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Snowden Finally Identified As Target of Investigation That Ended Lavabit (washingtontimes.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the unraveled-mystery dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Times: Three years after a government investigation forced the shuttering of Lavabit, a Texas-based email provider, its CEO revealed Friday that an account belonging to Edward Snowden spurred the probe that put his company out of business. "Ladar Levison shut down his encrypted webmail service in August 2013 amid an FBI investigation focused on one of his company's nearly half-a-million customers," reports The Washington Times. "A gag-order that has just recently been vacated in federal has legally prevented him up until now from confirming the account in question was registered to none other than the NSA contractor attributed with one of the largest intelligence leaks in U.S. history. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton nullified the mandatory non-disclosure orders in a June 13 court filing that went unnoticed until Lavabit released a statement Friday. Officially, the consent order approved by Judge Hilton in the Eastern District of Virginia earlier this month removes all gag-orders concerning Lavabit and Mr. Levison with regards to a grand jury investigation that led the FBI to Mr. Snowdenâ(TM)s email account. 'While Iâ(TM)m pleased that I can finally speak freely about the target of the investigation, I also know the fight to protect our collective freedom is far from over,' Mr. Levison said in a statement. He said he plans to discuss the case further during the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas this summer."

5 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm confused by sittingnut · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it happens due to a copy and paste (from m$ word?) from somewhere and page encoding here.
    submitter probably don't see it.
    editors should check for that before moving the submission to main. that is what editors are for. they could automate the checks if they are lazy or forget.

  2. i won't believe in our justice system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i won't believe our justice system holds any actual justice until these individuals are arrested and taken to court for wilful violation of their oaths of office and for violating the 4th amendment rights of 300 million US citizens (and the civil rights of innocent people all around the world):

    James Clapper
    Dianne Feinstein
    Keith Alexander
    Mike Rogers
    George W Bush
    Barack Obama

    There are probably others too, but at least those people. It shouldn't be a witch-hunt. They deserve the presumption of innocence, due process, and to be tried by a jury of their peers the same as anyone does. Still, there is plenty of reasonable cause for them to stand trial.

    If we are not willing to do this, then our society has devolved into "laws for thee but not for me". If that's what we want, then fine, but let's make it official, and write it into our legal system that high ranking party officials are considered to be above the law. Let's pass a new constitutional amendment to that effect: we no longer want government officials to be subject to the law. And let's repeal the 4th, which we can do with a 2/3 majority of states voting for that. It would at least be honest.

    1. Re:i won't believe in our justice system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      i won't believe our justice system holds any actual justice until these individuals are arrested and taken to court for wilful violation of their oaths of office and for violating the 4th amendment rights of 300 million US citizens (and the civil rights of innocent people all around the world):

      James Clapper
      Dianne Feinstein
      Keith Alexander
      Mike Rogers
      George W Bush
      Barack Obama

      You conveniently forgot two large offenders.

      Hillary Clinton.
      Bill Clinton.

      +1 for calling out Diane Feinstien. She is a disgusting traitor and fraud who has been selling out the US to foreign powers for decades. Somehow she's gotten away with it. Her "time" needs to come.

    2. Re:i won't believe in our justice system by quantaman · · Score: 1, Insightful

      i won't believe our justice system holds any actual justice until these individuals are arrested and taken to court for wilful violation of their oaths of office and for violating the 4th amendment rights of 300 million US citizens (and the civil rights of innocent people all around the world):

      James Clapper
      Dianne Feinstein
      Keith Alexander
      Mike Rogers
      George W Bush
      Barack Obama

      There are probably others too, but at least those people. It shouldn't be a witch-hunt. They deserve the presumption of innocence, due process, and to be tried by a jury of their peers the same as anyone does. Still, there is plenty of reasonable cause for them to stand trial.

      If we are not willing to do this, then our society has devolved into "laws for thee but not for me". If that's what we want, then fine, but let's make it official, and write it into our legal system that high ranking party officials are considered to be above the law. Let's pass a new constitutional amendment to that effect: we no longer want government officials to be subject to the law. And let's repeal the 4th, which we can do with a 2/3 majority of states voting for that. It would at least be honest.

      I sympathize, but I think it's a terrible idea.

      Western Democracy has a norm that politicians carrying out their duties are restrained by the courts and judged by the ballot box, with the exception of things like corruption they don't go to prison for carrying out their jobs, even if they did things that were illegal.

      The idea of accountability though criminal law sounds nice, but then Democrats think Cheney should be in jail for ordering torture, Republicans think Obama should be in jail for executive orders, and the political dialogue becomes that much more dysfunctional as everyone starts claiming the judiciary should throw their opponents in jail (as if it isn't politicized enough already).

      You live in a Democracy. If you think a politician has something wrong then it's the responsibility of you and your fellow voters to handle it.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  3. Exactly, by jopsen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How would knowing about he order have affected anything?

    What possible purpose could that gag order have served? It's not like Snowden or the rest of the world didn't know to stop trusting Lavabit.

    The only motivation I can see is an attempt to avoid public outcry that is a gross abuse of power. The like of which is only seen in dictatorships under the heading of "political stability".

    I guess we all knew the US had serious corruption issues, now the question is if anyone will be held accountable for this.
    (I'm kidding of course: nobody will be held accountable, this is was free speech being suppressed not availability of fire arms)