Founder Ladar Levison repeatedly refused to hand over information requested in the hunt for Snowden, who used the Lavabit service to organize a July press conference at the Moscow airport. He was dealt a search warrant in July, followed by government orders for “all information necessary to decrypt communications sent to or from the Lavabit e-mail account [redacted] including encryption keys and SSL keys.”
Levison eventually complied with the order, but presented the keys in barely-readable 4-point font on printed paper, pictured below.
(Image: The Atlantic)
He then proceeded to shut down his company, releasing a statement in early August declaring, “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.”
While Levison has been under a gag order, the newly public court documents shed light on his mysterious and sudden decision to close of Lavabit.
In August, Levison told Democracy Now!:
I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore, which is why I’m here in D.C. today speaking to you. My hope is that, you know, the media can uncover what’s going on, without my assistance, and, you know, sort of pressure both Congress and our efforts through the court system to, in effect, put a cap on what it is the government is entitled to in terms of our private communications.
_____________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Copyright: Common Dreams