Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am so pleased to welcome back to KOA Maggie Anders.
Maggie is the host of Undoctrination and social media content
creator at the Fantastic Foundation for Economic Education. The website
is FEE dot org. Fee dot org. And before we
talk about what we're going to talk about, tell listeners
who might be econ nerds, like I am what's behind you, oh.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Ross, thank you for having me on again. I am
actually at.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
The FEE office right now, and behind me we have
the personal library of Henry Hazlett as well as Leonard
read So if you're a real liberty lover, you'll know
who reades.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
So just so listeners understand.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
From time to time, because I'm a nerd, I'll ask
listeners a question and then I'll say, you know.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Whoever you know, listener number whatever, who gets it.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right can choose between two books, and I'll send you
a book. And the books that you are allowed to
choose from are Frederick Bastiat's The Law and Henry has
Let's Economics in one lesson, and I have one hundred
of them over here under my desk, or what maybe
not a hundred anymore, And so that's has led and
then Leonard Reid. You've heard me mentioned from time to
(01:11):
time I pencil, which is one of.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
The most iconic, especially one of the most.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Iconic American essays in economics.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
So, gosh, what a bunch of economic history around you.
I'm a little jealous as an econ.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Nerd, right, and not to step on your territory.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
But if you want to get a copy of any
of those, hit me up on Twitter or at my email,
or just go to our website and we'll send you
something for free.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
For free. Wow, I can make it happen.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Wow, that's powerfeed dot org, fee dot org.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, you did a relatively long form for you video
a couple of days ago about Donald Trump pardoning Ross Olbricht,
and I had mentioned this just kind of in passing
on the show. But it's He's a very interesting carecharacter,
and it's a very interesting story.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
And you know, depending on where.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You are on some of this stuff, you either think
of him as a drug dealing maybe hit man hiring
criminal or a libertarian hero and crypto champion as well.
And there's a lot of overlap between crypto and the
libertarian world. But so before we before you tell us
(02:28):
what you think about this just tell us a little
about the story.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Oh yeah, I mean Ross Olbrich was like any other
twenty six year old young professional, except he was running
a secretive dark web online marketplace where people could buy
and sell any thing really anonymously. Right, And that was
a secret that Ross was holding on too from pretty
(02:56):
much everyone in his life.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And you know, he was a small art nerdy kid.
He turned down on a PhD.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
From Cornell to run this marketplace and pursue entrepreneurship. And
I think he did it because he was a very
committed libertarian and wanted to show the world what like
a truly free marketplace looks like. Eventually, the federal government
caught up with him. There was a DHS agent who
(03:22):
went by the name Cirrus who infiltrated the Silk Road,
which was the website that Ross was running, and became
an employee of Ross's. And they eventually caught up to
him at this library in San Francisco while he was
still logged into the computer. Some federal agents and plane
clothing start this argument nearby and distract him while another one.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Runs and grabs the laptop while it's still logged in.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
That's how they defeated a lot of these encryptions that
Ross had built into the system, and they.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Went after him with the whole book.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
They charged him with seven different charges, five of which
he was actually sentenced on, and none of those were
related to him being, you know, a killer or selling
drugs personally. All of them were related to what other
people were doing on his platform. But the real kicker
(04:24):
here is that Ross was using a tumbler to anonymize
all of these transactions. And so I think the government
went after him because they couldn't go after everyone else basically, right.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
They thought of it as money laundering, right, and the government,
and the government likes to Part of the reason government
hates cryptos so much is they want to be able
to know, not just no, but let's start with no.
They want to be able to know as much as
possible what you're doing with your money so.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
That when push comes to show, they can.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Control what you do with your money. I mean, that's
that's where this is all going to end up. And
that's why a lot of libertarians like crypto because it's
much more difficult for government to control one little tangential question.
You talk about Ross Olbrick in a very familiar kind
of way.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Do you know him?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I don't, but I will say this, it's easy to
feel like you know him because his mother, Lynn Olbrick,
published this website with all of his letters. On the website,
you can go through and read his letters from prison
to other people, and you really get a sense of
the state of his mind while he was in jail
(05:37):
and what his motivations were. I wish I could interview him.
I know he just got released and he's taking some
time before going on the Libertarian Pod Past circuit, but
hopefully one day I will be able to interview him.
I think I relate to him to a degree because
he was twenty six when he launched the Silk Road,
(05:57):
that's how old I am currently, and he discovered libertarianism
early on into his into college and that kind of
completely derailed where his life was going, as it did
to me, and I think for me it was really positive.
The difference here being that he was very entrepreneurial and
(06:19):
clearly had some high risk tolerance because he pursued a
very different path having come to these ideas than I did.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Personally.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
We're talking with Maggie Anders from the Foundation for Economic Education,
also known as FI.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
The website is fee dot org.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
She hosts a great video series called Undoctrination. Where's the
best place that people can watch your videos?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
By the way, I want to make sure people know.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Go watch them on YouTube. YouTube's are a great place.
I post all of my videos there. Occasionally I post
them on Twitter, so you can follow me there at maggiemota.
But Undoctrination on YouTube is a perfectly easy place to
find me.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Okay, so now let's go. Let's go back to the
story for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
In fact, hold on, let me look at my computer here,
because I opened I opened a web page that was
a reprint. It's a federal government archive web page about
from May of twenty fifteen. And here's where it says.
Ross Ulbricht aka dread Pirate Roberts was sentenced Friday in
federal court to life in prison. And that's what we
(07:26):
need to get to, to life in prison in connection
with his operation and ownership of Silk Road, a hidden
website designed to enable its users to buy and sell
illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services anonymously and
beyond the reach of law enforcement. Between January twenty eleven
and October of twenty.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Thirteen, Prett Burara, who is you.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Know as part of the I Guess the Obama Club?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Make no mistake?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
He said, Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer
who exploited people's addictions and contributed to the deaths of
at least six young people. Olbrich went from hiding his
cybercrime identity to becoming the face of cybercrime, and as
today's sentence proves, known.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Is above the law now.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So they charged him basically with money laundering and running
this website where other people sold drugs, and yet he
got life in prison.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
When he didn't hurt it without paroles.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
So yeah, go ahead, Yeah he got life in prison
without parole. They really sentenced him to two life sentences
plus forty years, which is an additional twenty more years
than the.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Prosecution even asked for in his trial.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
To me, even if you think he might have some
responsibility for the drugs being sold on his website or
what was happening there, that is a huge overreach. That's
going very very deep into cruel and usual punishment. And
for ross Is he's a young guy looking at spending
(09:06):
the rest of his life in jail.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
It's it's it's yeah, it's hard, it is it is
horrible and okay, so.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Just so again, so folks understand, libertarians believe that adults
should be able to put any substance in their body
they want to.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
It's not the same.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
As thing you should be able to then drive under
the influence, because then you're negatively impacting somebody else. But
as a matter of individual liberty, you should be allowed
to uh, treat yourself, hurt yourself however you want to,
as long as you're not hurting anyone else. So, first
of all, Maggie, are you do is that how you think?
(09:50):
And then my follow up question to that is, do
you think that Ross Olbrick did anything wrong?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know, I do believe people should be able to
do whatever they want to themselves, even though I'm actually
a libertarian that's pretty anti drug like I will, you know,
tell people all of the risks of drugs, and personally
like I wouldn't, I would not partake right, But I
(10:20):
do think people should be able to do whatever they
want to themselves as long as it's not hurting other people.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Did Ross do to anything wrong. It's an interesting question
because there.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Are claims that come up in the trial that he
hired Hitman Hitman to attack multiple people. Those claims were
never substantiated. But now there's this this rumor that's been
circulating about Ross for the past eleven plus years that's
really damaged his reputation, that he tried to kill people,
(10:55):
never proven, he was never charged with that crime. So personally,
I don't think he did anything wrong. What I have
taken that risk calculation myself personally to run that website,
probably not, and I wouldn't encourage other people to do it.
But I do not think he should have been sentenced
(11:15):
to life in prison or even a day in prison
for what he did.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, just so I think listeners know this, But I've
never touched in an illegal drug. I've never taken a
puff of a cigarette. I don't like any of that stuff.
But I do believe in individual liberty. So I'm not
a champion for drugs either, and I hope people don't
use them, but that doesn't mean I think the government
should prevent you from using them. An interesting part of
(11:41):
the story that you talk about in your video, and again,
if you're just joining we're talking with Maggie Anders. And
if you go to YouTube and search for undoctrination, so
like indoctrination, but with you as a first letter instead undoctrination,
you can find your videos in the video we're talking
about regarding Ross Olbrich.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Is one of the most recent videos.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
In that video, you talk about a couple of corrupt
federal agents.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you tell
this story?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Oh? Yes, Uh, the story of Curtis Green.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Probably even more maddening than just the story about Ross
Oldbric is what they did to Curtis Green and how
that totally tainted this entire investigation. So Curtis Green was
an administrator on the Silk Road, so he worked for
Ross and at some point the federal government uncovered his identity.
(12:39):
And so one day Curtis Green receives this package.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
At his home many brings it inside.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
It's a kilogram of cocaine sent to him by federal agents,
who then arrest him for possession, bring him in for questioning,
and get so much information out of him. I mean,
he tells them everything because he's scared. And so they
get the logins to several high profile people on the site,
(13:08):
they steal five hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoin crazy
and then one.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So when you say they steal it the these two
federal agents, you don't mean they impounded it.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
To send it to the Federal Treasury, right.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
No.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
No, they end up getting arrested for effect and corrupting
this case because they committed fraud. This was It was weird.
They were doing this thing where they were kind of
in the investigation but also on the side personally benefiting
from it.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
They tell Curtis Green that ross Olbricks.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Because Curtis snitched about all of this information, ross.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Olbrich wants him beat up, so they fake his.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Torture, They fake a waterboarding and send to take pictures,
and then they tell him that ross Olbricht has put
a hit out on him, and this is where we
get into the hitman allegations. So they pretend to kill him,
and Curtis Green then hides for the next year in
(14:15):
his home in Utah, thinking that if he comes out
of his house, he's going to die because ross Olbricht
will figure out that he's alive and that the hit
was fake. All of this was done by two rogue,
corrupt officers of the federal government who then end up
going to jail. But one curious fact of this whole
(14:38):
case is that none of this comes up during Ross's trial.
They bring up this allegation that Ross hired hitman, which
they never charge him for again or convict him of.
They bring that up, and I think it's to confuse
people about the kind of person that.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
All right, last thing, how does this story end up
getting in front of Donald Trump and getting Donald Trump
to pardon Ross Olbrick.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Right, So Angela mccartal of the Libertarian Party, she makes
a deal with Trump that he can come speak at
the Libertarian National Convention, and she has a meeting with
him where she tells him, listen, we want you to
commute Ross Olbrick's sentence. So he goes to the Libertarian
National Convention and he tells them day one, I am
(15:39):
going to commute Ross olbricks sentence and the room just
erupts in shears because Ross Olbricht is one of us. Right,
Ross Olbricks was writing to Porkfest saying I'm going to
be with you guys soon because he's a real libertarian,
like he's deep in this community, and so all of
(16:00):
this feels very personal to the libertarian movement, and so
a lot of libertarians actually do end up breaking with
the party and going and voting for Donald Trump. And
it wasn't exactly the first day he was in office, it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Was the second day.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
But the second day he's in office, not only does
he do a commutation of the sentence which would allow
Ross to get out, the next day he fully pardons him,
says what he did was not a crime, which I
personally believe some some non libertarians have an issue with that,
that pardoning, that he went a step further for Ross.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So I've got about I've got about a minute left,
and I want to share with you a text that
I just got from a friend of mine who's who's
listening and very smart dude by the way, he says,
life in prison was way too harsh. But Ross Olbricht
is absolutely guilty and should be in jail. When you
build a system that facilitates overdose deaths and doesn't remove
(16:59):
child porn, non gray, you share responsibility. I admire some
of the underlying principles, but the welcome tour is mind
boggling to me.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
It would be like al Capone.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Getting imprisoned for Rico tax fraud and then pardoning him.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean, I understand the perspective.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
I personally don't think Ross is responsible for the drugs,
and I also haven't seen proof that that the more
extreme stuff was actually happening on the site.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, I find the whole story was moderation. Yeah, I
find the whole story fascinating. One listener said, so, you
too are okay with cartels selling drugs on the internet,
and I responded to him, I said, you wouldn't have
cartels if drugs were legal, right, you wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
You wouldn't need all this.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
This violent turf particular right infrastructure, and it's not the
hill I'm going to die on legalizing heroin, Okay, you know,
if if I realized there's some downside there. But I
think this issue is more subtle than people think. I'll
give you the last seventeen seconds.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, and I'll just say, you.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Know, Ross himself was not convicted of selling any illicit substances.
There was a degree of moderation happening on the Silk Road,
which is why he had employees there to get really
rid of the really nasty stuff, but I do understand
where people are coming from that you shouldn't get a
welcome tour. I think we can come together in agreement
(18:30):
on the idea that the sentence they dealt out to
him was just too much and a large injustice was
corrected by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, I think the commutation would have been more appropriate
than a pardon, but it is what it is, and
in any case, it's fascinating story. Maggie Anders is the
host of Undoctrination. You can watch her videos on YouTube.
Just go look for Undoctrination. She's a social media content
creator atfe dot org, a wonderful resource and great website.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Thanks as always, Maggie, that was great.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Thanks so much. Fross
I am so pleased to welcome back to KOA Maggie Anders.
Maggie is the host of Undoctrination and social media content
creator at the Fantastic Foundation for Economic Education. The website
is FEE dot org. Fee dot org. And before we
talk about what we're going to talk about, tell listeners
who might be econ nerds, like I am what's behind you, oh.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Ross, thank you for having me on again. I am
actually at.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
The FEE office right now, and behind me we have
the personal library of Henry Hazlett as well as Leonard
read So if you're a real liberty lover, you'll know
who reades.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
So just so listeners understand.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
From time to time, because I'm a nerd, I'll ask
listeners a question and then I'll say, you know.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Whoever you know, listener number whatever, who gets it.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right can choose between two books, and I'll send you
a book. And the books that you are allowed to
choose from are Frederick Bastiat's The Law and Henry has
Let's Economics in one lesson, and I have one hundred
of them over here under my desk, or what maybe
not a hundred anymore, And so that's has led and
then Leonard Reid. You've heard me mentioned from time to
(01:11):
time I pencil, which is one of.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
The most iconic, especially one of the most.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Iconic American essays in economics.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
So, gosh, what a bunch of economic history around you.
I'm a little jealous as an econ.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Nerd, right, and not to step on your territory.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
But if you want to get a copy of any
of those, hit me up on Twitter or at my email,
or just go to our website and we'll send you
something for free.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
For free. Wow, I can make it happen.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Wow, that's powerfeed dot org, fee dot org.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, you did a relatively long form for you video
a couple of days ago about Donald Trump pardoning Ross Olbricht,
and I had mentioned this just kind of in passing
on the show. But it's He's a very interesting carecharacter,
and it's a very interesting story.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
And you know, depending on where.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You are on some of this stuff, you either think
of him as a drug dealing maybe hit man hiring
criminal or a libertarian hero and crypto champion as well.
And there's a lot of overlap between crypto and the
libertarian world. But so before we before you tell us
(02:28):
what you think about this just tell us a little
about the story.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Oh yeah, I mean Ross Olbrich was like any other
twenty six year old young professional, except he was running
a secretive dark web online marketplace where people could buy
and sell any thing really anonymously. Right, And that was
a secret that Ross was holding on too from pretty
(02:56):
much everyone in his life.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And you know, he was a small art nerdy kid.
He turned down on a PhD.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
From Cornell to run this marketplace and pursue entrepreneurship. And
I think he did it because he was a very
committed libertarian and wanted to show the world what like
a truly free marketplace looks like. Eventually, the federal government
caught up with him. There was a DHS agent who
(03:22):
went by the name Cirrus who infiltrated the Silk Road,
which was the website that Ross was running, and became
an employee of Ross's. And they eventually caught up to
him at this library in San Francisco while he was
still logged into the computer. Some federal agents and plane
clothing start this argument nearby and distract him while another one.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Runs and grabs the laptop while it's still logged in.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
That's how they defeated a lot of these encryptions that
Ross had built into the system, and they.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Went after him with the whole book.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
They charged him with seven different charges, five of which
he was actually sentenced on, and none of those were
related to him being, you know, a killer or selling
drugs personally. All of them were related to what other
people were doing on his platform. But the real kicker
(04:24):
here is that Ross was using a tumbler to anonymize
all of these transactions. And so I think the government
went after him because they couldn't go after everyone else basically, right.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
They thought of it as money laundering, right, and the government,
and the government likes to Part of the reason government
hates cryptos so much is they want to be able
to know, not just no, but let's start with no.
They want to be able to know as much as
possible what you're doing with your money so.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
That when push comes to show, they can.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Control what you do with your money. I mean, that's
that's where this is all going to end up. And
that's why a lot of libertarians like crypto because it's
much more difficult for government to control one little tangential question.
You talk about Ross Olbrick in a very familiar kind
of way.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Do you know him?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I don't, but I will say this, it's easy to
feel like you know him because his mother, Lynn Olbrick,
published this website with all of his letters. On the website,
you can go through and read his letters from prison
to other people, and you really get a sense of
the state of his mind while he was in jail
(05:37):
and what his motivations were. I wish I could interview him.
I know he just got released and he's taking some
time before going on the Libertarian Pod Past circuit, but
hopefully one day I will be able to interview him.
I think I relate to him to a degree because
he was twenty six when he launched the Silk Road,
(05:57):
that's how old I am currently, and he discovered libertarianism
early on into his into college and that kind of
completely derailed where his life was going, as it did
to me, and I think for me it was really positive.
The difference here being that he was very entrepreneurial and
(06:19):
clearly had some high risk tolerance because he pursued a
very different path having come to these ideas than I did.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Personally.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
We're talking with Maggie Anders from the Foundation for Economic Education,
also known as FI.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
The website is fee dot org.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
She hosts a great video series called Undoctrination. Where's the
best place that people can watch your videos?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
By the way, I want to make sure people know.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Go watch them on YouTube. YouTube's are a great place.
I post all of my videos there. Occasionally I post
them on Twitter, so you can follow me there at maggiemota.
But Undoctrination on YouTube is a perfectly easy place to
find me.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Okay, so now let's go. Let's go back to the
story for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
In fact, hold on, let me look at my computer here,
because I opened I opened a web page that was
a reprint. It's a federal government archive web page about
from May of twenty fifteen. And here's where it says.
Ross Ulbricht aka dread Pirate Roberts was sentenced Friday in
federal court to life in prison. And that's what we
(07:26):
need to get to, to life in prison in connection
with his operation and ownership of Silk Road, a hidden
website designed to enable its users to buy and sell
illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services anonymously and
beyond the reach of law enforcement. Between January twenty eleven
and October of twenty.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Thirteen, Prett Burara, who is you.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Know as part of the I Guess the Obama Club?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Make no mistake?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
He said, Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer
who exploited people's addictions and contributed to the deaths of
at least six young people. Olbrich went from hiding his
cybercrime identity to becoming the face of cybercrime, and as
today's sentence proves, known.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Is above the law now.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So they charged him basically with money laundering and running
this website where other people sold drugs, and yet he
got life in prison.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
When he didn't hurt it without paroles.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
So yeah, go ahead, Yeah he got life in prison
without parole. They really sentenced him to two life sentences
plus forty years, which is an additional twenty more years
than the.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Prosecution even asked for in his trial.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
To me, even if you think he might have some
responsibility for the drugs being sold on his website or
what was happening there, that is a huge overreach. That's
going very very deep into cruel and usual punishment. And
for ross Is he's a young guy looking at spending
(09:06):
the rest of his life in jail.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
It's it's it's yeah, it's hard, it is it is
horrible and okay, so.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Just so again, so folks understand, libertarians believe that adults
should be able to put any substance in their body
they want to.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
It's not the same.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
As thing you should be able to then drive under
the influence, because then you're negatively impacting somebody else. But
as a matter of individual liberty, you should be allowed
to uh, treat yourself, hurt yourself however you want to,
as long as you're not hurting anyone else. So, first
of all, Maggie, are you do is that how you think?
(09:50):
And then my follow up question to that is, do
you think that Ross Olbrick did anything wrong?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know, I do believe people should be able to
do whatever they want to themselves, even though I'm actually
a libertarian that's pretty anti drug like I will, you know,
tell people all of the risks of drugs, and personally
like I wouldn't, I would not partake right, But I
(10:20):
do think people should be able to do whatever they
want to themselves as long as it's not hurting other people.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Did Ross do to anything wrong. It's an interesting question
because there.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Are claims that come up in the trial that he
hired Hitman Hitman to attack multiple people. Those claims were
never substantiated. But now there's this this rumor that's been
circulating about Ross for the past eleven plus years that's
really damaged his reputation, that he tried to kill people,
(10:55):
never proven, he was never charged with that crime. So personally,
I don't think he did anything wrong. What I have
taken that risk calculation myself personally to run that website,
probably not, and I wouldn't encourage other people to do it.
But I do not think he should have been sentenced
(11:15):
to life in prison or even a day in prison
for what he did.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, just so I think listeners know this, But I've
never touched in an illegal drug. I've never taken a
puff of a cigarette. I don't like any of that stuff.
But I do believe in individual liberty. So I'm not
a champion for drugs either, and I hope people don't
use them, but that doesn't mean I think the government
should prevent you from using them. An interesting part of
(11:41):
the story that you talk about in your video, and again,
if you're just joining we're talking with Maggie Anders. And
if you go to YouTube and search for undoctrination, so
like indoctrination, but with you as a first letter instead undoctrination,
you can find your videos in the video we're talking
about regarding Ross Olbrich.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Is one of the most recent videos.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
In that video, you talk about a couple of corrupt
federal agents.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you tell
this story?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Oh? Yes, Uh, the story of Curtis Green.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Probably even more maddening than just the story about Ross
Oldbric is what they did to Curtis Green and how
that totally tainted this entire investigation. So Curtis Green was
an administrator on the Silk Road, so he worked for
Ross and at some point the federal government uncovered his identity.
(12:39):
And so one day Curtis Green receives this package.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
At his home many brings it inside.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
It's a kilogram of cocaine sent to him by federal agents,
who then arrest him for possession, bring him in for questioning,
and get so much information out of him. I mean,
he tells them everything because he's scared. And so they
get the logins to several high profile people on the site,
(13:08):
they steal five hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoin crazy
and then one.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So when you say they steal it the these two
federal agents, you don't mean they impounded it.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
To send it to the Federal Treasury, right.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
No.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
No, they end up getting arrested for effect and corrupting
this case because they committed fraud. This was It was weird.
They were doing this thing where they were kind of
in the investigation but also on the side personally benefiting
from it.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
They tell Curtis Green that ross Olbricks.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Because Curtis snitched about all of this information, ross.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Olbrich wants him beat up, so they fake his.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Torture, They fake a waterboarding and send to take pictures,
and then they tell him that ross Olbricht has put
a hit out on him, and this is where we
get into the hitman allegations. So they pretend to kill him,
and Curtis Green then hides for the next year in
(14:15):
his home in Utah, thinking that if he comes out
of his house, he's going to die because ross Olbricht
will figure out that he's alive and that the hit
was fake. All of this was done by two rogue,
corrupt officers of the federal government who then end up
going to jail. But one curious fact of this whole
(14:38):
case is that none of this comes up during Ross's trial.
They bring up this allegation that Ross hired hitman, which
they never charge him for again or convict him of.
They bring that up, and I think it's to confuse
people about the kind of person that.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
All right, last thing, how does this story end up
getting in front of Donald Trump and getting Donald Trump
to pardon Ross Olbrick.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Right, So Angela mccartal of the Libertarian Party, she makes
a deal with Trump that he can come speak at
the Libertarian National Convention, and she has a meeting with
him where she tells him, listen, we want you to
commute Ross Olbrick's sentence. So he goes to the Libertarian
National Convention and he tells them day one, I am
(15:39):
going to commute Ross olbricks sentence and the room just
erupts in shears because Ross Olbricht is one of us. Right,
Ross Olbricks was writing to Porkfest saying I'm going to
be with you guys soon because he's a real libertarian,
like he's deep in this community, and so all of
(16:00):
this feels very personal to the libertarian movement, and so
a lot of libertarians actually do end up breaking with
the party and going and voting for Donald Trump. And
it wasn't exactly the first day he was in office, it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Was the second day.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
But the second day he's in office, not only does
he do a commutation of the sentence which would allow
Ross to get out, the next day he fully pardons him,
says what he did was not a crime, which I
personally believe some some non libertarians have an issue with that,
that pardoning, that he went a step further for Ross.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So I've got about I've got about a minute left,
and I want to share with you a text that
I just got from a friend of mine who's who's
listening and very smart dude by the way, he says,
life in prison was way too harsh. But Ross Olbricht
is absolutely guilty and should be in jail. When you
build a system that facilitates overdose deaths and doesn't remove
(16:59):
child porn, non gray, you share responsibility. I admire some
of the underlying principles, but the welcome tour is mind
boggling to me.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
It would be like al Capone.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Getting imprisoned for Rico tax fraud and then pardoning him.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean, I understand the perspective.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
I personally don't think Ross is responsible for the drugs,
and I also haven't seen proof that that the more
extreme stuff was actually happening on the site.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, I find the whole story was moderation. Yeah, I
find the whole story fascinating. One listener said, so, you
too are okay with cartels selling drugs on the internet,
and I responded to him, I said, you wouldn't have
cartels if drugs were legal, right, you wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
You wouldn't need all this.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
This violent turf particular right infrastructure, and it's not the
hill I'm going to die on legalizing heroin, Okay, you know,
if if I realized there's some downside there. But I
think this issue is more subtle than people think. I'll
give you the last seventeen seconds.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, and I'll just say, you.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Know, Ross himself was not convicted of selling any illicit substances.
There was a degree of moderation happening on the Silk Road,
which is why he had employees there to get really
rid of the really nasty stuff, but I do understand
where people are coming from that you shouldn't get a
welcome tour. I think we can come together in agreement
(18:30):
on the idea that the sentence they dealt out to
him was just too much and a large injustice was
corrected by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, I think the commutation would have been more appropriate
than a pardon, but it is what it is, and
in any case, it's fascinating story. Maggie Anders is the
host of Undoctrination. You can watch her videos on YouTube.
Just go look for Undoctrination. She's a social media content
creator atfe dot org, a wonderful resource and great website.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Thanks as always, Maggie, that was great.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Thanks so much. Fross
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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