Posted on 08/10/2013 1:25:46 PM PDT by NCjim
Ladar Levison, 32, has spent ten years building encrypted email service Lavabit, attracting over 410,000 users. When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was revealed to be one of those users in July, Dallas-based Lavabit got a surge of new customers: $12,000 worth of paid subscribers, triple his usual monthly sign-up. On Thursday, though, Levison pulled the plug on his company, posting a cryptic message about a government investigation that would force him to “become complicit in crimes against the American people” were he to stay in business. Many people have speculated that the investigation concerned the government trying to get access to the email of Edward Snowden, who has been charged with espionage. There are legal restrictions which prevent Levison from being more specific about a protest of government methods that has forced him to shutter his company, an unprecedented move.
“This is about protecting all of our users, not just one in particular. It’s not my place to decide whether an investigation is just, but the government has the legal authority to force you to do things you’re uncomfortable with,” said Levison in a phone call on Friday. “The fact that I can’t talk about this is as big a problem as what they asked me to do.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Yeah, I know - that's what this guy's company offers.
I have not done any Linux email server admin in a while, but using out-of-the-box sendmail, it is not encrypted. Of course you can encrypt your emails prior to sending them and then they are not readable.
/johnny
Yes, I did know that. Pretty sure most people don't use an email client that does that though.
/johnny
They will never willing give up this kind of power...
The only real option is to develop a technology that gets around it - encrypted, distributed, P2P systems for ALL communications.
sfl
Re: “Typically, these secret orders, from the secret courts, stipulate jail time for service providers that speak out about the contents of the secret orders.”
If they break the secret orders, they are sent to secret prisons.
In secret locations, with secret guards.
And the secret judges and secret administrators are protected by secret immunity.
I can’t tell you how I know all these secret things, because that’s a secret.
/johnny
So was I a Linux sysadmin but this is an application issue with next to nothing to do with the OS (except the part about sendmail).
/johnny
EFF?
They don’t call it “double secret probation” for nothin’.
Totally unconstitutional.
Bookmark for later!
I actually do have the t-shirt on that one. I bought the t-shirt to help pay for the lawyers.
/johnny
So are a lot of things, but the government is getting away with it.
/johnny
I believe they're at the White Hut with Alec Baldwin and Babs Streisand playing human centipede with obammy.
I know them because I have worked with escapees from the old Soviet Union.
Yep, and not even I will ask if they are forcing you to do this.
This is true; however I believe that the word unconstitutional
has lost punch since it's thrown about way too often.
I prefer 'contraconstitutional' which better describes actions directly contrary to the Constitution.
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