In 2011 Ross Ulbricht launched an anonymous, Tor-hidden "darknet" marketplace (with transactions conducted in bitcoin). By 2015 he'd been sentenced to life in prison for crimes including money laundering, distributing narcotics, and trafficking in fraudulent identity documents — without the possibility of parole. Today a U.S. presidential candidate promised to commute that life sentence — Donald Trump, speaking at the national convention of the Libertarian Party as it prepares to nominate its own candidate for president. Commuting Ulbricht's life sentence is "a top demand" of a political movement that intends to run its own candidate against Trump, reports Semafor: "On day one, we will commute the sentence," Trump said, offering to free the creator of what was once the internet's most infamous drug clearinghouse. "We will bring him home." His speeches more typically include a pledge to execute drug dealers, citing China as a model. "It's time to be winners," said Trump, asking rhetorically if third party delegates wanted to go on getting single-digit protest votes. "I'm asking for the Libertarian Party's endorsement, or at least lots of your votes...." "I've been indicted by the government on 91 different things," Trump said. "So if I wasn't a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now." More coverage from NBC News: At times, Trump turned on the crowd, criticizing libertarians' turnout at previous elections. "You can keep going the way you have for the last long decades and get your 3% and meet again, get another 3%," Trump said following jeers from the crowd. Another high-profile supporter for commuting Ulbricht's sentence is actor-turned documentary maker Alex Winter. Best known for playing slacker Bill S. Preston Esq in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its sequels, Winter also directed, wrote, and co-produced the 2015 documentary Deep Web: The Untold Story of Bitcoin and the Silk Road (narrated by Keanu Reeves). Writing earlier this month in Rolling Stone, Winter called Silk Road "inarguably a criminal operation" but also "a vibrant and diverse community of people from around the world. They were not only there for drugs but for the freedom of an encrypted and anonymous space, to convene and discuss everything from politics to literature and art, philosophy and drugs, drug recovery, and the onerous War on Drugs..." It's my firm opinion, and the opinion of many prison-system and criminal-law experts, that [Ulbricht's] sentence is disproportionate to his charges and that he deserves clemency. This case indeed reflects just one of the millions of unjust sentences in the long and failed War on Drugs... No matter what one thinks of Ulbricht, Silk Road, or the crimes that may have been committed, 10 years in prison is more than sufficient and customary punishment for those offenses or sins. Ross Ulbricht should be free.

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