The real concern would be if they used parallel construction and actually used the NSA's warrantless surveillance. The core of parallel construction is to use fruit of the poisonous tree to identify the dots you need to connect, then do your sleuthing purely to figure out how to connect those dots.
However, given the story told so far, it's actually pretty straightforward to identify the founder of the Silk Road based on a few of his missteps.
The real concern would be if they used parallel construction and actually used the NSA's warrantless surveillance. The core of parallel construction is to use fruit of the poisonous tree to identify the dots you need to connect, then do your sleuthing purely to figure out how to connect those dots.
However, given the story told so far, it's actually pretty straightforward to identify the founder of the Silk Road based on a few of his missteps.