Um, the "operator(s) of Silk Road Market" allegedly attempted to hire a contract killer. I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of peaceful, if true.
The “police have been devoting a huge amount of resources to track down
peaceful people engaged in voluntary trade like Charlie Shrem and the
operators of the Silk Road Market,” Ver says
You can gain additional insight into the statement when you look at how Robert McMillian introduces Ver, a few paragraphs back.
Ver put a 37 bitcoin bounty on [the hackers] head.
[Ver] was himself sentenced to 10 months in federal prison... peaceful people engaged in voluntary trade like
[...] the operators of the Silk Road Market
So long as that quote is being faithfully reproduced, I don't see how talking about his prison sentence has much to do with what I'm talking about.
I just wanted to point out the opinion of the silk road presented in the article was not an opinion belonging to wired but instead it belongs to this Ver guy, who is in fact a criminal.
My only point was that the Silk Road case isn't just about the big bad government rushing after innocent people that just want to do their drugs in peace while keeping to themselves, but are caught up in the War on Drugs.
That said, if the law enforcement were forced to presume that you were innocent until convicted, they would not be able to investigate you because they would no longer be presuming that you were innocent.
The statement that I commented on makes the assumption that the admin(s) of Silk Road were doing nothing but providing a marketplace for consensual (though illegal) transactions. If the admin(s) of Silk Road were engaged in a murder-for-hire plot, then I would assume you are ok with the FBI investigating such things (though maybe I shouldn't make such assumptions). Murder-for-hire goes well beyond people just minding their own business.
So it makes sense to blame the police for starting a commotion that set in motion a situation that would not have arisen otherwise.
Just playing devil's advocate, but the only difference I see here is that the government has a monopoly on law and they hire the police, and the killer that person allegedly hired is not working for the law the government made, but for the law that person made.
So there's no need to pontificate here. This is just the difference between an organization having a monopoly on violence and then acting surprised when others want to make contracts with rules based on violence as well.
Not to mention our current president has ordered the murder of US citizens before but no one is arresting him.