You're having trouble because you are incorrect about how parallel construction works. Parallel construction is not the Orwellian term for simply "coming up with a bullshit story about where you got your evidence when it in fact came from NSA". Instead, it is the Orwellian term for "coming up with the complicated story of what precise piece of unrelated probable cause enabled you to effect a search that was motivated by evidence that came from NSA". Notice that the latter definition includes some notion of some kind of probable cause. The NSA is not PC in a "parallel construction" scenario.
ok, I do understand the distinction you are making.
I am not sure how you are so confident that the NSA was not at all involved in this capture, and that parallel construction was therefore entirely unnecessary.
When reading that article, and various other sources, one thing that stands out is that even after arresting an administrator - which did lead to various other arrests - they still had no direct link or identification for Ulbricht.
Ulbricht was careful enough that although the police were apparently communicating directly with him, and arresting a number of others that were more directly involved, there was no way for them to locate or identify him.
Note, that this remains true even after he believes that one of his contacts has murdered someone on his behalf.
He maintains the firewall between himself and that contact.
Frankly, that is fairly impressive, he must have been a careful man.
Suddenly they find a link buried in the forever webs between a nickname he uses and his actual name and bingo, they have him.
Now, it entirely could have gone down like that. It is completely plausible. Most likely the link was there all along, just waiting for someone to stumble on it.
BUT, that is rather the point of parallel construction, isn't it? to bridge the gap between the information they have and the information that they can present in court, in a totally plausible way.
I am not claiming the truth to be one way or the other, who knows (hell, who cares in this case), but I am claiming that to disregard the possibility and maintain that it is absurd is to ignore the fact of parallel construction and the fact of its frequent use.
