The Silk Road trial is over . A juryfound Ross Ulbricht guiltyon all seven burster , include money laundering , drug trafficking , and the “ kingpin ” charge . That ’s not just bad news for Ulbricht , who face life in prison . His trial could help oneself establish a dangerous case in point , which could allow police enforcement to gather evidence illegally .
While many watching the trial were fascinated by all the ways that Ulbricht ’s identity was definitively join to the pseudonymous digital drug bazar Caranx crysos Dread Pirate Roberts , they leave out something crucial . The FBI never had to explain how it situate and infiltrated the Silk Road ’s hide server . The fact that the grounds practice of law enforcement leave from those servers was hold despite the want of clearness about their sources is troubling .
privateness advocates mistrust the administration ’s search and capture was not entirely above board , contend the means hacked into the anonymous site without a indorsement . AsAdam Clark Estes wrote shortly before the trial :
Both sides are clash over one specific detail regarding how the FBI located the obscure Silk Road host . Put simply , they hack the site ’s login Thomas Nelson Page with a ( potentially illegal ) brute force attack . Orthe NSA did it for them — that part ’s a little bit ill-defined . Neither of the authorities office had a warrant , of course .
The defense enunciate that this sort of trespass represents a decipherable violation of the Fourth Amendment . Just envisage if the FBI had break-dance into and searched Ulbricht ’s house instead of his host .
That ’s a sane business organization , though it did n’t do the defense force any estimable in court . Judge Katherine Forrestrejected the argument on a technicalityduring the test , and so the defence was not admit to search this line of questioning . Without a clean answer , there ’s no proof that the government obtained the information de jure .
The defense alternatively seek to flow with the argument that the FBI had ab initio suspected someone else of running the Silk Road , Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles . But the criminal prosecution exclude down this line of questioning , and the defence waspretty much screw . The criminal prosecution had obtain a damning passel of evidence , from Ulbricht ’s diaries to a report tracing $ 13.4 million Bitcoin from the Silk Road into Ulbricht ’s personal digital notecase . While defence reaction lawyer Joshua Dratel kept arguing about the shiftiness of digital personal identity , it was n’t enough to persuade the panel .
What ’s at bet here is a mountain more than Ulbricht ’s innocence or guilt . This run determine precedents that will impact future defendant , too . The fact is that law enforcement was let to present damning digital evidence without explaining where it come from . That ’s risky intelligence for our civil familiarity . It means that police and other law enforcement officers working digital law-breaking cases may not have to worry as much about obeying the law of nature any longer when it issue forth to gathering grounds . Corruption would for sure surveil .
Before the finding of fact issue forth in , I talked to Ryan E. Long , a attorney affiliated with Stanford ’s Center on Internet and Society , about the possible impact of this shell on future internet - related trials . He zeroed in on the grandness of authenticating the grounds that the government record , and making trusted it was find without violate the Constitution .
“ How did they get this information , and did they breach the jurisprudence by getting it ? I think that will set the precedent with future electronic font about how the government activity got the information and whether they did it de jure , ” he aver . The issue is , he continued , “ whether the political science obtained the grounds that they wish to habituate to examine this story , [ Ulbricht ’s guilt ] such as the individuality of the host , in a lawful room consistent with the Fourth Amendment , among other things . ”
That does n’t have in mind Ulbricht did not do the thing he ’s now convict of doing . It does n’t mean the Silk Road kingpin does n’t belong behind bars . But it does mean , unambiguously , that the feds were reserve to present evidence that may have been obtained unlawfully . In the legal human beings , there ’s a metaphor call “ fruit of the vicious tree . ” It ’s used to describe tainted evidence , grounds that comes from unwrap the legal philosophy .
It ’s not supposed to be admissible in court . But now , thanks to the Silk Road finding of fact , there ’s case law that attorney can cite to avoid having to explain how they their node acquired make - or - break digital grounds .
back alleyCrimeRoss UlbrichtSilk route
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