Joining Lavabit Et Al, Groklaw Shuts Down Because of NSA Dragnet

An anonymous reader was the first to write with news that Groklaw is shutting down: "There is now no shield from forced exposure. Nothing in that parenthetical thought list is terrorism-related, but no one can feel protected enough from forced exposure any more to say anything the least bit like that to anyone in an email, particularly from the U.S. out or to the U.S. in, but really anywhere. You don't expect a stranger to read your private communications to a friend. And once you know they can, what is there to say? Constricted and distracted. That's it exactly. That's how I feel. So. There we are. The foundation of Groklaw is over. I can't do Groklaw without your input. I was never exaggerating about that when we won awards. It really was a collaborative effort, and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate." Why it's a big deal.

Comments

Where will this end?

[Anonymous Coward]

America used to be a free country and now where are we?

Re:Where will this end?

[SirGarlon]

America used to be a free country and now where are we?

At a defining crossroads. My fellow Americans, now is the worst possible moment to wimp out.

Re:Where will this end?

[dmbasso]

Actually shutting down is fighting. It delivers a stronger message than just words.

Re:Where will this end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially if that message is "You Win."

Re:Where will this end?

[BrokenHalo]

Pj, you gutless coward! Come back!

Given that PJ has been running Groklaw with almost no intermissions for just over 10 years, it's probably not fair to describe her as a gutless coward. If you can come up with a form of email encryption that you can guarantee won't be cracked within the next 5 years, then good luck with changing her mind about this decision.

If she were me, I would just be plain tired. There's only so much a committee of one can do.

Re:Where will this end?

[Noryungi]

Pj, you gutless coward! Come back!

Two points:

1) It's HER site. If she does not want to continue, for whatever reason, it's HER choice. Disagree with her? Create your own Groklaw.
2) Especially given the Lavabit precedent, I can understand her decision.

Remember: you may be secretly ordered to spy on your own users, and secretly prevented to even mention this to anyone - including your own lawyers - and threatened with criminal prosecution if you decide to do right thing and shut everything down. Big Brother wants to be able to watch you. All the time.

As for being a ''gutless coward'' (your words, not mine), try running a high-traffic, high-visibility web site for a while, with all the attendant legal problems and shenanigans (see above), and we will talk about it for while, mmmmmkay?

Re:Where will this end?

[MrNemesis]

What I can take away from this statement by PJ is that the powers that be already have their hands on the servers either by hook or by crook and although groklaw may be able to set up tor or any number of any other number of secure workarounds, the entire site is compromised at source, therefore making any further measures moot.

If I were PJ and the feds or whomever came down on me with a gagging order, a reaction and a message like this would be the only possibly-legal way of informing the users, although I wouldn't be surprised if repercussions weren't coming. Shifting the site outside of US jurisdiction, warning members or modifying access protocols to get around wiretapping would be directly against the terms of the gag order.

Now I'll go swap my tinfoil hat for a lead one.

Related aside: back when speed limits were introduced in the UK, the AA (Automobile Association) got in trouble for obstructing the police by using their scouts to warn drivers of speed checks in the area. So they introduced the slogan "If an AA patrol fails to salute you, please stop and ask why".

Re:Where will this end?

[Immerman]

Indeed, and I can understand her feelings. I just wish she had chosen to fight instead. She sits at the focus of a pretty fair-sized, cooperative community rich in legal and technological expertise and the will to use it - I can't think of many others in such a strong position to make a stand. She long avoided politics on Groklaw, but this is going way beyond politics, this is an attack on the rule of law itself, and we're in dire need of champions while there's still some small hope of making a difference.

Perhaps she did some soul searching and found she was not champion enough for this challenge - I seem to remember she was shaken by some of the particularly ugly attacks and intimidation directed at her over the SCO saga, not that I blame her, and the opposition this time around is far more fearsome and insidious.

Farewell PJ, we'll miss you. And I at least will be hoping you change your mind.

Re:Where will this end?

[Noryungi]

Educate yourself: Lavabit founder has specifically stated that he did not wat to compromise the privacy of his users.

Source: https://lavabit.com/

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

He has also stated that he could be arrested for shutting down his site:

Source: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/13/20008036-lavabitcom-owner-i-could-be-arrested-for-resisting-surveillance-order?lite

I may be ''rather fucking stupid'' as you say, but, at this stage, I trust Lavabit more than I trust the NSA.

And please learn the difference between "convent" and "convenient". I am not a religious person and I have no intention of ever becoming a monk.

Re:Where will this end?

[gmuslera]

America is not a democracy, if looks, smells and tastes like a plutocracy, then no matter the handwritten label you stamp over it, is not. That you (and hopely, most) are becoming aware of it is an improvement, in any case.

It was a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a myth, a good PR. The truth is probably the USA were never more, or less, democratic and free than most of western europe state. Just your run of the mill western democratic country. Not bad, but not the best either : just one among many good country to live in.

Re:It was a myth

[jcdr]

I disagree.

First there is really big difference between countries about the privacy question. For example in Switzerland (where I live) the privacy question is far more mature than in the USA. It's not a government vs peoples fight, but a normal subject where change have to be voted by all citizens. In the USA the government is so powerful that it can do almost anything, especially using his agencies, without strong opposition.

Secondly, the USA is by far the country that have the most used his massive commercial and political influence to impose to others countries to destroy the privacy rights of there citizens. Many non-USA peoples are upset about that, really. This is not an hazard if now the USA is considered an evil county about privacy and that some others non-USA country is now regarded as more free than the "used to be free" USA.

For many peoples, USA was the way to go until the end of the 20 century. Recent release of documents have show that the USA success was based on one of the most massive manipulation of information and manipulation of others governments. It's normal that there is a reaction about that, internally and externally. I really don't known how the USA will evolve from that point. Regarding everyone as a suspect is certainly not a way to build a bright future.

Re:It was a myth

[tolkienfan]

The US has seen many protests. Many people have moved there, even from the UK and other European countries, for freedom. Look at Salmon Rushdie.
No, this is relatively new and your attitude doesn't help.
We need large number of people showing their indignation, not sitting at home saying "it was probably always like this"

Re:It was a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

It may not be a case of wimping out. Lavabit was slapped with a gagging clause by the US spy agencies and told that it would have to allow the NSA to spy on its customers on its behalf without telling them. Lavabit decided to shut down rather than act as a mole for the NSA, and was then charged by the Feds for not spying on their behalf. It looks very much like the same thing may be happening with Groklaw. Groklaw is quite outspoken on behalf of freedom of speech, openness, and transparency and therefore critical of the NSA's activities. The US spy agencies are currently in the process of intimidating and shutting down any free speech that exposes NSA lawbreaking or is embarrassing to the US spy agencies. Groklaw would therefore be a prime target. I can't help wondering whether Groklaw has received similar legal threats under cover of a gagging order. Certainly there were many posts criticizing the NSA on Groklaw, and I wonder whether the NSA asked Groklaw to provide access to the NSA to spy on its emails and posters in order to intimidate and silence them. That must surely be the only explanation for the sudden shut down and the freezing of discussion posts.

Re:It was a myth

[fuzzytv]

If there's one thing that really annoys me on people from US, it's talking about Europeans. There's no such thing (no matter how much the European Union denies that). Europe is a geographical group of ~50 countries that are very (very very) different in all aspects. Did you know that Azerbaijan, Belarus or Georgia are European countries? (I have nothing against those countries, I'm just trying to explain that assuming all countries are like France, UK or Germany is pretty much nonsense). It's like talking about Americans when actually talking about people from Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Canada because thay all live on continents with "America" in the name.

Even this "We are the best!" bullshit is present only in some of the countries. That does not mean the people in the other countries are not proud of their country, they just don't treat the others as crap. I'd bet it works the same way in the US, btw - most people genuiely proud of their country/state and a few nationalist loonies (which get the most in foreign news, so the impression is quite distorted).

Re:It was a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise that he didn't talk about today but of when the USA was founded?

You mean when only (slave owning) men (mostly of European descent) were allowed to vote?

That's not even a valid argument, and means nothing. All people originally started from tribes, yet a "tribal" is nothing but a politically correct word meaning "racist." The American colonists were no different, and started from a position of both oppressor and oppressed. Yes, they were dominated by racist male slave owners, and they took land by force from the natives, but they were still only a colony, governed from afar without input. They then revolted and create a democracy from the people they were. Even if it started as only a democracy of 30% of the population, any democracy was still a huge improvement because it allowed them to change.

What made them create the democracy the way they did was coming to an agreement that excluded tribal governance. The right to free speech. The right to freedom of religion. The right to assemble. The formation of a representational government. These are rights that protect individuals from the tribal behaviors of others.

Only a democracy was able to evolve to include the rest of the people, sometimes civilly, sometimes brutally, and never without controversy.

It would not have been possible to do this in the reverse order. They were governed by someone else, and would have been unable to make the social changes required to eliminate slavery first, or to grant blacks, natives, or women the vote. They themselves did not have their own government and did not have a vote in how to run their affairs.

So stop saying or thinking that our democracy was founded on racism. Our country was founded through the drive for self-determination, revolution, and democracy, with measures to protect against racism (the seeds were there, although they weren't implemented in that way at that time.) And it was only through democracy that it could be improved, and the racism reduced. But making such changes is an extremely tumultuous, hard, and slow process that takes overcoming centuries of cultural bias. Even today, a lot of people still want to live in a tribal society, and exclude anyone not of their tribe.

Suppression via Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to 2013, the terrerists are still winning without having to lift a finger.

Re:Suppression via Fear

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The terrorists' surrogate army has outposts at every airport in the land reminding people constantly that their ability to travel freely is limited.

Best fucking backronym for the TSA ever.

The Fascists Have Won

[some old guy]

Apparently our freely-elected Constitutional government has succeeded in creating a critical mass of fear in the US. Real investigative journalism, what little there actually was, is now dead. We are therefore left with only state-approved information exchange.

Time for me to get my passport renewed and learn a new language. Fuck this country. I can get a job anywhere.

Re:The Fascists Have Won

[MickyTheIdiot]

anyone that thinks that Obama is "left wing" is an idiot.

Middle-left is a stretcher.

Re:The Fascists Have Won

[some old guy]

There is a profound difference between superficially biased journalism and state-monitored corporate journalism. The former is mere human failing, the latter is despotism.

Nobody expects real journalism from the mainstream. It is the muzzling of independent journalism that ushers in our brave new world.

Re:The Fascists Have Won

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Time for me to get my passport renewed and learn a new language. Fuck this country. I can get a job anywhere.

And precisely where are you going to go? Name me another country that has less restrictions on free speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, right to property, and so forth. Everywhere you look there are governments that have it written right in their version of the Constitution that they can detain you, take your stuff, monitor everything you do or say...the list goes on and on.

You can say "I'm gonna move somewhere where they can't spy on me and arrest me for saying unpopular thing about the government" but I challenge you to find anyplace on the planet where that's guaranteed anymore. The US was the last bastion of this. If it's fallen, you're SOL.

Re:The Fascists Have Won

[Immerman]

No, he really isn't. Thirty years ago he would have been seen as, at the "leftist", a moderate Conservative.

The sad truth is "left versus right" stopped being a real thing in politics decades ago, today it's little more than the window-dressing espoused by politicians to keep us distracted while both sides push as hard as they think they can get away with towards a despotic government - the worst-case combination of the liberal and conservative viewpoints. The "liberals" claim to push towards big gov with big benefits, and "settle" for big gov. The "conservatives" claim to push towards small gov with small benefits, and "settle" for small benefits. Between them they have managed to create a monster while both sides can (with ever-decreasing plausibility) claim that that wasn't the intent.

Re:Good riddance

[RotateLeftByte]

you mean the ones who use 'Anonymous Coward' as their sig? (like you perhaps?)

I've disagreed with PJ over many things but I've always respected her argument and I've never been censored when I've put forward differing views to hers.

Her research into a topic is excellent and puts many lawyers to shame.

I for one will miss her and Groklaw.

Thank You, pj

[some old guy]

Groklaw will be missed. You are, and will remain, a rock star. :)

Turnkey totalitarianism.

[boorack]

All components required to impose totalitarian regime were in place for some time. Now, our lovely, corporate-sponsored fascist and criminal government decided to turn the key.

Re:Give Up

[Sockatume]

Streets aren't secure or private, but if you saw the Gestapo positioned on every street corner you might suddenly feel differently about them.

First they came for Lavabit...

[Vermonter]

And I said nothing, because I am not a Lavabit user. Then they came for Groklaw, and I said nothing, because I don't visit Groklaw. Then they came for Slashdot, and I had one less platform to voice my outrage...

Re:First they came for Lavabit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this: https://slashdot.org. See what happened?

They've always had Slashdot.

Translation: Groklaw has been gagged

[pipedwho]

What this translates to isn't that Groklaw doesn't like what's happening to others and is shutting down out of protest.

It is that it has been served with a demand for information/wire-tapping along with an attached gag order, courtesy of the 'Star Chamber'. The only 'legally' safe way for organisations to tell people that something like this has happened is to shut down their operations.

So, translation of Groklaw's announcement: the NSA/FBI/TLA have copied our hard drives and installed a data logger in our data centre. Oh yeah, and we're not allowed to talk about it.

Whistleblowers, then journalists, then lawyers

[jkflying]

First they came for the whistleblowers,
But I was not a whistleblower.
Then they came for the journalists,
But I was not a journalist.
Then they came for the lawyers,
But I was not a lawyer.
Then they came for me,
And there was nobody left to defend me in court, write about my case or provide facts as to what had been done against all of us.

Re:Grow a fucking spine

[SirGarlon]

I believe it was Bob Dylan who came up with the words you need to hear right now: "Just because you like my stuff, doesn't mean I owe you anything."

You're free to disapprove of PJ's choice, of course, but can you do it without sounding quite so petulant and self-entitled?

Re:And we continue downhill... Farewell Groklaw...

[meta-monkey]

Blood? That's so 20th century.

The revolution is here, though. And the streets will run red with tape.

The bankers and the politicians think they are safe because they've built prisons. They've built a militarized police. They've built an omnipresent spy machine.

It is a mighty machine indeed. Powerful! Terrible! You'd be mad to fight that machine! Who could?

But there is one, tiny, adorable little flaw in their design. Uh, what tells the soldiers in which directions to point their guns? What determines who occupies the prison cells? What determines whether the spy machine is listening to your pizza delivery calls rather than ferreting out bank fraud?

Why, it's just a piece of paper. It's just a law that says "defend bankers, gas protesters." All you have to do is change that law to say "prosecute bankers, defend protesters" and that machine turns right back around on its makers. Kind of a clever hack, eh?

Let's see, let's see how to change those laws...

Oh, look, the laws of my city, county, state and nation are right here on the Internet. And look, I have a text editor, too! I bet I can write better laws than a bunch of dickbags who failed kindergarten and slept through civics class. If I need some help, advice on wording, I wonder if there's anybody on the Internet who might help? And I bet if I tidied up the body of laws for my own town, removed the tax breaks for the golf course where the city council gets free memberships and used that money to fix potholes in the streets, people might actually vote for that! Only need a plurality. And I bet I can crowdfund some ads. Or FaceBook it. My grandma might Like it.

I'm working on this right now, and I can use some help.

It's basically Sourceforge for law. Get your laws. Fork them. Hack them. Vote on a release candidate before a general election and choose a random Installer to put on a ballot. Crowdfund money.

Turn it into a game. The US electoral district map is a game of Risk. Each unit has tax money and a militarized police force if you win it. Campaigns are just an MMO, with quests like "write 10 letters to the editor," "collect 100 FB likes for these laws," and raid bosses like "drive people to the polls." I'd love to get "haunches" in there somewhere. Oh well. Maybe collect 10 pictures of opposition candidates drunk or with their hair out of place. Dick pix = legendaries.

If anybody wants to help, I need:

Law hackers.

Foundation/community organizers.

Sourceforge for law (I'm hacking Allura now, but I've never used Python before)

Kickstarter for cash.

Memes to explain this to people.

Trolls to troll politicians.

Stackoverflow (law version) to help people write better laws

Secure online voting system.

It's all right there. Every tool we need is available for free online. We can repair the entire US government from our parents' basements in our pajamas, one district at a time.

We need not hide, we need not encrypt. We will occupy no streets, break no laws, have no secrets and be the very, very most obedient of citizens. Call it an "Open Government" maybe. Or New/America.

We just need some hackers.

Do you know any?

Re: Grow a fucking spine

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'm guessing it is not the technical privacy hurdles which have her against the ropes - it is the legal ones. If I make the most technically secure site in the world, but I am forced to secretly open the back door to some government official, secretly demanded under jackboot threat and penalty of imprisonment and the ruin of my life - what else do I do? If you are willing to let her destroy her life - why don't you offer to take over the administrative side of GROKLAW, rightfully refuse to comply and publish all the details, and we will all vocally support you as you are carted off to your new dungeon cell. It is her life, not just some abstract principled stand.

The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are jumping away from the issue: The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt, in a way that affects everyone on the planet.

Some thoughts

[dcollins117]

Allow me to present two quotes I think are relevant. The first is from the the Groklaw article referenced to in TFS.

Not that anyone seems to follow any laws that get in their way these days. Or if they find they need a law to make conduct lawful, they just write a new law or reinterpret an old one and keep on going. That's not the rule of law as I understood the term.

The second is from a recent op ed piece from Charles Krauhammer. I usually disagree with him on just about everything, but I read his stuff anyway just to get a glimpse of the what the "other side" is thinking. Nevertheless, I think he is spot on with the following:

Such gross executive usurpation disdains the Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And most consequentially, it introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what's left of the law?

Re:Give Up

[urulokion]

You are missing the point. The point isn't that e-mail isn't a secure form of communication. The point is the NSA is capturing ALL of it and storing it in massive data stores. The NSA can search through ALL of the captured data at will. That US Federal government have the e-mails. There is really nothing in place that prevents the government from search through the stored data time and time again for years, except for some "rules".

The fact the government CAN search through your e-mails at will is what PJ is concerned about. She a very bright person. She's gone over the issue in her mind. She realizes all of the ramifications of the government capabilities of the NSA. And it scares the hell out of her. It's created a chilling effect on First Amendment rights. Lavabit, Circle Mail, Groklaw are just the first visiable causalities of this chilling effect on free speech. And it's going to get worse and worse as more people realize the full impact of what the Snowden leaks are telling us.