On his first full day in office, President Donald Trump fulfilled a key campaign promise to libertarians by pardoning 40-year-old Ross Ulbricht, the creator and operator of the darknet site Silk Road.
Ulbricht was sentenced to double life imprisonment in 2015 and was convicted for “distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering,” according to the government.
However, libertarians, in particular, have taken up the case to “free Ross,” arguing that Ulbricht merely facilitated “peaceful online transactions among consenting adults” and was made an example of by a government still trying to navigate and understand the online space.
Notably,…
