This is another documentary about the internet by Alex Winter, the guy who played Bill in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Actually, ironically, the documentary is narrated by Keanu Reeves, who was Ted in the affore mentioned movie. However, this documentary has little to do with that particular movie, and everything to do with an anonymous Marketplace known as Silk Road.
Actually, the focus of the film is on the trial of Eric Ulrich, who was convicted of running this particular site. The reason that he landed up in court was because this particular site basically sold drugs (among other things), and could only be accessed through the Deep Web, which is a layer of the internet that you are generally not able to reach via your typical search browser.
What the film explores is the far reaching implications of the trail. For instance, the DEA hacked a server in Iceland to be able to obtain information regarding the site, and they refused to release this evidence. Further, they refused to release any of the witnesses, on the grounds that there had been death threats leveled against them. In fact, one of the things that stood out was how deeply flawed the trial was, yet despite all of this, and the appeals, Eric was still sentenced to life imprisonment - yeah, it really just seemed to be a show trial to send a message that the authorities are not willing to allow the internet to be used to sell drugs.
The documentary looks at three factors though, one of them being internet security, and the fact that the government really doesn't like it because it means they can't spy on you (though they claim that it is to hunt down people who are likely to be a threat to the safety of ordinary people). The second is how the court case effectively said that the Forth Amendment, namely the prohibition against illegal search and seizure, didn't apply to the internet. Of course, it doesn't appear if this matter is settled by a long shot, and it is difficult to know the details of the appeals that Ulrich made without actually reading the judgements.
The final thing comes down to how dealing in drugs is inherently violent, and the film makes the case that this is because of the war on drugs. Obviously, using such words does tend to evoke violence, but the idea behind Silk Road was to remove that aspect of dealing in drugs. For instance, the site uses a rating system like Ebay, which meant that if people didn't supply what they said they would supply, then they would receive bad ratings, and nobody would buy from them. Yet, one could argue that it is the threat of violence that keeps people from going down that road, but this war on drugs has been raging since the 80s, and there just doesn't seem to be any end to it. In fact, it has just made things much, much worse.
Mind you, they do point out that there are a lot of vested interests in keeping the drug war going, and it is not just with the cartels. No, the private prison system, and the drug testing companys, all have a vested interest in this operation. In fact, some argue that it is because of this so called War on Drugs that the United States has the largest prison population in the world.
Actually, the focus of the film is on the trial of Eric Ulrich, who was convicted of running this particular site. The reason that he landed up in court was because this particular site basically sold drugs (among other things), and could only be accessed through the Deep Web, which is a layer of the internet that you are generally not able to reach via your typical search browser.
What the film explores is the far reaching implications of the trail. For instance, the DEA hacked a server in Iceland to be able to obtain information regarding the site, and they refused to release this evidence. Further, they refused to release any of the witnesses, on the grounds that there had been death threats leveled against them. In fact, one of the things that stood out was how deeply flawed the trial was, yet despite all of this, and the appeals, Eric was still sentenced to life imprisonment - yeah, it really just seemed to be a show trial to send a message that the authorities are not willing to allow the internet to be used to sell drugs.
The documentary looks at three factors though, one of them being internet security, and the fact that the government really doesn't like it because it means they can't spy on you (though they claim that it is to hunt down people who are likely to be a threat to the safety of ordinary people). The second is how the court case effectively said that the Forth Amendment, namely the prohibition against illegal search and seizure, didn't apply to the internet. Of course, it doesn't appear if this matter is settled by a long shot, and it is difficult to know the details of the appeals that Ulrich made without actually reading the judgements.
The final thing comes down to how dealing in drugs is inherently violent, and the film makes the case that this is because of the war on drugs. Obviously, using such words does tend to evoke violence, but the idea behind Silk Road was to remove that aspect of dealing in drugs. For instance, the site uses a rating system like Ebay, which meant that if people didn't supply what they said they would supply, then they would receive bad ratings, and nobody would buy from them. Yet, one could argue that it is the threat of violence that keeps people from going down that road, but this war on drugs has been raging since the 80s, and there just doesn't seem to be any end to it. In fact, it has just made things much, much worse.
Mind you, they do point out that there are a lot of vested interests in keeping the drug war going, and it is not just with the cartels. No, the private prison system, and the drug testing companys, all have a vested interest in this operation. In fact, some argue that it is because of this so called War on Drugs that the United States has the largest prison population in the world.