So far online companies have folded when the NSA badgered them for private information of American citizens using their services. Lavabit is different. When asked to comply with the government in denying Americans’ right to privacy, Lavabit, a company used by Edward Snowden, absolutely refused, and is therefore shutting down.
“I am unaware of any situation in which a service provider chose to shut down rather than comply with a court order they felt violated the constitution,” said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But that’s what Ladar Levison, founder of Lavabit, has decided to do. He has decided to refuse to become “complicit in crimes against the American people.”
“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,” wrote Levison. “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.”
Lavabit, which has 350,000 customers will instead boldly close down rather than cooperate with federal bullying.
As reported on Boing Boing, Levison says that “I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against he American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit.” In this, he went with his conscience.
