Why Lavabit Shut Down 304
An anonymous reader writes "Ladar Levison, founder of the encrypted email service Lavabit that shut down last year because of friction with U.S. government data requests, has an article at The Guardian where he explains the whole story. He writes, 'My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation of surveillance equipment on my company's network. ... I had no choice but to consent to the installation of their device, which would hand the U.S. government access to all of the messages – to and from all of my customers – as they traveled between their email accounts other providers on the Internet. But that wasn't enough. The federal agents then claimed that their court order required me to surrender my company's private encryption keys, and I balked. What they said they needed were customer passwords – which were sent securely – so that they could access the plain-text versions of messages from customers using my company's encrypted storage feature. (The government would later claim they only made this demand because of my "noncompliance".) ... What ensued was a flurry of legal proceedings that would last 38 days, ending not only my startup but also destroying, bit by bit, the very principle upon which I founded it – that we all have a right to personal privacy.'"
Tremendous Respect (Score:5, Interesting)
for this guy who was willing to shut down his business rather than betray his principles and his customers. Note that the government doesn't appear to have wanted the passwords and encryption keys for specific individuals, they wanted the whole fucking lot.
I guess "Don't Tread on Me!" has been transformed to "Go Ahead and Trample Me!" :P
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:1, Interesting)
The US Government is a corporate controlled criminal & terrorist network and your pathetic attempt to point fingers elsewhere will not change that.
All power corrupts, I'm not claiming exception, and you're a pathetic anonymous coward.
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference is that only "enlightened western democracies" are so fucking hypocritical about it. The USA is the worst offender in this regard. They keep carrying on about freedom and liberty and other bullshit while implementing things like this, waging illegal wars, and trying to force their ideology onto the world. It's the hypocrisy more than the actual actions.
Re:Why not leave? (Score:5, Interesting)
The third amendment forbids quartering of troops in peacetime without consent. I'd argue that the there is no distinction between monitoring equipment and troops. Troops don't have to be human. We may one day have a droid army, so is the government free to post one in each business to monitor its activity?
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
A Chinese and Russian "Snowden" would have quickly disappeared with nobody knowing or caring.
Or not. That's why you have both chinese and russian dissidents. And USA is the country that went after Assange as a 'traitor', regardless of his nationality. From the other side of the pond, USA does look like a police state straight out of 1984 - not only because of the huge levels of incompetence while monitoring people, but also because of what you just said. The level of brainwash that takes for someone to say "my democratic system is better" when its not actually democratic NOR pluralist is an indoctrinator's dream come true. Have a good look at the Roman empire, and why it has fallen. History has a tendency to repeat itself.
Re:Why not leave? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the stakes that would be required to just get to the point where you're making that argument in front of a federal judge, I'd hope that judge would have more intelligence than to respond in the manner you suggest.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) included the Third in its majority decision as implying a belief that a home should be free from agents of the state, so precedent does exist. And in this modern age where agents of the state can be "present" in your homes 24/7 via electronic means, what exactly does "quartered" now encompass?
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't shop much do you? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find any household items not made in China?
I didn't find it hard at all in my household (in a western suburb of Boston). I easily found items manufactured in places like Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and even Japan. Oh, and a couple of items from Scandinavia, too. Not much made in the US, though.
Actually, my wife makes a lot of her own clothes, partly as a hobby, but mostly out of disappointment about the crap sold in local clothing stores. She has been complaining about the slow loss of the local fabric stores. Buying online doesn't work well, because you can't feel the material before ordering it. And most of her favorite fabrics do come from outside the US, though I don't think many are from China. But the "manufacturing" is done very locally, upstairs. ;-)
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:2, Interesting)
If he lived in one of the nordic countries? yes, It's the last bastion of freedom on this planet.
Funny how the countries filled with the ancestors of the Vikings are the ones that are not filled to the brim with corrupt scumbag assholes hell bent on controlling it's people.
Re:Why not leave? (Score:4, Interesting)
What surveillance equipment? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:USA, the land of freedom (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure there are not a whole lot of countries that would go that far. Maybe countries like North Korea, Cuba and yes, the USA.