Slashdot Mirror
Lavabit.com Owner: 'I Could Be Arrested' For Resisting Surveillance Order
Zak3056 writes "NBC News is reporting that 'The owner of an encrypted email service used by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden said he has been threatened with criminal charges for refusing to comply with a secret surveillance order to turn over information about his customers. "I could be arrested for this action," Ladar Levison told NBC News about his decision to shut down his company, Lavabit LLC, in protest over a secret court order he had received from a federal court that is overseeing the investigation into Snowden.''"
simply the act of using encryption will make you a government suspect.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Is it a legitimate Court Order? You presume something that is not assured to be in evidence. I strongly sugeest that you read the Fourth Amendment before any further remarks- just because the Government is doing something doesn't make it legal.
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security."
But Then It Was Too Late
Depends on what the Court order was for.
If it was for specific conversation between specific address at a specific date/time then It's reasonable to comply.
But if it was for Everything since the service started or between 2 dates (i.e. 1st Jan 2011 to 31 Dec 2012) or from that point onwards, then it's a fishing expedition and its reasonable NOT to comply without further legal council and possible injunction (if that's possible with this kind of court order!)
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
The word 'legal' has become entirely frivolous. The government can do what it wants, and no goddamn piece of paper is ever going to stop it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why is the government bothering with secret court orders at this point? Do they think that maybe Snowden isn't aware that they are out to get him? If the government was above board with the situation, then perhaps people would be more willing to comply. Is there something in these orders that needs to be hidden from the public eye?
Just issue a regular warrant for the information. Nobody is arguing about those and they get the same results.
Unless there is more to this than is apparent.
(Although, cynical as I am, my first take on this article was not "Evil Government" but "Lavabit's Founders Are Trying To Drum Up Sympathy And Publicity For Their Next Venture". I just can't trust anyone these days ;-)
Who is, then, in power of the United States if clearly not the legislative branch?
The business branch. The Department of State works for the arms merchants, and the Commerce Department for the Wall Street commodities markets.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Technically, he is complying. He is giving the government all the information transferred from the service, which right now is nothing. If the government wants to force him to continue his business, that is another thing completely. I'd love to see the laws that allow the government to enslave a business order to continue a service that they own for secret government surveillance. The laws probably exist, but I'm guessing that they are classified Top Secret (where the FISA court has ruled that the 13th amendment is invalid).
What a difference a mere few decades makes. This is exactly the type of thing that America historically mocked, derided and demonized the USSR and other "commie" or "evil" nations for doing. America is quite clearly demonstrating that their intentions are no less disingenuous.
The problem is not communism, not capitalism nor any other -ism. The problem is that the powerful will never satiate their craving for more power. Power absolutely despises being proven wrong and it will continue its scourge at all costs to cover up and misdirect conceptions.
This is what evil does when it's backed into a corner.
FTFA, he has raised $90,000 in the past few days. That seems to have helped. He has brought attention to legal conflicts that people should be talking about - that will help in a broader sense. It seems like you have given up any notion of progress. It's people who stand up and put things to the test who make a difference - no matter how big or small. If he goes to the joint over it, that's his choice. This media attention IMHO will be of benefit that could have the feds go easier on him because he's not just some unknown guy getting black bagged in an alley and stuffed into a room with no windows - blah, blah, blah.
(often misquoted: "Politics is the entertainment branch of the military-industrial complex" to good effect).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Terrorism is nothing new. People have died from violent acts of insurgents since the beginning of history. The fact is, that terrorism is statistically insignificant as a cause of death. It has always been that way and it hasn't changed much. The leading cause of death "related to terrorism" is trying to fight it. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have gotten hurt and killed in "the war on terrorism" in situations that would not have occurred if this "war" hadn't been fought.
The leading cause of loss of freedom is fighting terrorism. There is no war. Stop calling it a war. There are clear definitions of what a war is and it has to be between two or more countries, or it has to be a "civil war" in which two or more parts of the same country go to war amongst themselves. Terrorism is nothing new and you're feeding it by giving it the attention it's after. The terrorists achieve more of their goals by this "war on terrorism" than they would if they were to be successful just a bit more often than they are now and we would ignore them. You can't fight this sort of terrorism anyway, since it's using every "freedom right" we want so much for ourselves, which our forefathers fought for so hard. If we give up those rights, we have nothing left to fight for and the terrorists have won.
The more you fight terrorism, the worse the situation gets. Let it go and enjoy your freedom. Don't spend money, lives and freedom on it. I'm not saying you should stop trying to prevent attacks, but you should stop giving up freedom and privacy for it.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
C'mon, make up your mind. Respect the court or the fellow citizens, you can't have both.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unfortunately the legislative branch has systematically reduced the effectiveness of the judicial branch. I am talking tort reform. I am talking about threatening activist judges. I am talking about secret court order and secret courts. Without an equal court system democracy just does not work and things like this happen. Manning and Snoden and all these leaks are due to the lack of due process. If Manning had not been isolated and tortured, it would not nearly be the black eye on the US, and Snoden likely would not be in Russia.
The courts provide an alternative to extreme and violent acts. Let's say that a child that is killed by a defective Ikea bed. The parents can go to court, have the company be publicly held responsible for the death, and, outside of tort reform, receive a judgement that will encourage the company to do better in the future. Or the parents could just go to location where they bought the bed and justifiably kill the person who sold them the bed, or go to corporate and justifiably kill the executives who profited from the bed, etc. Which one actually leads to a safer world?
So really the problem is that some powerful people are upset because the courts do not allow them to sufficiently oppress the people or murder customers, so the want to reduce our government to the two branches that can effectively be bribed to engage in unnecessary and illegal activities, like spying on US citizens, which invariable requires massive purchases of inflated sales and products which invariably increases the profits of those companies. A classic example in the war in Iraq, which was facilitated by the purchase of an election by those who wanted Dick Cheney in the executive, and the subsequent transfer of taxpayer treasure directly to those who bought him.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
> The USSR sucked. The USA sucks.
Ummmm, actual measurements of wealth and longevity disagreed. This is a meme lodged in your head that is not in accordance with reality. You should go about fixing it.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Considering the USA had nearly a century and a half head start, I wouldn't expect the USSR to have come close to catching up with it. And yet we're talking about differences in life expectancy of a few years, and very nearly irrelevant definitions of "wealth" when we contrast the models of service provision.
For example, when I lived in the US, I was able to earn a lot more money than in the UK. But it was worth a lot less, as private insurance is an inefficient rip-off vs British healthcare and social safety net. There's really little opportunity for comfort in the US except for a small proportion of people: the majority work far more hours than are needed to sustain a decent lifestyle for the whole country. Western continental Europe does so much better.
I have a brief personal experience with the end of the USSR, and my family worked for a car firm which did business there under Khrushchev. Sure, it sucked too, but not in the terrific way caricatured by Western propaganda.
So, it's a "meme" which I've lodged in my head based on personal experience - and a concerted attempt to enjoy and appreciate both extremes. And that's before we bring in the experiences of everyone else.
Considering the USA had nearly a century and a half head start,
So the USSR sprang up from nothing in the north of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia? Russia never existed?