Latest / Monero Talk / Debunking Myths about Ross Ulbricht with Sterlin Lujan, Kenny Palentank, and Dan O’Neil | EPI 318
Transcript
- Sterlin Yeah so this is this is Sterlin coming in hot from the Monerotopia tent. I am pleased to be here with my good friend Kenny and also I just met Dan but Dan is here as well. You guys let's just briefly introduce ourselves and then we can talk about the discussion which is going to be about Ross Ulbrich, the case and the current changes that have happened in that case and where we're at at the moment. Sterlin I think it's important to discuss so Kenny you can start. Kenny Cool, thank you. Yeah, my name is Kenny Palentano and I'm a traveling chef, activist, writer, researcher. I just trust all the universe and try to show up and do the right thing as much as I can. And it seems to make life really easy. Kenny And crypto helps too, because I've been unbanked for 16 years. And yeah, basically, I've known Lynn for a handful of years now and earlier this year, like four months ago or so just felt something and some things fell into place. Kenny And I knew I just dedicated the rest of 2024 to Ross and things have unfolded so magically over the last couple of months. So anyway, yeah. We'll get to this. Dan O'Neil Hi, my name is Dan O 'Neill. I'm from New Jersey. I'm the central Jersey chairman and the chairman of New Jersey of an action now we've been flying their raw spanner for a couple years mostly because James Babb is he's usually the MC of most of our events and he's friends with Lynn and you know over the years we've got people to sign a petition and and come there and Recently, we had an event in Washington DC the enemies of the state event and we we got the ballroom There was nothing going on in Washington at all. Dan O'Neil There is no Trump thing. There's no RFK thing Nobody even wanted anything to do with the libertarian party. So we took the whole ballroom. We were gonna have enemies of the state Let's free Ross. Let's get rid of let's free Julian. Dan O'Neil Let's pardon Snowden and so we start calling everybody and free talk live gets on board and We get all sponsors and you know, all the Different camps get on board and we had a really good party on Friday now what we didn't know is in between there is negotiations going on and with the Trump campaign and now If Trump wins He said that he's gonna pardon Ross Ulbricht on day one now that was because of the national libertarian party and all these events that we've been throwing and Angela McCardle the national chair and this guy Kenny He's been probably blood sweat and tears for a long time This he must have tears in his eyes when he heard those words So it was like thunder and lightning when you were in that ballroom when that happened. Dan O'Neil That was really really cool, you know, so I'm just gonna introduce. Yeah, that's kind of where I got into this whole thing So it all snowballed Washington, DC a couple weeks ago when Trump said that whole thing and now here we are we're at pork fest and You know, we're having a good time tonight Sterlin Yeah, amazing. Thanks for the intro, gentlemen. So my name is Sterlin Luhan. I've been in the cryptocurrency space for a long time. I've been following Ross's case for many years. I've been friends with Lynn for, gosh, like 10 years. Sterlin I met her for the first time actually here at Portfest in 2015, told her my story about being arrested for possession of a lot of MDMA and quite a bit of cocaine. And that was an area where we were able to connect in terms of what had happened to Ross, right, was tangentially related to drug sales on the Silk Road. Sterlin And now we're going to get into what Dan was talking about, I think pretty significantly. But I want to assume that everybody here on the feed does not necessarily know all the details of the original Silk Road case, and they don't actually know what happened to Ross Ulbrick. Sterlin So I'll go ahead and I'll jump start this. We can have a conversation about the Silk Road and about Ross. So who is Ross? Ross started a website that is called a darknet market or a dark web market called the Silk Road. Sterlin And the Silk Road was one of the first, actually the first, real darknet market. And it was very popular for people to trade things like cannabis over the web. But also there was a lot of legal trades too. Sterlin The Silk Road used what's referred to as the Tor network, which uses onion routing. It's more anonymized on the the infrastructural level. But Bitcoin is, of course, which everybody used. We now know that was completely transparent. Sterlin Ross used the pseudonym, the Dread Pirate Roberts, during his tenure as the administrator, the quote unquote administrator for the Silk Road. Now, one of the things that happened eventually is, and we can get into the details of this, but Ross was eventually arrested at a library, Cleveland, San Francisco and California. Sterlin And he was charged. He was given the king pin charge, right? They were they were saying he was engaging in massive organized criminal activity and was a king pin, along with some other charges like wire fraud in a number of different, different related charges. Sterlin The insane thing that happened as a result of this is Judge Catherine Forrester handed him a sentence of two, two life terms in prison, plus 40 years. And now so I just gave a really broad overview. I'll let there's a few gaps we're gonna have to fill in here. Sterlin And there's some there's some myth, there's some myth busting that we're gonna have to do as well. So I'll let Kenny kind of start in on that case where he wants and we can discuss the case a bit and then we'll get into the current situation. Kenny Yeah, should we maybe start with the biggest myth busting part because like most anyone at least in the comments on things and stuff that if somebody's against the idea of letting Ross out, it always comes back to one thing basically, right? Kenny Didn't he hire hitman or didn't he try to hire hitman or didn't he get involved with murder for hire or some question like that is all with no details. There always seems to be that question, right? Which so there there's a story here, right? Kenny It was in the news. Uh, they charged him with I forget what it five counts or something. I believe there's some counts that they charged him with of attempted to murder for he tried to hire somebody too, but those charges were dropped with prejudice, meaning he can't be charged with it again without ever going to court without ever having evidence presented. Kenny But the story about like the charges, right? That was a story that was in the news. There's like front page news. It's mentioned in the books. It's mentioned in the, you know, the one movie that's really against him, uh, as like a major point that still exists. Kenny It was meant is brought up in the court case, even though it was charges that he had not been found guilty of, but they brought it up like it was a thing, like it was a fact. And so now there's still people that believe it, but we know it's very unlikely that we can't say for sure. Kenny Obviously we're not him, but it seems very, very unlikely, including like obviously the what's the, what's the gentleman's name, um, who still speaks out for us that that was supposedly one Curtis green. Kenny Yeah, Curtis green was supposedly one of the, I think the only named victim, uh, that they, they talk about, but he, he says that Ross wouldn't have done it and he still advocates for free Ross. And so the messages that was like basically the evidence they had was these messages through the dread pirate Roberts account. Kenny But we know at that time that had been compromised by among other things, a couple of corrupt federal agents who spent years in prison because of their corruption during this specific case. So it's like, it's just wild that that that's kind of the main negative thing that they still have out there in the world, unless people are really against drugs and like that sort of personal freedom, but that's largely changed in the U S it seems like. Kenny Um, but yeah, so that I feel like that's the best thing to just like get out of the way early is, is no, he did not hire people to kill someone. He did not get there. There's no evidence at least it was presented like it's not a case. Kenny Nobody was found guilty of this. It wasn't presented in court. It's a pure conspiracy theory. So from there, uh, yeah, I don't know, whatever you want to add on the case itself. Dan O'Neil I would just say, no victim, no crime. He created a website, and nobody was harmed in his website. It's like creating a car, and somebody kills somebody. After you sell a car, they might get run over or whatever. Dan O'Neil Is that the person that created the car's fault? No, it's not. So he created a website. It's a peaceful place where people can transact, and they don't have to worry about getting harassed on the street by thugs or whatever else like that. Dan O'Neil So as far as I'm concerned, there was no victim. There is no crime. Sterlin Yeah, absolutely. Couple of things that I want to add to that. So to Kenny's point first, the two agents, I want to get a little bit more, a little bit more detailed here. There were two agents, and I believe one was with the Secret Service, actually, and one was with the FBI, pretty sure. Sterlin Their names were Sean Bridges and Carl Forrest. And so one of the key points here, and this is really the case that Ross tried to make in court, is that he was hidden behind the name, Dread Pirate Roberts, and he didn't have control of that name throughout the course and the history of the Silk Road. Sterlin And now we know with some degree of certainty that these two corrupt agents had the keys to the castle of the Silk Road. They had fully infiltrated the network of the Silk Road. They were pretending to be drug dealers. Sterlin They were, they had all the keys to all the money, so they had all the Bitcoin flow and had access to that. And they had actually stolen Bitcoin. This is how they ended up in prison. They stole Bitcoin from the Silk Road, and then they were later investigated by, what's the, I forget the guy's name, but he was a major investigator in a lot of crimes. Sterlin He was featured very highly in Andy Greenberg's recent book, Tracer's in the Dark. The guy became the, his name will come to me, but he became the CEO, sorry, he became the Chief Compliance Officer of Binance, and he actually was an Af, he was, he's in Africa recently, and he's being held hostage by the government in Africa. Sterlin Anyway, he was the guy who put the two corrupt agents behind bars by using blockchain forensics. But the overarching point here is that these guys were very likely, if they had control of the Dread Pirate Roberts, they could make threatening messages to people, they could act like they're buddy -buddy with people, but guess what, they could also threaten to murder people and allegedly hire some hit man to potentially murder somebody. Sterlin So even if this was played out in court, of course the government wouldn't have wanted to try it because their people were corrupt and had a hold of the case. And this is the thing that really makes me mad. Sterlin This is where it should have been thrown out of court completely. What a complete dereliction of justice, right? A complete miscarriage. How can you, Kenny That right way Sterlin Yeah, right, right away. And so at the very beginning of the case, and this is part of the propaganda that I like to discuss too, they poisoned the well completely by talking about these murder for hire charges all the time. Sterlin Murder for hire, murder for hire, murder for hire Ross is this bad evil person. And people still to this day, and I hate that this is like a constant, it's a reeducation process with people just to say, hey, what you're listening to is still the government narrative. Sterlin And that really tells you how potent this information is, these lies, how potent they are, and how they are so insidious, and people just believe it and regurgitate it over and over and over again. But as Kenny mentioned, a secondary court, this is after Ross had already been given the hand of the sentence and put into prison, the secondary court dismissed that, those charges with prejudice. Sterlin And they were never really brought up. He was never tried for the crime. And that's very obvious now. So this is a big piece of that. Yeah, and the last little point I wanna make, and I'll let these guys have at any other element, is the thing with, oh gosh, where was I going with this? Sterlin I think I might've covered it all actually. It'll come to me. So yeah, I open it up to you guys now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On a roll, got excited. Kenny Yeah, another important thing to think about, so if it's a new thing to anybody, it's like this is what, 13 years ago, the Silk Road launch. Yeah, 13 plus years ago, 13 and change. The case a little bit more later is all happening in terms of the court case and stuff. Kenny Cannabis was still illegal in basically every state. No state had done any of the other legalizations or decriminalizations that had happened. The world has changed so much in that way in the U .S. But then there's also, if the claim is, or rather the claim is that because he was running this platform and getting these little bits of fees for the transactions, regardless of the illegal ones or legal ones, Kenny it was just for the transactions, it's him running this criminal organization basically. It's like a mafia, but he's at the top, which clearly when he would draw that out, it wouldn't look like that. Kenny But, well, now we know there's the recent thing showing Snapchat's numbers over the course of however many months at a time, this new recent study, but we know Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, all these platforms are used to sell drugs every day in numbers that the Silk Road couldn't dream of. Kenny And there's not one person from one of those companies who's ever gonna face a charge for that, right? It's so wildly unlikely. And yeah, so it's like there's so many situations where now, if Ross's case is the, if that's the actual, if that's the case law, then Zuckerberg is screwed. Kenny It's just a matter of when somebody takes that case, right? Because that's the current case law. So I think that it would be in their interest to help this shift happen and get him out and not have that be a thing, because, yeah, it's gonna be used against him otherwise potentially, because, yeah, their platforms are doing way more business. Kenny We can move on to the, away from the case or we can, to the worries and stuff, or we can get more about the case. Sterlin can move on to the next session. There's a few other myths that I want to take the time to bust real quick. The first one is that this idea that the drugs that were bought from the Silk Road actually caused harm and actually killed people. Sterlin In the trial, and we talked to our buddy, Derek Rose, about this. He was actually at the case and was there and was recording it and was doing the whole free Ross bit because it was a pretty high profile case, even at the time. Sterlin But at the very end of the trial, they had these witnesses who were these parents of these children who allegedly died from drugs that they had acquired from the Silk Road. And it was a big emotional spectacle. Sterlin They were in court crying, oh, my kid was killed. What actually turned out is that there was no corroboration between where they received those drugs and the Silk Road. So that was really manufactured. Sterlin So they manufactured the consent, to use Chomsky's term, of the population. And of course, this was another effort to vilify and demonize Ross for running the quote unquote Silk Road. And there's a tangential point that's relevant to this. Sterlin Ross, as a person, was supremely interested in anarcho -capitalism, in Rothbardianism. He was a fan of Ayn Rand, Rothbard, free market economics. He did this for ideological purposes, for this idea that people should be as free as possible. Sterlin He didn't want to see people hurt. He didn't even allow items on the Silk Road that could hurt you. I don't even believe he had any kind of weapons at all. I think they were mostly just banned. He certainly did not allow any kind of child pornography. Sterlin He's been hit with that as well. So he wanted people to engage with trades that were consensual and that couldn't be used to hurt people. Could a drug be used to hurt people? It could be used to hurt yourself if you overdo it, but then it can anything. Sterlin You can open your sink, get a gallon of bleach, and chug it. You're gone. That's not blanket banned. Anyway, so all this stuff is just used to continuously create this image, this negative character portrait of Ross, so that they could justify this egregious, nonsensical, bullshit sentence of two life sentences and 40 years in prison. Sterlin And I love to continue debunking this propaganda, because I still, even in these communities, there's people who still don't know all of the details. And some people may even be, they may have lingering doubts about whether he had actually tried to kill someone. Sterlin And even in the libertarian community, I've approached people who still harbor that kind of information. So yeah, guys, any other thoughts on this? Dan O'Neil So in the Ian Freeman case in particular, they like to poison the jury well. So they'll give all these jurors go up there and say that they stole my money through love scams. I think it was honey pot scams and Ian was doing this and doing that. Dan O'Neil But in reality, in the crypto six case, Ian had nothing to do with any of this stuff. They even proved that in the case. So what they do is they come in with these false claims and like 90 different charges and they make you look like you're an absolute monster. Dan O'Neil In reality, Ian was selling Bitcoin. He had nothing to do with anything that these guys were talking about. But when they poison the juries, when they give all these charges, that's how they win these court cases and they pin all this stuff on these guys. Dan O'Neil So the system itself is extremely broken to the fact that you have to go for a presidential pardon to get rid of some to get someone out of jail that never hurt anybody. He created a website. His whole life is ruined forever. Dan O'Neil Now, this is absolutely, you know, tyrannical what's going on. So, you know, that's all I have to say about that right now. Kenny Yeah, so it's tyrannical and so terrible in ways that are kind of strange even if you think about it, like the idea of sentencing someone to two life sentences plus 40 years without parole. So it's not like it's going to get cut short, sometimes it's like three life sentences, but you could get out in 50 years or whatever because they do allow parole. Kenny But with this, it's like, well, either it's ridiculous at like just a base, you know, like atheist mindset level, that's just ridiculous, or it's some black magic, right? Like they're trying to curse him into his next lifetime? Kenny Like it's just, it's just one of those things that just doesn't make sense to me. Like how could you give someone more than a life sentence with no chance of getting out? Sterlin Yeah, and another complete valid valid point just yeah, it's it's it's adding to put it mildly insult to injury, right? You're already going to die in prison. Now you're going to die again in prison down the road. Sterlin So, but this, this makes a really interest. There's an interesting point that flows into what Kenny was saying. So one of the things that happened in court, actually, is Catherine Forrest stood up there and she very specifically in court blamed his ideology, said that you believe in very dangerous things, son, you believing in these ideas is harmful to our country and to our nation. Sterlin And we want to see these ideas suppressed is basically what she said. I paraphrased the language. But this, this tells you, and this is even relevant for all of us here at pork fest that they, they want to make an example to those of us who are trying to make an impact to the state to those of us who are trying to achieve more freedoms, more human rights, more civil liberties. Sterlin And it's this it was that example that they set using Ross that tries to create those chilling effects that I always talk about to prevent us from doing the same thing and others from doing the same thing. Sterlin Of course, it doesn't stop that because when you have a market, this gets a little preachy, right? When you have a market for anything and somebody wants something, they're going to get it on that market. Sterlin Just because you create prohibitions, that's not going to stop it, right? We saw what happened during the prohibition era, right? It literally created Al Capone and all of the where all the bloodshed, the St. Sterlin Valentine's Day massacre, all that stuff is a result of government intervention on a free market. And it's absolute nonsense. So okay, okay, soapbox soapbox, dial down the soapbox a little bit. So okay, let's, we can switch gears. Sterlin Now, I think we, we've dismantled the primary myths surrounding Ross and all the nonsense and the shenanigans and the black magic and occultism that they've lived, that they've leveraged. So let's talk about the good news. Sterlin Where are we at in the current situation? And Kenny and Dan are both probably the previous preeminent experts on this, I would, I would say. So what, I'll start with this. So Ross, in his legal struggles, of course, he was convicted. Sterlin He, he tried to have that, he pushed an appeal in a lower circuit court, that appeal was ultimately rejected. And then they appealed again in the Supreme Court, and it was rejected. And it was, it was all, I mean, of course, they weren't going to try to free Ross at that point. Sterlin We already established how demonized he was. So now I'll open this up to Kenny, if you want to give an example and an idea of where we're at now, how the, how the mindset has changed, and maybe where we're at in terms of the, is the well less poisoned now? Sterlin Are things changing? Kenny Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, like I mentioned briefly earlier, just the piece of like all the states have legalized or decriminalized things. Obviously, the world has shifted in those ways. Obviously, crypto, like Bitcoin was, you know, what sub $25 when the Silk Road launched. Kenny Now, it's, you know, $67 ,000 today, I think something like 66 such in change. So obviously, the whole setting around this has changed a lot. And then the biggest things in the case itself, the change is now Trump has said that he will free Ross if he's elected. Kenny RFK has said that he will free Ross if he's elected. The libertarian candidate always does. But like, here we've got everyone in the major or, or and even some not so major parties, except Biden now have already said that they'll free Ross. Kenny So that's a obviously, then there's a massive change that has happened from doing everything they can to demonize this guy's name, to feeling comfortable saying that they will even it whether or not someone will do it or whether or not they'll get elected, feeling comfortable saying they will do it and not getting much backlash at all online or in polls from it. Sterlin Before I let Dan, I just want to mention one thing. So the reason Kenny brings up this idea of Ross getting a presidential pardon or having his sentence commuted, that's where we're at. After the appeals fell through, there's no court -based or legal -based approach that Ross can take to garner his freedom. Sterlin So that case, in that regard, is said and done. The only way he's ever going to see the light of day in the current governmental environment is to have a presidential commutation of a sentence or a full presidential pardon. Sterlin So that's where we're at right now. And I'd like Dan to add to the conversation. Dan O'Neil So from what I understand right now going on is there's been negotiations since about last July with the national libertarian party holding with Angela McArdle and Trump campaign. And so I think where it's at right now, Trump understands the case. Dan O'Neil He's been briefed on it when he got up on the stage the other day. He was very specific about a bunch of things. So this isn't just some random thing that someone was talking about. He went to the libertarian party for help. Dan O'Neil He needs he wants everyone there to work for him. If you live in the red states, vote for Trump, you live in the blue states, vote for Chase Oliver. That's what Angela is saying to everybody. So that's the best plan to get Ross out of jail right now. Dan O'Neil So I haven't voted in eight years, but the clown shows in and we can get Ross out of jail. I'll vote for whoever will get Ross out of jail. So that's kind of where we're at with that. And I think that's going to be the first thing he says he's going to do on November 5th. Dan O'Neil So I think that we should plan on welcoming Ross on November 5th. We should get this to happen and let's get him out of jail. Let's let's get this guy home. Sterlin Yeah, there's an interesting discussion that I think we have to have around this, and it's about, and just for the record, I agree with Dan. I think that this is, since it's the only choice, I definitely think we probably have to make a vote for Trump. Sterlin If I have to sacrifice my principles for just one moment, it's going to be for Ross, it's going to be for his liberty, and it's going to be for human decency. But I will say this, I've always been skeptical of the political solutions. Sterlin We've also seen that Trump hasn't always been the most honest, but I would make the case that no politician is completely honest. But he did go up there in person after he has people like Vivek Ramaswamy and others whispering into his ear, telling him that he needs to free Ross. Sterlin So I think some could conceive of this idea as a long shot, but if it's a long shot that gets Ross free, I'm willing to take that long shot. And as nobody, formerly Rich Paul, has said here at the event, I spoke with him for a bit about the case, and he said, what this really is is a hostage negotiation, a hostage situation. Sterlin Ross is a political prisoner, he's a hostage of the state, and Trump has offered a deal that he wants to make with us libertarians. So if he wants to get into office and play his political game, if he lets Ross free, I'm willing to take a blow. Sterlin Because like Dan, I haven't voted in God, I can't even remember, it's been at least the same amount of years, maybe a bit more. I think maybe Ron Paul was the last time that I voted, because that's the mindset I've always had, that this, you know, trying to vote to create change is not great. Sterlin But if we can get the hostages freed, we're going to definitely do that. Kenny Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like we also, you know, we have five months, four and a half months until then. And the volume is going to keep going up. Like it all becomes feedback loops. People from RFK saying it just heard the story for the first time. Kenny People from Trump saying it just heard the story for the first time. There's all the different elements being hit that way. And it becomes more and more of a realistic thing that the Democrats, whoever, you know, whoever's pulling Biden's strings, has Biden sign a commutation to take that away from Trump because a lot of libertarians that would vote for Trump to get Ross out will not vote for Trump if Ross is already out. Kenny So I feel like if it gets to that point, yet a lot of people are going to do it and he'll win unless they totally steal the election. And then hopefully he frees Ross. And between now and then, I think there's a very good chance that assuming, because supposedly the Biden campaign is now having conversations with people in crypto, I don't know who they're talking to, but you know, they're like making these attempts because they're seeing the money and the votes and stuff that go along with the crypto community. Kenny And yeah, I think that that's a very realistic thing that like rather than like Ross is starting off as a major election topic this year, and he could be like a foregone conclusion long before the election. Kenny And that would be awesome. Either way, if we get him out, it's awesome. But like having him out beforehand and he gets to like watch all of that play out, like that would be great. Sterlin Got anything else? Dan O'Neil So you're saying if Biden, we challenge Biden right now to free Ross. So Biden, if you want a free Ross today, we're all going to vote for you. That's our, that's we're going to challenge them today. Kenny I mean even just people not voting for Trump is like would be so it would be such a huge swing for him and not just Trump Right Trump, RFK and chaser all saying it So it's like he can take that piece away for that bargaining chip away from every one of his opponents in one move And he's the only one in the position to do it. Kenny Everybody else has to win, but they're just making promises Biden can just do it. He's like tonight or you know, it's weekend Monday morning. He could pop out and be like Ross is free And then stumble off somewhere and there we go Sterlin Yeah, I mean what it boils down to it at the end of the day, you know, this is one of the things that Lynn and I have talked about a bit and she talks about a whole lot. This isn't just a an abstract political thing, right? Sterlin This is a human life. This is Ross's life and you know, Ross is just an amazing, an amazing human being on a fundamental level, aside from his principles that we all share and agree with. He's actually in prison trying to help the inmates. Sterlin He has taught people how to read. He spends his time writing letters, sending letters back to people. He's just overall been a force for good in that particular environment as an agent for change and helping to educate the prison population and he's written art, just done a bunch of amazing things. Sterlin He keeps us updated through his mom via social media all the time and every time I see that stuff and he talks about I've been in prison all these days. It's my 40th birthday. When it was his 40th birthday, it was his birthday and it was just a really difficult post he made. Sterlin I've been behind bars all this time but I try to, he tries to stay as optimistic and upbeat as possible given the dire awful circumstances because he's in a maximum security prison, right? Which is the worst of the worst where they put the truly heinous people which Ross does not fit that mold at all in terms of his character and who he is so that really hurts me. Sterlin I've sent him a letter, letters a couple of times. It's been a while since I sent one so I should probably send another one but I really recommend if you guys want to, anybody who's watching, we can get you the information so you can write Ross. Kenny it's on freeross .org yeah yeah just go to freeross .org and there's a thing for with the the address to send to him he's at yeah yeah he's at oh yeah and the petition obviously uh five hundred and ninety thousand six hundred or something like that uh signatures so far on the petition we're trying to get over 600k as soon as we can to have that next big checkpoint obviously so go sign the petition uh freeross is where everything is at and i know yeah he's in usb tucson now he was in colorado for years and uh one of the you know just more of that insult to injury usb tucson has the highest population of sex offenders in the u .s prison system uh so it's just one of those things there's like he's in there with mostly highly violent and largely sex offender population as someone with as you've mentioned no victims in his case Dan O'Neil This is a horrible case of American justice in every which way and I think like it's a chilling effect so they're basically making an example of Ross Ulbrich and he was one of the first ones. Roger Veer he got arrested a few weeks ago and you know a lot of similar things I mean he created there's no victims with him either. Dan O'Neil Now what they do is they're hunting everybody down and they're just trying to scare everybody for basically using peer -to -peer permissionless money right creating websites and this is this is why Bitcoin was created in the first place to be able to have peaceful transactions and a peaceful marketplace and this is what all the and this is what it's for. Dan O'Neil Now when we're going around arresting everybody and all the basically leaders in the libertarian community the freedom community everywhere is it Roger John McAfee died in the same jail that Rogers in right now and I think Rogers out at the moment but I'm not sure the situation is great. Dan O'Neil I think there's still a court case to be coming right and Snowden is still in Russia right now he's still waiting for a pardon Julian Assange on July 10th I get he's waiting for an extradition so we have a lot of people that are behind bars that have done nothing to anybody now Ross is the extreme case I think to be completely honest you know just a young man an artist a philosopher you know just helping people out and you're just crucifying this guy ruining his whole life. Sterlin Well said. Yeah, so I think we'll probably move to the end of the segment. I think we've probably covered the most valuable information for everyone. I do want to just echo as kind of, and I think what we'll do is have our last words here. Sterlin So I want to echo what Dan said in the sense that looking at this from a bird's eye view, what's happening is there's this massive attack on the cryptocurrency industry that was really, you know, the Ross -Olber case was one of the first to catalysts for the whole thing in terms of these guys in government completely targeting people in crypto and coming after them because cryptocurrency represents a threat to the status quo. Sterlin It's a grievous injury to the system. Even Bitcoin, which has largely been hijacked, still exists in an adversarial environment with a limited number of coins that people constantly exit out of. So even in its current situation, I still think it is a detriment to the U .S. Sterlin government and the regimes that exist around the world. But we have to keep, even with all this negativity happening, there are, there are, there are chinks in the armor, there's light shining at the end of the tunnel, and we just have to keep pushing forward, promoting more, more freedom, having events like this, getting together, talking about it, and continue to ruffle feathers in terms of the people who aren't really thinking about the importance of these issues and where we're at. Sterlin So really thank you guys for joining me on this panel here at Porkfest at the Monarotopia 10. It's absolutely amazing. So, yeah, you guys, any last thoughts or considerations, we'll wind her down. Kenny Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Like on the point that you're making about, and like I was saying, like the turning up of the volume, like there's, like you come to an event like this and see how many shirts, how many buttons, how many signs people have, like how present Free Ross is, you look at the different events that you're putting on, the different, like there's so much happening. Kenny You know, I came out here basically representing a little group called Free Ross Now, and our whole focus is Free Ross Now. And so it's like just supporting anybody that's doing other things, whatever it is, you know, we're finding out about, we go rate it on Twitter, cause it's a lot of online based stuff. Kenny It's that kind of community. But we've got, you know, Illuminati Congo made a Free Ross song that came out a couple months ago. Derek Brose or 33 is his music name. His Free Ross song came out yesterday. Kenny It's actually Free the Warriors. Obviously talked about most of the guys that we just mentioned and some others, Daniel Hale and Leonard Peltier. And you know, there's the Free Knots are working on a song. Kenny Jordan Page's song is done, but just waiting to release. Like there's so much happening. Derek's working on a new documentary about Ross. I'm working with the Alex Jones meme coin community. They make a little cartoon, Alex Jones episodes. Kenny We're making a like 12 minute like mini documentary about Ross for more of that audience. Like that isn't down to watch things for an hour and has never heard of Derek. You know, and there's other people all over the country and the world doing various things. Kenny And then a bunch of us are starting to connect to do other things. And it's like, nevermind the political side. There's just so much happening around Ross and most of it all started independently of each other and then coming together. Kenny And it's just like some, it's one of those beautiful things you can just tell there's a shift in the wind or the whatever you wanna, however you wanna say it, right? Like something has shifted and we all caught that and drifted with it. Kenny And I think Ross is gonna be, you know, what was the hashtag? We, you know, Ross, Free Ross by 41. Yeah, so like Ross will be out before his next birthday. And I just feel like that's such a realistic thing right now. Kenny And yeah, it's gonna happen. Dan O'Neil It's funny, we were saying that because when we were organizing that party in Washington, um, when I was going into the big ballroom that night, I had nothing prepared for that. So I was thinking to myself, um, you know, we prepared all this stuff, uh, banners, signs and everything else. Dan O'Neil When I got in there, someone handed me a free raw sign. They were handing everybody free raw signs. It wasn't me. And that made me so happy. It was someone named Kathy and it was probably this guy from Arizona and they were everywhere. Dan O'Neil And you know what? That's exactly what you were talking about. All these random groups, me, you guys, Kathy, we converged in this one place at one time and then it was a great night. So that was really cool. Kenny So good. Sterlin Yeah, thanks guys again. This was the Monero topia Monero talk. It's going to be online. We're going to share it So hopefully share this video with your friends with this is a This is a mission critical goal that we have to free Ross. Sterlin So Kenny's absolutely right free Ross now Dan had a completely valid points and thanks for putting on the shows and the the events that you put on that help Spearhead this movement. I couldn't think of a A greater mission that we can have in our lives right now than trying to free Ross. Sterlin That's that's even to me To some degree that's even more important right now than our greater mission for for complete and total liberty free Ross first Kenny Just thinking about the good that he can do in the world once he gets out, you know, this is one of the great minds of our time that I think there's like punishing him using him as an example in that way and also seeing the potential in what he could be doing to disempower them right now and Yeah, hopefully, you know, obviously yeah, he'll have time to relax and you know, but I just see him being someone that people have great stories about in whatever kind of schooling they do and there'll be statues of him and shit in the future because he's gonna be the One that figures out time travel or something Who knows? Dan O'Neil so much. You don't want to do like Q &A, really, either, yeah. Sterlin Oh yeah, we. Speaker 4 do you want to do it yeah i think we still got Sterlin I mean, we could do. Dan O'Neil Yeah, does anybody have any questions or anything they want to throw out there? Speaker 5 More of a comment, but I was thinking about Richard's point the other day about the internet being a nation in a way, or Bitcoin, not Bitcoin, but crypto, us people being a nation. And it sort of seems like, in a lot of ways, the first test of our foreign policy in that it's just like the, it's just dawning on me now. Speaker 5 The case recently where, similar in a lot of ways, that Olympian, that woman, went to Russia and had a very minute amount of marijuana on her, THC, whatever, and was arrested in Russia and the US as a sovereign political entity, bargained with the Russians and did their thing. Speaker 5 But it feels, in a lot of ways, like that's the same thing that's happening now, in a lot of ways. And there's criticism of us, to some extent, that we're becoming involved in the political process. But I also feel like there is this unity that we are finding in ourselves as a nation of crypto people, of libertarians, that I don't think I've really thought about before. Speaker 5 And I don't think, I don't know, I'm not sure if I'm getting anywhere or, but that's kind of the thought that popped in my head just now. Kenny I don't know, in response to that? Sterlin No, I get where you're going exactly with that brother. That's a really good point. This whole idea that that crypto or Bitcoin Bitcoin specifically right looks almost like it's whole It's a whole governance structure and that's just true Technologically, but now it's true in the sense of being able to negotiate With the with the government and that's kind of how I see it I don't really see it as engaging in the political process I see it as having a gun to our head in terms of a hostage negotiation, Sterlin right? We don't want our our hostage to be killed right by the by the system by the criminals So the hope is is that we you know, try to Try to negotiate and give him what he wants and you know, we get what we want and that's ross back. Sterlin Good points, brother Kenny Yeah, and I feel like that element of being able to play them against each other a bit with the like, that's like, we don't even have to be sneaky about it, but that's like our intelligence or something, right, like that's us stirring things up between them to get what we want, like the CIA does around the world all the time, but we don't even have to be sneaky about it, we can just like shout it at him, Kenny hey, look what he's doing, you should stop him. Or do the same thing rather. And that's how I'm going to do it before I end. Sterlin We'll be right back. Speaker 4 I really love what you were saying about as far as pitting the candidates against each other. I mean, I'll be honest, I don't like to play the hostage game. I don't want to vote for the UNI party. So I like what was said about, hey, there's some efforts in trying to get Ross freed now, because at the end of the day, I really don't want to vote for any of the UNI party. Speaker 4 So how can I contribute to that effort? The free Ross now, which is really convincing Biden, is there anything that I can do? Who can I talk to to get that to happen before the election so I can make a vote for someone? Speaker 4 And I think everybody can vote for someone they actually want to vote for, not because they've got a gun to their head. Speaker 5 Thank you. Kenny Yeah, I mean, so, you know, there's so many angles that can be taken from one thing that comes to mind is anybody that wants to do writing of, you know, letters or postcards or whatever somebody might do in that way to reach out, especially if you're in a Democrat state like in a blue state or if it's straight to the president, you know, because they keep track of kind of the numbers of what topics the letters are coming into the White House about at least that sort of thing. Kenny Signing the petition is the other side, you know, the big more numbers that hit the petition that helps a little bit. You know, what we're doing is all like myself and the people that I'm kind of running around with is mostly just like making a lot of noise on the Internet, trying to get my friends and like just trying to get people to do whatever kind of content they make about Ross, like trying to bring it to the forefront more and more and more in terms of the, Kenny like not the politics, but just the conversation in general and like social media or with people maybe that aren't even involved in the politics, but just so the conversation's more present. But I feel like, yeah, we probably need to just figure out as part of this whole thing. Kenny There's going to be another Rossathon later in the summer as things, there's like a whole summer of Ross plan that's like flowing out and I think we just need to add in there like a big call and or like letter thing directed at the White House all at the same time, especially once like, yeah, the volume keeps increasing a little bit and it's like once there's some polls that have Ross's name in there with questions and that sort of thing that we can point to as well or whatever, Kenny but yeah, it's just having the conversations and if you want to interact with the state people at all, like writing them and saying that that's a thing and reminding them that like they have the ability to do it right now and if you don't want, that's really the thing, right? Kenny Like if you don't want Trump, let Ross out now. Like that's the, they have their own little situation there of like, if you guys don't want Trump, the best thing you can possibly do is to get Ross out before Trump gets like before it's time to vote for him because otherwise he's going to get a whole bunch of votes because of it. Sterlin Yeah, just just a brief comment to that as well. I mean, this it seems like the free Ross issue has got so much momentum that it is becoming kind of the shingle that the political party is going to hang on their their hat is the main thing that they try to push forward. Sterlin So yeah, to Kenny's point, if we do whatever we can to sort of manipulate this process, maybe, maybe they go, okay, shit, he now they're scared, he's going to get into office, and he's going to do it. Sterlin So maybe I should do it now, which is the whole thesis or thought process. So yeah, that's a good point. I don't blame you for not wanting to vote Paul, that it hurts. Yeah, right, right, right. That's right. Sterlin And that's what it is. It is it is the unit party, right? The bird, you know, two wings, same bird kind of situation. Yeah, cool. And there we go. Kenny Oh, that was great. Anyway, anybody else? Dan O'Neil All right, let's give it up guys. Thank you much. Appreciate it