Ross Ulbricht, from “Deep Web” Photo provided by EPIX
An EPIX original documentary premiering on Dish Network (not Comcast) Sunday, May 31, at 7 p.m. is worth tracking down. Written, directed and produced by Alex Winter and narrated by Keanu Reeves, it’s a look behind the headlines at the “dark web,” a film that will not only increase your working knowledge of Bitcoin but alert you to new problems of interpreting the Constitution in the digital age.
Deep Web = the vast section of the World Wide Web that is not discoverable by means of standard search engines, including password-protected or dynamic pages and encrypted networks.
Here’s a serious documentary about a complex subject with highly technical aspects, legal ramifications, Constitutional questions and digital quandaries. If you thought recent news coverage of the Silk Road drug marketplace was eye-opening, wait until you see this 90-minute film tracking the arrest of “Dread Pirate Roberts” or 30-year-old Ross William Ulbricht, accused of creating and operating the online black market site.
This computer crime saga brings into focus the challenge of interpreting the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. When “search and seizure” was first coined, it meant going through your pockets and desk drawers. Now it means digital surveillance and data collecting in astonishingly broad ways.
Ulbricht doesn’t speak on camera very much but his parents do, in heartbreaking interviews. Law enforcement spokesmen and attorneys weigh in, but amid talk of cryptocurrency, cypherpunks and cryptoanarchists, it’s the belief in privacy as a “core human value” that beams through. The best onscreen tour guide through this dense terrain is , a tech reporter for Wired, who has written extensively on the subject for the magazine. He explains hacker culture in insightful terms and helps bring the rest of us up to speed.
The producers note the section of the Patriot Act dealing with the U.S. Government’s ability to conduct surveillance and broadly collect data is set to expire June 1. The battle to extend the bill will no doubt make headlines in coming months.
