What It Means To Lose Your Freedom

A 2021 speech from Ross Ulbricht who was pardoned this week

As I’ve mentioned previously: I didn’t vote for DT but I am glad he won because, whenever I am able to suspend my disbelief and manage to go along with the politics-is-not-theatre thing (something I’ve been struggling with ever since I came to learn of a plethora of mass deceptions in 2020), I much preferred him to the other option.

And I did enjoy watching the inauguration with a few of my friends this past Monday. Surprisingly, for a sizeable chunk of us, including me (though my reason is I’m British), it was the first time we had watched a POTUS inauguration. The atmosphere whilst watching was jubilant; many of us were really happy and hopeful — we were all cheering and laughing as Trump behaved exactly like Trump would — and boy, did we need that: to be hopeful and to celebrate after the unpresidented (sic) nightmare that has been the last 4 years with Poopy Pants Biden, who I have actually heard a few die-hard Democrats describe as “The Best President Ever!”

(When the cognitive dissonance is real, double down, why don’chu…)

But the point of this piece is that DT did a very good and righteous thing this week, amongst a few others that I’m also really pleased about.

Keeping a promise that he’d made to the Libertarian Party, Ross Ulbricht, founder of the first modern darknet market, Silk Road, was released from prison after 11 years.

In 2015, he was convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

Ross was sentenced to double life in prison plus 40 years without the possibility of parole… insanity!

Stand-up comedian and Libertarian podcaster, Dave Smith, did a great breakdown of why the sentencing and Trump’s subsequent pardoning of Ulbricht is significant. Definitely watch it… (Smith is super sane, and I tend to agree a lot with his takes. And another one from this week, about Trump’s first full day in office, was also a really good conversation with his co-host).

Regarding Ulbricht, he makes the excellent point that, if we are going to lock up the creator of a website marketplace because illegal and illicit deeds were carried out on his platform, why aren’t we locking up the CEOs of telecommunications companies, or even USPS? Don’t drug dealers and child pornographers use phones and send packages?

And, the best question of all, why not the members of the Federal Reserve?!*

(*Now, that’s a question I often ask myself.)

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I teared up

Take a listen to this poignant speech that Ross gave from prison at the Bitcoin Magazine conference in 2021.

The first-ever phone call interview by Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, recorded while in a federal penitentiary. Following its release at the Bitcoin 2021 Conference, Ross was placed into solitary confinement despite having received permission to record it.

For those who prefer to read, below the video is the transcript which I edited for clarity. Emphasis mine.

BTW, even though he talks about Bitcoin a few times, for me, the significance of his speech is not what he says about cryptocurrency, it’s about locking people up… people who might be innocent.

Hello, this is Ross Ulbricht. I’m calling you today from prison, from a Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary. We don’t have much time together today and I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to talk to you like this. I’ll say as much as I can but when it’s time to go, I’ll have to hang up and go back to my cell.

I have lost my freedom. That’s what I want to talk to you about today. I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.

But first, let’s talk about Bitcoin. I was there during Bitcoin’s early days. Back then, Bitcoin made me feel like anything was possible. Bitcoin was open to everyone, right? That’s what I love so much about it. It was like it leveled the playing field. When the idea of Bitcoin really clicked for me, I got so excited. I thought, with Bitcoin I can try to do something that actually makes a difference.

And by the way, before I was put in prison, we didn’t have all these different cryptocurrencies and tokens, and everything. I missed all that. So to me it’s all one thing… the forks, the new blockchains, all of it. So when I say “Bitcoin,” I’m not making those distinctions. To me, it may sound kind of corny, but to me, we’re all one big family. So I was excited back then but I was also very impatient. I saw what Bitcoin could do for freedom and equality but I didn’t take the time to really understand it. I didn’t fully appreciate the principles it's based on. Things like immutability and consensus and, of course, decentralization. I had so many big dreams for Bitcoin and what’s so beautiful is slowly those dreams are coming true. That’s because of you. You are making those dreams a reality. You are doing what I didn’t have the patience for. These last eight years now in prison, over and over, I’ve been so impressed with how far we’ve come. But back then I was impatient. I rushed ahead with my first idea which was Silk Road.

Silk Road was a website I made when I was 26 years old, more than a decade ago now. It used Tor and Bitcoin to protect people’s privacy. I called it an “Anonymous Market.” At the time I thought, if Bitcoin makes payments anonymous and private, then what are we waiting for? Why are we sitting around talking about it? Let’s put it into action!

That’s impulsive. That’s a 26 year-old who thinks he has to save the world before someone beats him to it.

I had no idea if Silk Road would work but now we all know it caught on. It was used to sell drugs and now I’m in prison.

I was given two life sentences without parole plus 40 years. I’m a non-violent first-time offender but if nothing changes, I’ll spend the next few decades in this cage. Then, sometime later this century, I’ll grow old and die. I’ll finally leave prison but I'll be in a body bag.

I got a letter the other day. It was from someone I hadn’t met before. He was thanking me. He was grateful I had put Silk Road online all those years ago. He believed that Bitcoin wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for Silk Road. I’m not sure. For better or worse, Silk Road is part of Bitcoin’s history now but I worry that by putting Silk Road online, I made things harder for us. There’s no way to know how things would have turned out differently but I just want to say, to the extent that I made things harder for us, I’m sorry. To the extent that my actions led to drug abuse and addiction, I’m sorry. I was trying to do something good. I was trying to help us move toward…

THIS CALL IS FROM A FEDERAL PRISON

Sorry, this is prison…

… I was trying to help us move toward a freer and more equitable world but we all know the road to hell is paid with good intentions right? And now here I am: I’m in hell.

I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.

Let me start by telling you about The Hole. It goes by many names: The Shoe, Segregation, The Box. But for me it’s The Hole. The Hole is the prison within the prison. I once spent four months straight in The Hole. Not easy for me to talk about but I will. The Hole can make you or break you, and there was a time when it broke me. It started with my mind racing out of control. I felt like the walls were crushing in on me, like I just had to get out of that cell. This lasted days. Then I started beating the walls and kicking the heavy metal door. Something something deep inside me cried out for freedom.

I couldn’t accept where I was or what had happened to me, but eventually I realized I had to get a grip. The stress was destroying me.

It may sound strange but what saved me was gratitude. But what could I be grateful for in that little cell?

Well, I had to start small… um I had air, right? Maybe it was stale and foul, but I had air. I had water that didn’t make me sick. Food came through the slot in the door every day. I knew I wasn’t forgotten. My family… I knew someday it would be over and my family would still be there. I forgave all the people involved in putting me in prison. I had to. The anger I felt wasn't hurting them but it was hurting me. So for the sake of my sanity, I had to let it go.

I had a dream while I was in The Hole and in the dream I was free. I was in a park and I felt this huge relief. I wasn’t in prison anymore! Then I got worried. Am I out on bail, or something? Or are they going to put me back in? Are they after me right now? And I started trying to get away and the anxiety it just… it woke me up. And there I was again in The Hole. And it was like everything that had happened to me over all these years all came slamming down on me at once like life without parole, maximum security.

I’ve been in The Hole for months and there’s no end in sight.

I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.

My mother — this was after I was sentenced — my mother was invited to give a speaking tour in Europe she was raising awareness about what had happened to me and was looking for help. At a talk in Poland, she started to feel a bit sick and had to fly home early. So the next morning I called my sister from the prison, and the first thing she said was, “Has anyone told you about Mom yet?” I said, “What about her?” and she said to me in this voice… she said “Oh Ross, Ross, Ross…” and I knew our Mom had been feeling sick, and in that moment I just knew my sister was gonna…

THIS CALL IS FROM A FEDERAL PRISON

…my sister was going to tell me our Mom was dead. But she said “Mom’s in the hospital,” and I was like, “Oh, thank God, she’s not dead!” But then I was like “Wait… the hospital? That’s not good either.”

Technically, our mother had died. Her heart stopped at the breakfast table that morning. My uncle kept it going with CPR and she was rushed to the hospital. She was unconscious in the ICU when I called. It was a long time before I was able to talk to her and I didn’t know if she would live. We didn’t know if there would be brain damage.

No one would say it but I knew it was my fault. She had been redlining for two years since the day I was arrested: pushing, pushing, pushing every moment of every day for my freedom. Stress-induced cardiomyopathy. They call it Broken Heart Syndrome. I broke my mother’s heart and it nearly killed her. Pain I’ve caused my family... I didn’t… I didn’t think of them, not as much as I should have when I was taking those risks when I was risking my freedom. My Mom made a full recovery… thank God!

Eight years later she still pushes for me every day. But the whole ordeal — my imprisonment — has been devastating for her. And not just her: my fiancée, my father, my sister, everyone. They’re all hurting.

I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom. There’s more to losing your freedom. It’s more than being locked in a cage and the devastation that it brings to your family. Locking someone in a cage until they die, it’s such a horrific thing to do to a person. To lock someone in a cage until they die… the public — you — you have to be convinced that person is evil, that they are somehow less than human.

After I was arrested, another prisoner came up to me, a young man. He had a magazine, and he said, “Ross, they wrote an article about you,” so I flipped to the article and I’ll never forget what I saw.

It was an illustration of me of what was so strange was the face had my features and proportions but the skin had a putrid color. The eyes were bloodshot. I was hunched over like some kind of ghoul. I pushed the magazine away, I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t face what I was seeing. It felt like I could feel physical pain in my chest, like claws were tearing through me. The young man he said, “At least read what they’re saying about you,” and I said “Why? Why listen to someone badmouth you and lie about you if you can’t say anything back?” He got quiet. Later that day he told me they had done the same thing to him. Not on national news but in his local paper. They do it to all of us. So after I said I didn’t want to read it, he tore out the article and shredded it right into the trash, and he said, “I don’t want to read it either.”

That meant so much to me: “I don’t want to read it either.”

You see he gave me hope that you wouldn’t look at me like I’m some sort of monster. The caricature they created was a violent drug lord. That is not who I am. That is a lie. It’s a lie that was carefully crafted to justify keeping me in this cage until I die. It’s a lie designed to turn you against me, to turn your heart off. They lied. It’s on the record. They cheated. That’s on the record. They stole. Two of them went to prison over the stealing. They hid evidence. That’s on the record. They destroyed evidence. That’s on the record. They planted evidence. That’s on the record. At one point they were looking into how they could give me the death penalty. They wanted to inject chemicals into my veins that would stop my heart.

I had this dream where one of them was pointing a syringe at the soft spot of my neck, just under my chin, he kept getting closer and closer, and I backed away but my back was against the wall. Every muscle in my body was tensed as I strained to get away. I was practically climbing the wall as the tip of the syringe came right next to my skin. I woke up in that exact same position. I was hyperventilating, my heart was pounding. I could still feel the needle coming toward me.

Are you starting to understand what it means to lose your freedom? It means living in constant fear. Why is it taking me all these years to finally talk to you? I’ve been afraid. Even now, I was strongly warned against talking to you:

“You’ll only anger the authorities even more.”

“You’ll ruin what little chance you have left in the courts.”

Well, it’s not my intention to anger anyone. And yes, I’m afraid of retaliation. I'm afraid that, because of what I'm saying to you today, I'll be thrown in the hole or worse.

But I’ve learned that listening to your fears can be just as dangerous as ignoring them. Somehow eight years have slipped by. It’s been easier to ignore the lies and everything else, to just focus on getting through each day, trying to be strong for my family.

THIS CALL IS FROM A FEDERAL PRISON

But today, right now, I have a message for those that have been lying about me. And those that have been thoughtlessly repeating those lies. Please stop. You are hurting me. Please stop. You know what you’re saying isn’t true. You are hurting me and you're hurting my family. Please stop.

I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.

The irony is that I made Silk Road in the first place because I thought I was furthering the things I cared about: Freedom. Privacy. Equality. But by making Silk Road, I wound up in a place where those things don’t exist.

I’m not alone. These prisons are full of people who don’t deserve this. We are mothers and fathers. We are sisters and brothers but we’ve been made into monsters in your eyes. We’ve been made less than human.

And then, next to all that, there’s Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been transforming our world since that very first block in the blockchain. And let me tell you something we are just getting started wherever Bitcoin has been embraced anywhere in the world, freedom and equality follow. Bitcoin is the embodiment of Freedom.

So now look what we have on one side we have loss of freedom. We have despair and darkness, and on the other side we have Bitcoin. We have Freedom, Equality and Hope. The two can’t sit side by side so the darkness has to be kept out of sight, it has to be ignored and forgotten. But listen, here I am, I’m crying out from that very same darkness. This is a cry for help. My mother can’t do this by herself. And I’m crying out not just for me but for all of us. We need your help! We need you to care. We need you to look at the stark contrast between the freedom of Bitcoin on the one hand, and what it means to be locked in a cage until you die.

We have a choice, today, right now. Do we ignore what’s happening? The loss of Freedom? The dehumanization? Or do we wake up?

Listen, Bitcoin is strong. Bitcoin is powerful. We are powerful and our work is not over. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to take the next step. I’ve spent the last 8 years watching Bitcoin grow up from in here. I’ve seen incredible innovation. I’ve seen inspiring courage. We didn’t know how things would turn out for Bitcoin back in the beginning but over the years, I’ve been continually impressed what you’ve accomplished. I am proud of you and I have no doubt we can do anything we set our minds to. We are transforming the global economy. We have brought a taste of freedom and equality to far corners of the world. I know we can transform criminal justice too and now, today, I challenge you to set your sights on the hardest problems. I challenge you to shine Bitcoin’s light into the darkest places. I challenge you to set us free.

I’ve seen several of my friends go home after years even decades in prison. More than one overcame a life sentence. Each time it happens, I weep for joy. Seeing a person regain their freedom, seeing them reunite with their family… There’s nothing like it. It’s so beautiful, it hurts. It feels like a miracle. We need more miracles.

I have to go soon. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go back to that cell. I want to be there with you. This call… you’ve done so much for me today. Talking with you today is the most freedom I’ve felt in a long, long time. Thank you.

Thank you for giving me your attention. I will never forget this day. The memory of this day this can never be taken from us. Okay…

THIS CALL IS FROM A FEDERAL PRISON

… I’m going to go now. Thank you. Goodbye.

[APPLAUSE]

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