Deep Web -- Film Review
Deep Web
Directed
by Alex Winter
This is a partisan, advocacy film that champions the legal
cause of Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted of heading the website Silk Road,
which was the E-bay or Amazon of every imaginable illegal drug on the
internet. I was rather dissatisfied with
the film from beginning to end. The film
is naive and hypocritical and its audience is basically Silicon Valley tech
nerds and people who want to buy and sell illegal drugs on the internet.
I have been cynical about the so-called "War on
Drugs" since it was declared by Nixon in 1971 and amplified by Reagan in
the 1980s. The film is not about the
longstanding folly of the misguided Drug War.
It is narrowly focused on the case of Ross Ulbricht, who in my view is
simply another casualty of this poorly conceived governmental policy. Ulbricht and his collaborators tried to set
up a website that could be used anonymously to traffic in illegal drugs. Well, the government found out about it,
hatched an undercover operation, and brought it down and arrested
Ulbricht. It is probably true that the
government used illegal means in its assault on the Silk Road. It is probably true that Ross Ulbricht's
trial was not fair, that the government fabricated evidence, trumped up false
charges, tried to smear him in the media and so bias the trial against
him. But this is standard procedure in
these drug cases. The filmmakers are
shocked and appalled that the government would behave this way. But this has been going on for decades in
this country and there are thousands, perhaps more than a million people in
jail in this country who were put there the same way. Why do they think there have been riots recently
in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore?
What do they think of all the unrest all across the country about police
heavy handedness and brutality?
I have never regarded anything that is done or communicated
over the internet as private: e-mail,
"chat," business transactions, anything bought or sold, anything
looked at, shopped for, searched for, read, photographs, pornography,
anything. My attitude is that there is
no such thing as anonymity or privacy on the internet. So my expectations are extremely low. Everything can be recorded, everything can be
saved, everything can be traced. Nothing
is secret. Don't even think about
it.
The people who invented the Silk Road and other similar
sites, as well as the filmmakers, don't believe this. They think that secrecy on the internet is
possible, that anonymity is possible, that it can be mechanically constructed
and preserved indefinitely. But the case
of Ross Ulbricht demonstrates that a determined adversary can thwart such
illusions. It is a chess game that can
probably go on forever. But it does not
really interest me. If you really want
secrecy and privacy, keep it off your computer and pay in cash. It is very easy, and very old fashioned.
Ross Ulbricht, the filmmakers, and the intended audience are
mostly white, upper middle class younger people who grew up in a comfortable
bubble playing video games and never really knew what was going on around
them. Suddenly they are waking up to find
that they can't freely buy marijuana and other drugs that they want. But the United States has been moving toward
a fascistic, authoritarian governmental system for at least fifty years. It is a very steady progression that can be
seen and measured by anyone who cares to look carefully. Nixon was forced to resign from the
presidency for ordering a burglary of the offices of his political rivals. At the time that was considered a great
vindication of the justice and righteousness of the American system. Today Obama orders extrajudicial murders all
around the world, even of American citizens, and no one bats an eye. It's just another day in the news.
In 1970 there were less than 200,000 people in prison in the
United States.1 Now (2007),
according to the Pew Research Center, there are 2.3 million incarcerated, and
if you count all the people on parole and probation it comes to 7.3 million.2 Do the filmmakers care about all of those
people? No. They care about Ross Ulbricht because he is
one of their own. He is white, upper
middle class, and a techie. But the film
is also naive about Ross Ulbricht. They
paint him as a kind of libertarian idealist, who set up this website where
people could buy and sell illegal drugs for the good of humanity. They give an inordinate amount of time to
Ross Ulbricht's mother and father, who are squarely in his camp. What they did not do was follow the
money. How much money did Ross Ulbricht
make running the Silk Road, and where is it?
They never bothered to ask themselves that question.
I wish the film had been a more comprehensive exposition of
the so called "Deep Web," websites that are not readily accessible
with the usual browsers and require special anonymizing software to gain
access. I have no knowledge of this
aspect of the internet and would be curious to see how it works and see a broad
overview of the kinds of communications and transactions that are carried on within
it and who uses it. But this film was
not educational, although it did lament that the vast majority of computer and
internet users have no understanding of the deep web and how to use and access
it. But the film did nothing to dispel
that ignorance and incapacity. It
actually made it seem all the more remote and inaccessible for the average
computer user.
This film is very insular.
It is for tech insiders, not a general audience. It champions the cause of a rather dubious
individual engaged in flagrantly illegal activities. It is mostly oblivious to social and
political trends that have been going on in the United States for a very long
time. It represents a kind of awakening
for people who have been asleep and who are suddenly realizing to their shock
and horror that the world they live in is nothing like the world of their
dreams. I was not impressed with it at
all.
We have a government that has kept people in Guantanamo
prison for over a decade without charges, without a judicial hearing of any
kind, contrary to the Geneva conventions to which it is a signatory, and
contrary to our own constitution, and legal tradition going back to the Magna
Carta. It kidnaps people off the street,
renditions them to foreign countries where they are held anonymously in secret
prisons and tortured. And you expect
this government to respect your privacy? Who do you think you are kidding? Our government wants secrecy for itself, but
not for you. They
would love to get their talons into Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, just
like they did to Chelsea Manning. They can come after you any
time they want for any reason or no reason.
All citizens and non-citizens are vulnerable in a society where the
government does not abide by its own laws, does not respect its own
constitution, and allows the executive and the police to rule by decree. This is the consistent trend in the United
States over a very long period of time.
I have watched this progression over the course of my life time. Things are not getting better. They are getting worse. And I don't think this small group of bold,
tech savvy hackers is going to change that long term trend. The forces behind it are powerful and deeply
entrenched. The monster is more likely to do itself in before they will. Seen at the San Francisco International Film
Festival, May 4, 2015.
Notes
1. Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce American's Prison
Population. JFA Associates, November
2007.
2. Pew Center on the States, One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections. Washington, DC:
The Pew Charitable Trusts, March 2009