,

including a re-launch
of the Silk Road itself,

also run by someone calling themselves
the Dread Pirate Roberts.

And like its predecessor, the second
Silk Road also claimed a mandate

of reducing violence and harm
in drug transactions.

The Dread Pirate tweets, "Silk Road while
under my watch will never harm a soul.

If we did, then we are no better
than the thugs on the street. "

The new Dread Pirate Roberts told me
that he knows he can't be around forever,

and when he's gone, someone else...

he's confident someone else
will step up and fill the void.

You can take down the man,
but you can't take down the idea.

By this time, statistics appeared
claiming the first Silk Road had succeeded

in its mission of reducing
violence in the drug trade.

While I was with the Baltimore
Police Department in the early 2000s,

I had two city officers in uniform
killed by drug dealers on the street.

And there was a family of seven,
the Dawson family on Preston Street,

they were killed by one drug dealer in
one night, mother, father and five kids.

And so as the years in the early
2000s start moving along,

I'm continuing to think about this
from a place of violence

and beginning to realize that
our policies of drug prohibition

were actually counterproductive
to public safety.

The one thing that I signed on
for to improve,

to better public safety in our
neighborhoods, was making it worse.

And... I found

a large number of police officers and judges
and criminal prosecutors and...

DEA agents and FBI who think the same way.

If Baltimore moved
from street corners to online services,

oh, my God, do you know
how many shootings,

how many fewer shootings we would have
every year, which equate to fewer homicides?

Number one, it removes the... the buyer...

from the back alleys
and from the street corners

and from those dangerous places
of dealing with the seller.

Buying it over the Internet
where it's delivered to you,

removes you from that scenario.

One of the interesting things
that having an online market does

is that it makes sellers
much more accountable to buyers.

And one of the really interesting
innovations is the whole review system,

where buyers can review
the sellers and the items

that they bought from these
on these market places.

And what that does is it makes sellers
more accountable and it lets buyers...

it gives buyers a way
to assess both the quality,

the purity and the potency
of the drugs they're getting.

It makes these transactions
much more safe for the buyers.

But we're shutting them down,
attempting to shut them down,

because we will never shut them down.

We've been at this drug war now
for over four decades,

and what has happened since then?

At the beginning, it was just the cartels
and organized crime making a ton of money.

Today, they make globally
$322 billion off this industry.

Corporate America's also now in the game.

Private prisons, okay?
Corrections Corporation of America.

About a year ago they gave out $675 million
in dividends to the shareholders.

Drug testing companies. It's now become
a multi-billion-dollar industry.

And who gets tested?

Those who are in prison or under the
control of our criminal justice programs...

on parole and probation.

So corporate America's
making a lot of money.

What about law enforcement?
Law enforcement's making a ton of money.

The government's 1033 Program, you know,

where we get armored vehicles
and machine guns

and whatever we want
of the surplus military equipment...

that's because of the drug war.

Over the years we've seen these...

these huge bureaucracies
build up around the drug war,

around prosecuting the drug war.
You've got the Drug Enforcement Agency.

You've got the Office
of National Drug Control Policy.

So a lot of the opposition is just
rooted in self interest

among places like the FBI and the DEA,

where if you're telling somebody
who's been in the FBI for 30 years

that drugs are no longer a priority,
that's an existential threat to them.

That kind of takes away
their whole reason for existence.

You really have to think about
the danger of some of these drugs,

the severe danger of addiction,

the havoc that it, you know,
that it reaps on families

and, you know,
and children, and... careers.

And so to say that, you know,
we need to step back and liberalize,

well, but you... that's one
approach you can take,

but then you've got to look
at a cause and effect.

If we do this, what are the second
and third order effects?

The FBI, our federal government,
they're gonna go in

and they're shutting these places down.
But you know what? New ones just open up.

'Cause there's so much money to be made.

They'll continue to open up,
and it's just a dog chasing its tail.

We're a team, and we've been working
on this thing together right from the start.

The way it's affected me is in some ways
very much the same as it affects Lyn,

but I don't have to go out there
and talk to reporters.

And we've... we've kind
of set it up that way.

It's hard enough having your...
your loved one in prison,

but then the whole media thing is,
it definitely adds pressure.

I've known for a long time that the media

wasn't reporting the whole story,
that it was skewed.

I see what Lyn and I are doing
as a... as a pushback to that.

Ross has been in there a year
and he's avoided all violence,

even though it's been around him.

That has matured him for sure.

The fact that he's come out of this
unscathed so far, speaks volumes.

He seems serious.
You know, there's a lot at stake.

He's... feeling good
that we got the extension.

He had this mountain
of stuff to go through

and I felt like he was
running out the clock.

And now they have that extra
two months has made...

has been "essential" is the word he used.

And so I think he feels that, you know,

he's much more prepared and ready.

Yeah, he says he's ready for trial.
He's ready to go in there and win.

I have also matured in this last year.

Matured in my thinking
about ethics, politics.

When I became more and more aware
of what the drug war was doing,

the tragedy.

So many people have been
victimized by the drug war.

It's a giant mess
and it's a story that needs telling.

And we've got a pulpit,
in a way, to tell it from.

It's so weird to be doing
all this and it's...

distracting and it's challenging

and you wanna do the right thing,
and then it's all about Ross.

And then we go and we see him
and hug him and talk to him

and hold his hand
and it's just like Ross, you know?

It's such a disconnect, and...
it's just so hard to see him in there.

Being in the prison, visiting,
it's a very emotional experience,

because there are all these families there

and they get to see
their loved one one hour a week.

And so they're soaking each other up.

And you're in a room of 150 people,

sitting side-by-side, tight-packed.

And... there's just all this emotion

saturating the atmosphere.

The prisoners have segregated themselves.

But as loved ones coming to visit...

there's no sense of, segregation...
race at all.

We're just 150 people
whose hearts are breaking.

Of all the Snowden disclosures
that have come out to date,

the one that will have
the greatest long-term impact

is the revelation that the NSA
has been subverting

cryptographic standards and making
the Internet less secure.

That disclosure, those articles,

have radicalized
a new generation of cryptographers,

a new generation of computer scientists

who are now intent
upon building tools and services

that can withstand pervasive
government surveillance.

Did you see our wireless
from Barclay's Bank?

They like Bitcoin,
so they're supporting our work.

They're providing us
with free Wi-Fi from the bank.

In the fall of 2014,

as Ross was preparing for his trial,

a group of hackers,
programmers and activists

met in a squat in the center of London.

This gathering represented
the next wave of the dark net,

developing new and evolved
cryptographic tools

that would not be so easily shut down.

Open source is incredibly powerful.

Open source is responsible
for WikiLeaks, Wikipedia, Linux,

which runs all of our infrastructure,
for Firefox, for Bit Torrent,

for Bitcoin, for all of these...
for encryption,

for all of these real uses
of tech... not the yuppie...

Angry Birds or silly apps that...

these people, make, you know?

Open source is also an example
of how we can organize economically,

an example for the future,
to build the products we need

without needing proprietary industry,

without needing the points of control,

without needing masters
and slaves and babysitters.

It's not enough to build
privacy-preserving tools.

It's not enough to write
revolutionary research papers

and design amazing
cryptographic primitives.

You have to get them
into the hands of the users.

And I think in the future
what you'll find is that...

tools like Tor, tools like OTR,
like PGP, like Bitcoin

will be built into the services
and applications that you use

and you won't know they're there.

We want to empower the individual,
protect the small guy.

We have a mistrust of central authority.

We believe in freedom of information.

First of all, we have the centralized
drug marketplace, Silk Road.

Governments went in and shut that down.

And then up sprouted dozens of different,

centralized drug markets.

And in a game of whack a mole,
they shut down one and now there's dozens.

And now we're entering the realm
of decentralized drug markets,

with no central operator,
no central point of control.

What are they gonna do?

They're gonna continue
to do these kinds of things,

and even if it's a distributed network,

peer-to-peer is worked continuously by

the... state and local
law enforcement agencies.

And they arrest people every week.

On November 6, 2014,

law enforcement agencies around the world

launched a coordinated effort
called "Operation Onymous,"

seizing hundreds of dark net sites,
including the re-launch of the Silk Road.

Bruce Schneier, the cryptographer,
once said to me,

"You know, in this cat and mouse game,
the mice will win in the end,

but the cats will be well fed. "
I think that that's the way to see it.

This game is going to continue forever.

They're always reacting to us...

which is fine.

But once they're reacted and they've
shored up and they've figured out

"this is the new defenses,
you're not getting past this one. "

We're just gonna sit there
and pick at it and get around it again

We're always gonna win.
We're always gonna win.

There's a reason the Silk Road
was so powerful.

And I know the cryptos now are writing
the kind of automatic Silk Road,

and Amir helped do this.

This is now the peer-to-peer model where
there's no one individual administrator.

And seeing that as the weak point,
technically speaking, this is all correct.

But there's something kind of...

I don't want to make him a hero, like a...

I don't want to say that he's a hero.
But you know...

DPR recognized what was at stake,
and he was willing

to do the things that most of the
libertarians weren't willing to do,

because he was serious about...

I think what the Silk Road meant.

Three weeks before the trial,

the issue of the Murders-For-Hire
suddenly resurfaced.

The prosecution announced
that due to these allegations,

they would not allow Ross's defense to know
the identities of their witnesses.

The defense responded that using
these uncharged crimes

in these manner was prejudicial.

A hearing was called
to resolve the matter.

The judge ruled that some of the witnesses
won't be made available to the defense

until right before the trial.

It's based on her saying
that Ross might intimidate

or even murder people... from jail.

When all this first happened, I said,
well, it would still have been necessary

to say that, well, this man's a murderer
and he was only out for his own gain.

You know, he had... what do you call it,
a callous disregard for human life.

It's necessary to paint a figure
that way rather than to make him...

you know, a martyr of the war on drugs.
I think that's just good planning.

I think it's gonna be difficult...
to have a fair trial.

If you are innocent until proven guilty,
then with all the evidence

and all the stories that have been written,
I think it's gonna be really difficult to...

to find people who
are not influenced by,

by any of this at
all going into it.

The day before the trial,
Ross provided a written statement.

It was the closest anyone would
ever get to an actual interview.

Throughout my adult life
I've tried to stay positive...

and it's even more important
to do that now.

I'm up against
a very powerful adversary.

You know, it's all too easy to think...

that things are hopeless and to give up.

But they're not.

They're not hopeless.

I'll never give up hope...

of being free again.

Ross Ulbricht went on trial today.
A jury will decide a case that could impact

- the future of Internet privacy.
- Good evening to you.

Opening arguments taking place today,
and the first witness took the stand

and actually just got off
a few minutes ago...

A Homeland Security investigation
special agent

who testified saying...
"Thousands of envelopes of drugs... "

I think everyone was surprised
that Ross Ulbricht and his lawyers

took this to trial in the first place
instead of just taking a plea deal

like pretty much everyone expected.
And today, we saw why,

which is that they've actually got a pretty
compelling alternate narrative

of how this whole case has played out.

The story that Dratel is telling
that Ross did create the Silk Road,

which is an amazing admission
to begin with,

and that the real operator of the Silk Road,
the Dread Pirate Roberts, framed him.

It's a kind of theory
that I never heard posed before,

that instead of Ross being the Dread
Pirate Roberts, he was framed by him.

But in many ways, you know,
it's something I should've expected

because it's what the Dread Pirate Roberts
told me when I interviewed him

in July of 2013
that he didn't create the Silk Road,

that he had inherited it from its creator,
kind of like a business acquisition.

The FBI has told me that that
was Ross Ulbricht lying to me.

If it is a lie, it would require
just a lot of foresight and planning,

kind of like the... you know,
an amazing game of chess or something.

In the first days of the trial,
the prosecution presented evidence

that Ross kept a journal on his laptop
describing his involvement in the Silk Road

and that the Bitcoins seized from his
laptop came directly from the site.

While the defense would argue
that Ross abandoned the Silk Road

after creating it and that the journal
and the Bitcoin were planted on his laptop.

Andy, you interviewed
the Dread Pirate Roberts.

What's the evidence connecting
Dread Pirate Roberts to Ulbricht directly?

In the first couple of weeks
of this trial, which is ongoing now,

we've seen that the prosecution
has a very strong case.

Once they seized his laptop,
they found that he had kept a journal.

If this is, in fact, Ulbricht's journal.
His defense claims it's not.

He documented the administration
of this site for years.

He has a log book of daily activities.

So this is a really tight case
that's gonna be very difficult

for Ulbricht to squeeze out of it.

Underneath, in the deep web,

we have an area where this young man,
according to the government,

has made a decision that he's going to run

an illegal drug empire
and we need to stop you,

swift and certain prosecution,
and ultimate certain punishment.

As the trial continued, Dratel planned
to reveal the government's own evidence

showed they suspected multiple
people of running the Silk Road.

During his cross examination
of DHS agent Der-Yeghiayan,

Dratel was able to expose that the agent
had long suspected another person

to be the Dread Pirate Roberts,

going so far as to seek
a warrant for this suspect.

The protection protested
this entire line of questioning

on the grounds that it was hearsay.

The judge sided with the prosecution
and Dratel was no longer allowed

to question government witnesses
about alternate suspects

that came from
the government's own evidence.

When the time came
for Dratel to begin his defense,

he intended to use expert witnesses

to explain that the complex technology
behind encryption and cryptocurrency

made it difficult to prove that the journal
and the Bitcoin belonged to Ross.

The prosecution objected
to these witnesses,

claiming they should have been
made known earlier in the trial

and they were not necessary
for the jury's understanding of the case.

Once again, the judge sided
with the prosecution,

stating that this case did not require
specialized knowledge.

Without expert witnesses
and unable to pursue

the government's own evidence
of an alternate DPR,

Dratel's entire defense
was effectively blocked.

The trial ended abruptly the next day.

The trial of Ross Ulbricht
raised more questions than it answered.

Did we really know the full truth
of the Silk Road case?

Would this case set a precedent
for the warrantless search

of Americans' digital property?

Whatever the ultimate outcome,
it was clear that the fall of the Silk Road

was not the end of a chapter,
but the beginning.

And the movement to create tools
and services for online privacy

is stronger than ever.

The trial of Silk Road
mastermind Ross Ulbricht

concluded when a jury found him guilty
on seven different counts

that included three drug charges as well
as computer hacking, money laundering

and even a kingpin charge
of continuing a criminal enterprise.

Ulbricht faces a minimum
of 30 years behind bars,

but his defense plans
to appeal this decision.

Anyone here, all of us,

are going to be judged by things for which
there is no attribution in real life.

There's only attribution on the Internet

for things to be created, codified,
edited, moved, hacked.

- Was it a fair trial?
- No, I don't think so.

As the actual verdict was read,
the word "guilty" was said seven times.

Ross was just staring straight ahead.
I don't know what was on his face.

But afterwards he turned back
to look at his family

and he had this really heartbreaking
kind of stoic smile.

And he was just... he wasn't crying,
but he was just blinking...

like blinking hard.

And...

then as he was led away,
his mom said, "This is not the end. "

You know, that was it.

The evidence against
Ulbricht was so powerful

and Dratel's strategy had been to try
to cross examine every government witness

and to pull out his alternative story
through that cross examination.

And when the judge essentially
shut that down and said

you have to limit your cross examination
to the scope of the government's...

initial questioning, that really
prevented him from telling any other story.

We have a much more informed perspective
than the rest of the world.

We have meetings that we've had with Josh
through the last year and three months...

regular meetings.

We know about how he felt like he might
win the case, in cross examination.

We know that the government, that his
witnesses were blocked from testifying.

We were in the courtroom
and we saw what happened and the...

the travesty, the... appalling,

obstruction of justice that happened.

There was 5,000 pages of government
evidence to do with one witness alone,

Jarod Der-Yeghiayan.
None of that was allowed.

5,000 pages, and it was dumped
on the defense 10 days before trial.

Another 2,500 pages for other witnesses was
dumped on the defense a week before trial.

And it was full of exculpatory evidence
favorable to Ross

that was not permitted to be used.

All this great, huge field of evidence

that came out in the 3,500 material,
a week before trial, that was...

that would help prove Ross's innocence

was excluded from being
brought out in the courtroom.

It would have been a whole different case.
This was the trial that didn't happen.

- The trial that didn't happen.
- It just didn't happen because it was...

only the prosecution's narrative
that we heard.

So then what about the hacking
of the Silk Road servers?

What about the precedent issue
of the case?

We didn't get that far. We didn't get
to even have that kind of public hearing

where the FBI has to say how they did it

and then we get to decide
whether that was legal or illegal.

That's maybe the most frustrating thing
about this case from a legal point of view

is that American law enforcement
hacked a foreign server, I believe,

and they didn't have a warrant

and they completely got away
with it and nobody's even...

nobody even gets to ask
any questions about it.

- How is Ross through all of this?
- He's an amazing guy.

You know, he's handling this
so much better than I would've.

I don't know how I could've taken
what he's put up with

and been subjected to
in this last year and three months.

And we pray that...

his spirit won't be crushed by this.

It seems that Ross conceived
of the Silk Road,

that he ran it for its
entire existence online.

I actually accept that
the government has proven that.

But Ross Ulbricht...
is a fascinating character.

He invented this brilliant thing.

He had principles.
He wasn't just a cyber-criminal.

He wasn't just a drug lord or a kingpin
as he's described in these charges.

He was also an idealistic guy.

And I'm gonna be conflicted
about both the...

kind of virtue of the Silk Road
and of Ross Ulbricht as a person,

I think, for the rest of my life.

I'm not gonna be able to come
to a conclusion about this.

On March 25th, 2015,
a criminal complaint was filed...

against two former federal agents who
led the Silk Road task force in Baltimore.

Among other charges, these agents allegedly
stole over a million dollars in Bitcoin...

from the Silk Road and transferred them
to personal accounts.

The government did not allow
Ulbricht's defense...

to address this criminal investigation
during the trial.

On May 29th, 2015, Ross Ulbricht
was sentenced to life in prison...

without the possibility of parole.

I don't know. Got any more questions
or should we wrap it up?

Yes. What are you going to do
over the next five years?

In one sentence.

I'm going to do a few things,
so one sentence isn't enough.

But, I wanna... I'm pretty sure I wanna
start a family in the next five years.

Nice. Okay.

And...

and... yeah, make more friends

and close people I love.

Yeah. Focus on...

being more connected to people.

And... 20 years?

20 years.

I wanna have had a...

substantial, positive impact
on the future of humanity by that time.

Do you think you're gonna live forever?

I think it's a possibility.

I honestly do. I think I might
live forever in some form

by that time with technologies
changing so fast.

Cool. I hope I'm going there.

Sweet.

Someday, we could be a shining beacon of
hope for the oppressed people of the world

just as so many oppressed and violated
souls have found refuge here already.

Will it happen overnight? No.

Will it happen in a life time?
I don't know.

Is it worth fighting for
until my last breath? Of course.

Once you've seen what's possible,
how can you do otherwise?

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