Federal prosecutors got Ross Ulbricht thrown in prison for life for running the Silk Road online drug marketplace. Now, they're going after people who made comments online about the judge who sentenced him.

The Department of Justice is seeking the identities of commenters at Reason.com, a libertarian website that has covered Silk Road extensively. The hunt for commenters was revealed yesterday, when the legal blog Popehat published a grand jury subpoena (PDF) that DOJ investigators gave to Reason.

"Why is the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet?" wrote Popehat blogger Ken White. "Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge."

On May 31, two days after Ross Ulbricht was sentenced, Reason published a blog post looking back at his plea for leniency. The post is sympathetic to Ulbricht and Silk Road, which it calls "a revolutionary website that made it easier and safer to buy and sell illegal drugs."

There are more than 100 comments on the short Reason article, and a quick scan suggests they are universally negative. US District Judge Katherine Forrest threw the book at Ulbricht, giving him life without the possibility of parole—more than prosecutors asked for. Her sentencing speech was a full-throated defense of the drug war.

Prosecutors want "any and all identifying information" related to the following eight comments, all published shortly after the May 31 blog post went up:

Agammamon: Its judges like these that should be taken out back and shot.

Alan: It's judges like this that will be taken out and short. FTFY.

croaker: Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly. Especially if you feed them in feet first.

Cloudbuster: Why do it out back? Shoot them out front, on the steps of the courthouse.

Rhywun: I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman.

Alan: There is.

Product Placement: I'd prefer a hellish place on Earth be reserved for her as well.

croaker: Fuck that. I don't want to oay [sic] for that cunt's food, housing, and medical. Send her through the wood chipper.

In the subpoena to Reason, the government requests that the company "voluntarily refrain from disclosing the existence of the subpoena to any third party," but makes it clear they have no legal obligation to do so. The Popehat blog post does not identify the source of the subpoena.

Bluster or “True threats?”

The US Attorney's Office says they're seeking evidence connected to a violation of 18 USC Section 875, the federal law against interstate threats. That's the law that was just considered by the Supreme Court, which held that a 31-year-old man who threatened his ex-wife on Facebook must be given a new trial, because the government didn't prove that Anthony Elonis had a "subjective intent to threaten."

A separate statute, which bars threats against federal judges, isn't mentioned in the subpoena.

In White's view, the Reason comments aren't "true threats" in the legal sense, but only "hyberbole" and "bluster," which remain protected speech under the First Amendment.

"They do not offer a plan, other than juvenile mouth-breathing about 'wood chippers' and revolutionary firing squads," White states. "The comments are on the Internet, a wretched hive of scum, villainy, and gaseous smack talk. They are on a political blog, about a judicial-political story; such stories are widely known to draw such bluster."

Despite his view that the posts are "clear bluster," the government "can probably abuse the grand jury subpoena power this way," White says, citing a 2012 case regarding a Twitter account called "Mr. X" that made juvenile statements about then-presidential candidate Michelle Bachman. A judge in that case said the government's interest in protecting a presidential candidate outweighed the Twitter user's right to speak anonymously.

White's post, worth reading in full, also describes his interactions with Niketh Velamoor, the Assistant US Attorney who issued the subpoena, whom White believes may have been trying to intimidate him into not publishing the subpoena.