Lauren Moxley writes:
In February 2015, a jury convicted Ross Ulbricht of drug trafficking and other crimes associated with his creation and operation of Silk Road, an online marketplace whose users primarily purchased and sold illegal goods and services. A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York then sentenced Ulbricht to life imprisonment. On Wednesday, the Second Circuit upheld the conviction and sentence “in all respects.” In affirming the conviction, the appeals court rejected Ulbricht’s claim that much of the evidence against him should have been suppressed because it was obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
The Second Circuit rejected Ulbricht’s argument that the pen/trap orders that the government used to monitor IP address traffic to and from his home router violated the Fourth Amendment because the government obtained the orders without a warrant.
Read more on Covington & Burling Inside Privacy.