Federal prosecutors have demanded that libertarian news site Reason.com help them identify readers who discussed killing a federal judge, including via wood chipper, in the comments section of an article about Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht.
A June 2 grand jury subpoena, obtained by Popehat’s Ken White, asks Reason to provide “any and all identifying information” for readers who wrote macabre comments in reaction to the life sentence Mr. Ulbricht received from U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan.
“Its (sic) judges like these that should be taken out back and shot,” wrote one commenter.
“Why waste the ammunition?” another commenter asked. “Wood chippers get the message across clearly. Especially if you feed them in feet first.”
In all, eight comments are reproduced in the subpoena, but they no longer appear on Reason’s site. The subpoena requests that Reason provide the information by Tuesday.
Reason managing editor Katherine Mangu-Ward declined to comment on the subpoena, as did a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office is handling the grand jury investigation. A call to Judge Forrest’s chambers wasn’t returned immediately.
Reason.com, the website for the monthly print magazine Reason, has been critical of the Justice Department and Judge Forrest, calling Mr. Ulbricht’s online drug bazaar a “revolutionary website that made it easier and safer to buy and sell illegal drugs” and describing his life sentence as “horrifically unjust.” At Mr. Ulbricht’s sentencing, Judge Forrest described his site as an “assault on the public health of our communities.”
The prosecution of Mr. Ulbrich has turned him into a cause celebre among a community whose members believe the government should have no dominion online. Judge Forrest had been a focus of anger, even before she sentenced Mr. Ulbricht last month.
Last fall, Judge Forrest’s personal information was discovered on a website in the dark web, shorthand for swaths of the Internet that provide greater privacy and require special settings, permissions or software to access them.