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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.''"
There's no point to be made from not complying with a legitimate court order. Just comply with it. One day you could be very thankful that we have a legal system that was created to protect us. Please respect that and our fellow citizens.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6222691
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Silence is a state of mime.
I hear it's actually pretty nice - decent food and opportunities for education, (might come in handy since his business is gone). And best of all you pretty much have an idea who you're getting ganked by. In the mean time, staying in the public eye will assure the feds tread carefully and just might save his a$$ - no pun intended.
"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
Capitalism promotes competitive, selfish activity.
Eventually, the winners realise that they can corrupt the system of government too. By hook or crook - psychology or guns.
The only effective society is one which overtly and deliberately puts a cap on power, both of the government and of private individuals, allowing enterprise to flourish while ensuring that the individuals who have benefitted contribute toward a strong infrastructure and humane society.
This is a social democracy.
The USSR sucked. The USA sucks. They were the same thing but with "apparatchik" instead of "management" to label the guys running the show. Life under either is glorious for those at the top, and a shitty struggle for the average person.
Just letting the government do this stuff without fighting is cowardly. Our grandfathers fought in WWII. We need to fight the fight at home. We need to fight this stuff. MAKE IT PUBLIC show that the U.S.A. is becoming worse the the old soviet union. We have secret laws and secret police. This is not how a democracy is supposed to work! The general populace can stay in denial if the news can be drowned out. I believe (hope) we, as a country, may wake up if these sorts of things make lots of noise.
I voted for Obama, and while I don't think the alternatives would have been any better, we need a new kind of president that will not defend these policies. Terrorism has hit every free state. It is a fact of life. We either deal with the risks of freedom or give it up to these evil bastards. (insert Franklin quote)
Get a national security letter, fight it.
Get a court order, challenge it in a higher court, rinse, repeat.
Call the ACLU
Donate to the ACLU
encrypt, encrypt, encrypt.
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 ;-)
Nicholas Merrill fought this battle before.
His talk at 27C3 is very, very interesting and deserves to be more widely known. In particular, watch and listen to his explanations of how carefully he has to choose his words - right down to using "it" for the government person he has to deal with (since giving away "its" gendor could get him 10 years in jail).
All your ghosts are just false positives.
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!”
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.
Are those customers (who will be spied upon anyway with or without your help) worth your entire life?
Not those customers, but the freedom of all American citizens, yes.
(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)
Why the straw man about some type of government being incorruptible?
My point was that everything is corruptible, so don't allow any single entity to become so powerful that corruption of or by it can ruin a society.
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?
Capitalism promotes competitive, selfish activity.
Eventually, the winners realise that they can corrupt the system of government too. By hook or crook - psychology or guns.
The only effective society is one which overtly and deliberately puts a cap on power, both of the government and of private individuals, allowing enterprise to flourish while ensuring that the individuals who have benefitted contribute toward a strong infrastructure and humane society.
This is a social democracy.
The USSR sucked. The USA sucks. They were the same thing but with "apparatchik" instead of "management" to label the guys running the show. Life under either is glorious for those at the top, and a shitty struggle for the average person.
People have to take responsibility as well.
Do I dislike the way the USA is headed? Yes.
Do I blame a large percentage of the US population for not paying attention and allowing themselves to become and then remain willfully ignorant? Yes.
The USA is not yet at the point where the USSR was, and it's not yet too late for change...but if it doesn't happen soon it may never happen at all.
Wake up America, or lose everything you care about.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
That's simply not how it works.
The Root CA creates a self-signed certificate. This is the 'axiom of trust', you have to import this and trust it.
Then there are subsidiary certificates are that are SIGNED by the Root CA.
What this means is the Root CA attests that the public key in the
certificate truly belongs to the Entity named in the certificate.
The Root CA NEVER SEES INTERMEDIATE PRIVATE KEYS.
You can have a private key on a smart card that never, ever
leaves the smartcard and still get your cert signed.
You are very confused.
Wake up America, or lose everything you care about.
Oh god, is something going to happen to Game of Thrones?!
The development of the USSR is an interesting one, and one that is a showcase of how good intentions are easily perverted into the most heinous reality, provided that power hungry megalomaniacs are allowed to rule. Sadly, it is the power hungry megalomaniac that WANTS to rule.
The USSR started as a hope for a "worker's paradise", and in Marx' theory, it sure is. People worked hard towards that goal because they were promised a glorious future, and they believed it. By and by, they noticed that nothing gets better, or that it does only for the few on top, and the rest was a tyranny that tried hard to keep up the status quo, i.e. the good life for the "party people" and the struggle for the rest, until it just couldn't be propped up anymore.
Now replace the promise of the glorious future for everyone with the promise that you, too, can be rich if you work hard, and by and by people noticing that working does not get you rich, and I wonder if I really imagine the parallels here.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> 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.
All that's missing is establishing a People's Court and we're set.
(Please read the Wikipedia article before invoking Godwin)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
No, it is the inevitable consequence of asking the government to regulate ever more economic activity (from certain perspectives, everything you do is economic activity) in the name of protecting the people from "corporate interests". Inevitably as the government gathers more power to itself, the only way to accumulate wealth is through government intervention. Those who have wealth use it to acquire connections allowing them to control where the government intervention occurs. Those who have political power use it to acquire wealth. In time, these two groups merge. At which point the economy begins to collapse, as more and more of society's wealth and political power becomes concentrated in the hands of an ever smaller group of people. These people act to prevent others from acquiring wealth or political power, which leads to the economy gradually becoming less and less productive.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
America used to be, and I repeat, USED TO BE a country which everyone looked up to., yours truly included
I came from a communist country, and I was so impressed with the United States of America that I ended up becoming a naturalized American citizen.
The place I came from there was no democracy, no human rights, no freedom and no justice, America had everything that I ever hoped for.
However, my American Dream slowly transformed into American Dismay, and finally ended up as American Disgust
From a country which cherishes and champion Human Rights, the United States becomes a country where "Human Rights" is used as a tool to criticize others
Democracy ? It sure is a convenient device to hoodwink the American voters.
Freedom ? If there is any genuine freedom left in the United States of America Mr. Ladar Levison wouldn't have to shut down Lavabit
Justice ? Can whatever that has happened to Mr. Snowden be anything remotely related to "Justice" ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And the FDA works for big pharma. How else would I know about the many options I have for boner pills and anti-depressants that will royally fuck me up.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The USSR sucked. The USA sucks. They were the same thing but with "apparatchik" instead of "management" to label the guys running the show. Life under either is glorious for those at the top, and a shitty struggle for the average person.
I would disagree that "management" is running much of anything. In most companies "management" only manages means and methods the goals are set by the system. Profit, shareholder value, and whatever supports these goals, that's the task of management.
Literally a publicly held company by law must maximize shareholder value. There is no choice and there is no person deciding this. I believe that even massively rich industrialists that get neck deep in politics, like the Kochs, don't have the power to make fundamental changes unless those changes serve the god of lucre. Even the New Deal of FDR was needed to prevent the growing tide of socialism, and therefore served the purpose of preserving the system. The only thing that has ever changed things for the better is large numbers of people organizing and taking power from the system and from the rulers.
-- QED
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?