Lavabit Shuts Down Rather Than Invade Privacy

[Synthaholic]

My Fellow Users,


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. 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. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.


What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.


This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.


Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC


Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.

 

[Synthaholic]

Lavabit

 

[Synthaholic]

Excellent reading:


Email service used by Snowden shuts itself down, warns against using US-based companies | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | theguardian.com

 

[Mad Scientist]

Protecting and Defending the Constitution means exercising those Rights in the face of Mafia Thug behavior from Oppressive Governments like the US.

Lavabit is an Encrypted e-mail service that Ed Snowden uses and that doesn't sit well with the NSA so what do they do? Allege Child Porn use and get a Judge to sign a Warrant or a National Security Letter which is worse for you.

This is exactly why you don't want the US government spying on you and collecting data. What they will do is collect all yer data and when they want you for something they will PUT SOMETHING IN YOUR FILE LIKE CHILD PORN!

Then they will launch an investigation and "find" the Child Porn or whatever else they wanna' f*ck you with.

4th Amendment Right to be secure in your Papers and Effects: Gone.
Due Process Rights: Gone.