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Inside the Decision To Shut Down Silent Mail
Trailrunner7 writes with this snippet from ThreatPost:: "Silent Circle's decision to shut down its Silent Mail email service may have come quickly yesterday, and the timing of the announcement admittedly was prompted by Lavabit's decision to suspend operations hours before. But the seeds for this decision may have been sown long before Edward Snowden, who reportedly used Lavabit as a secure email provider, was a household name and NSA warrants for customer data were known costs of doing business. ... 'When we saw the Lavabit announcement, the thing we were worrying about had happened, and it had happened to somebody else. It was very difficult to not think I'm next,' Callas said. 'I had been discussing with Phil [founder and PGP developer Phil Zimmerman] over dinner the night before, should we be doing this and what the timing should be. I was looking at it from point that I want to be a responsible service provider and not leave users in a lurch. [The Lavabit announcement] told me I have to start moving on it now.'"
This is called "oppression," when you live in fear of being the "next" target of government "scrutiny."
And what is the name for all of the businesses who just merrily went along with government requests? Apparently all of the big companies fought very little (if at all)
Instead of shutting these services down...why not move them outside of US control...you know...a different country.
Name a country that won't turn over whatever information the U.S. government asks for and you'll most likely name a country where the government is worse than the U.S.
I think the blame on companies is rooted in the idea that big business will spend insane amounts of effort on avoiding taxation, or lobbying to make legal conditions more favorable to them, but then appears to resist very little when government agencies attempt to intrude on their customers (or users') privacy.
Of course, it kinda makes sense. Whilst a government might be actively hostile towards its people, big business tends to view customers/consumers/users more like cattle - dispassionately and as disposable.
In that light, companies that do tend to try to fight for their users (eg, a certain micro-blogging company) seem even more virtuous by comparison.
I don't think there is any money directly attached. It's more of a threatened 'if you don't comply we throw you and your employees in jail' thing.
These service providers should be replying to the Government with "Hello no, bitches. Read the damn Constitution of the United States of America." Personally, I would bury anti-personnel mines around my data centres and install batteries of automated / remote-controlled anti-aircraft / anti-drone / anti-missile guns.
By your UID you should be old enough to remember Cayman Islands. Great place, white sandy beaches and a English-backed government.
When the US Government (thru the OECD) decided that the 400+ banks in Cayman were laundering money, the Cayman government caved in and signed a treaty to provide OECD member states with access to bank information.
Bear in mind, laundering money back then wasn't about financing terrorist organizations, it was about US citizens not paying taxes.
More recently, the Swiss turned over data on US citizens who have (had?) Swiss bank accounts.
Sorry, Antigua won't stand up to the US. No more than Cayman or the Swiss did.
And no, it will not take a aircraft carrier and its group off the coast. It will only take a call from some senior D.C. politicians before they cave in.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
These service providers should be replying to the Government with "Hello no, bitches. Read the damn Constitution of the United States of America."
Your sentiment is admirable, but lets not be naive. Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio fought back against the government, just as you said. He is now jailed for six years.
Before someone makes the asinine argument that he was convicted of "insider trading", take note that he would be in the clear today if he had played ball, and the government awarded Qwest the contracts.
My point is, resistance has a heavy price. I don't think we should be so eager to demand that others become martyrs when it is clear we are willing to do so little to protect them. As evidence, I point to how little is being done for Snowden today.
We were a small ISP, and we got subpoenas multiple times per month. You don't say no to a court order, unless you want to spend some time in court/jail explaining to the judge why you feel like you shouldn't have to comply. This is fine if you're a hippie, have tons of time and money, nothing to lose, and could care less about eventually having a criminal record.
Due to CALEA, we were required to buy equipment to fulfill "tapping" requests from law enforcement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act You can thank Clinton and Congress (1994) for that.
It was another cost of doing business if you wanted to be a service provider in the U.S. Don't like it? You do something else....and so I did.