Posted on 08/09/2013 7:15:15 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
The highly encrypted email service reportedly used by NSA leaker Edward Snowden has gone offline - and its administrator claims the company is legally barred from explaining why.
On Thursday, the homepage of Lavabit.com was changed to a letter from the company’s owner announcing that the site’s operations have ceased following a six-week long ordeal that has prompted the company to take legal action in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Now in the midst of an escalating fight from the federal government aimed at cracking down on encrypted communications, one of the last free and secure services has thrown in the towel under mysterious circumstances.
“I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations,” owner and operator Ladar Levison of Dallas, Texas wrote in the statement. “I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot.”
“I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the First Amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise,” wrote Levison. “As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.”
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
Ok, phew.
The US Constitution is now just a %$#@! damn piece of paper.
Simply, it's just a prop. Frankly, we are at a State of Emergency and a coup has taken place -- only we are pretending otherwise.
United States v. Lopez (93-1260), 514 U.S. 549 (1995), limiting Congressional authority under the Commerce Clause.
Riddle me this: if there is no domestic spying program, then why do the Feds care if we encrypt our emails?
“Security risk” now means a threat to the federal government, not to our nation.
This is the last we will be hearing from him. Hope his family has the good sense to shut up when he decides to Commit Suicide by driving into a tree.
Who? Snowden?
Ladar Levison
He announced what happened and brought attention to action taken against him.
Whatever law it is, it’s unconstitutional and should be disregarded by the citizenry. Enough of waiting for the Supreme Court to do its job, they have already proven they can’t be relied upon. We just need to start disobeying unconstitutional laws, en masse.
The guy has obviously been threatened and coerced.
They can’t.
Crimes against Americans ? Think they mean crimes against the American Government. Which we all know now, contains very few Americans.
Is that what today's script sez? :-)
Most likely, it’s Section 215 of the patriot act.
What script?
I totally agree with that.
The American people should be consulted in some formal way. For example, the congress could bring up a law to specifically reinforce the concept that we are innocent until proven guilty and that therefore no electronic communication can be collected, scanned, or analyzed until after the submission of a valid warrant.
The congress should make it clear to the people that this could allow some terrorists to successfully communicate with each other to conduct a terrorist attack.
The people can then tell their congressmen which way they would prefer they vote.
We will then know if we are a nation of quivering sheep who are OK living in a police state, or if we are still a nation of men and women who are willing to accept the occasional pitfalls of a free and open society.
I vote for tolerating a few terrorist attacks over a tolerating a totalitarian government.
Terrorists at their worst can do far less damage than even an average totalitarian government.
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