Ross Ulbricht Pulls Out A 4th Amendment Defense For Pretty Much Everything

Legal Issues

from the that's-not-going-to-work dept

Ross “Dread Pirate Roberts” Ulbricht, the alleged mastermind behind The Silk Road dark marketplace, has been trying (and failing) with some creative legal theories. The latest is that his lawyers are basically arguing that almost all of the evidence was collected in ways that violate the 4th Amendment. We’re certainly big proponents of the 4th Amendment around these parts, and frequently lament the way the courts and law enforcement have chipped away at it (sometimes with dynamite). However, the arguments here seem like a massive longshot.

The key to the argument is that it’s somewhat murky how law enforcement found the Silk Road servers, and so Ulbricht is arguing that there was likely a 4th Amendment violation there, spoiling much of the rest of the evidence against him.

However, that event ? location of the Silk Road Servers ? is shrouded in mystery, as the means and manner in which that discovery was accomplished has not been disclosed ? indeed, it was not disclosed in any of the applications for warrants or other orders to search and seize ESI and other material in this case.

That presents a threshold issue: whether locating the Silk Road Servers was the result of legitimate investigative technique(s), or the product of some unlawful intrusion, digital or otherwise. It also presents the issue whether the magistrate judges who approved the searches and seizures were remiss in not at least satisfying themselves that the information upon which the warrant was based was lawfully obtained and/or reliable.

The more specific claims make some interesting points, but are likely to fall flat:

In addition, many of the warrants ? in particular, those directed at Mr. Ulbricht?s laptop, and his gmail and Facebook accounts ? constitute the general warrants abhorred by the Framers, and which led directly to the Fourth Amendment. The wholesale collection and study of Mr. Ulbricht?s entire digital history without limitation ? expressly sought in the warrants and granted ? represent the very type of indiscriminate rummaging that caused the American colonists so much consternation.

The argument, not surprisingly, is relying on the new Supreme Court ruling in the Riley / Wurie cases, about the need for a warrant to search mobile phones. That is an important ruling bringing back certain 4th Amendment protections, but Ulbricht’s lawyers are really trying to stretch it to argue that it applies to the warrants issued against him.

There may be some real issues in how the feds got access to the Silk Road servers, but to claim that other searches (and even actual warrants) were unconstitutional in light of Riley would require an almost ridiculously broad reading of the Riley ruling. That case involved searches of mobile phones that were on someone’s person — not a coordinated effort to track down someone they believed to be a criminal.

I do think there are some real issues with the case against Ulbricht, mainly focused on his liability for the actions done by users of Silk Road, but these kinds of broad attempts to throw anything at the wall are likely to be rejected, and can actually piss off judges who feel that lawyers are just trying to throw up a smoke screen.

There are important cases to be had in challenging various digital searches and how the 4th Amendment applies to them, but it’s doubtful that this is a particularly good test case.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, dread pirate roberts, ross ulbricht, warrants
Companies: silk road