# Should Lavabit and Groklaw have shut down because of the NSA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767 "2013-08-21T00:56:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/21 "2013-08-21T14:37:50Z")
I wonder what percentage of companies have been used in some way to commit a crime. 90%? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/22 "2013-08-21T14:40:35Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > I wonder what percentage of companies have been used in some way to commit a crime. 90%? I wonder what percentage of companies, when subpoenaed regarding crimes committed by a customer, refused to comply and decided to go out of business instead. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/23 "2013-08-21T14:45:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I wonder what percentage of companies, when subpoenaed regarding crimes committed by a customer, refused to comply and decided to go out of business instead. The issue here is clearly not compliance a legitimate subpoena, as evidenced by the fact that Lavabit has a track record of complying with these. The best inference available, given that mandated cover-up of what the government is attempting, is that Lavabit is rejecting an unlawful (as per the plain language of the Fourth Amendment, and the plain context of its drafting, namely that “general warrants” were one of the grievances that led to the American Revolution) attempt at blanket surveillance decoupled from any legitimate showing of individualized suspicion or the necessary statement of particular description of the communications to be accessed. Please try to keep up with the class. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/24 "2013-08-21T14:54:35Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The issue here is clearly not compliance a legitimate subpoena, as evidenced by the fact that Lavabit has a track record of complying with these. The best inference available, given that mandated cover-up of what the government is attempting, is that Lavabit is rejecting an unlawful (as per the plain language of the Fourth Amendment, and the plain context of its drafting, namely that “general warrants” were one of the grievances that led to the American Revolution) attempt at blanket surveillance decoupled from any legitimate showing of individualized suspicion or the necessary statement of particular description of the communications to be accessed. > > Please try to keep up with the class. Lavabit does not have the authority to decide which subpoenas are lawful or unlawful. That’s for the courts to decide, and the fact that they’ve chosen not to fight this proves that they know it’s a lawful action and are simply grandstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/25 "2013-08-21T15:10:44Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Lavabit does not have the authority to decide which subpoenas are lawful or unlawful. The recipient of an order is to simply follow it without making a determination of the order’s lawfulness? That’s not the generally accepted view; and insisting upon it has been known to have unfortunate consequences, up to and including hanging by the neck until dead. In any case, the hypothetical existence of a subpoena, even an unlawful one, is an assertion of fact not in evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/26 "2013-08-21T15:39:24Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The recipient of an order is to simply follow it without making a determination of the order’s lawfulness? That’s not the generally accepted view; and insisting upon it has been known to have unfortunate consequences, up to and including hanging by the neck until dead. And Godwin’d in 25. Under US law, _yes_, Lavabit is to either acquiesce to the government’s requests, or convince a judge to put a stay on their motion until the matter can be adjudicated. There is nothing in the Constitution or law of the land that allows them to unilaterally declare the order illegal and refuse to follow it, nor any possible set of circumstances by which obeying instructions would lead to “hanging by the neck until dead”. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/27 "2013-08-21T16:12:36Z")
What _are_ you babbling about? The order (whatever it is) has clearly been complied with via the shutdown; the government now has access to all zero point zero of their communications. Maybe the Internet going Galt is what it will take to put the government back into its place. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/28 "2013-08-21T16:22:01Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Maybe the Internet going Galt is what it will take to put the government back into its place. 1. The government _is_ in its place. It is the government’s job to protect the people from those like Edward Snowden and the terrorists he enables. 2. Yes, let’s shut down the greatest technological achievement in human history because it’s possible that some mid-level bureaucrat might know you still think lolcats are funny. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/29 "2013-08-21T16:31:54Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > 1. The government _is_ in its place. It is the government’s job to protect the people from those like Edward Snowden and the terrorists he enables. > 2. Yes, let’s shut down the greatest technological achievement in human history because it’s possible that some mid-level bureaucrat might know you still think lolcats are funny. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The opposite. It is the job of many more people like Snowden to protect our hard-won liberties from the State by alerting us when they are secretly trampling over them. I’ve yet to see any evidence that Snowden has done anything to hurt anyone. But I could name you a government responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths due to an illegal invasion of a country. And I could name you a country to this day that routinely kills civilians by the dozen in terroristic attacks in countries with which it is not at war. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/30 "2013-08-21T16:32:50Z")
No. They should post a very prominent protest on each page that is non-specific and warning about all contributions. The SDMB should do the same. We live in the United Stasi of America. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/31 "2013-08-21T16:34:17Z")
Justice be done, though the heavens fall. That said, there are probably better alternatives that remove points of vulnerability. Not surprisingly, projects along those lines are springing up, [e.g.](http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/15/trsst-is-a-secure-twitter-for-the-post-snowden-internet/): > [@](#): > > In a world where tweeting is the new texting, there are some folks out there who want to broadcast their thoughts – but with an acceptable level of security. That’s where Trsst comes in. It is, in short, an encrypted messaging platform that turns your short messages into a p2p style collaboration system. > > I realize that’s a bit hard to follow (and I’m still having some trouble wrapping my head around it) but in essence it will be a signed, encrypted, decentralized system that mimics Twitter functionality. This means your person-to-person messages will be completely secure and, more important, messages you broadcast will be digitally signed. The database will be distributed, Bitcoin-style, so no one company controls it… With no one company controlling it, there’s no need to worry about it being shut down in response to an illegal fishing-expedition order. For that matter, there’s no need to worry about an illegal fishing-expedition order – there’s nobody in a position to be given such an order. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/32 "2013-08-21T16:51:16Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > The opposite. It is the job of many more people like Snowden to protect our hard-won liberties from the State by alerting us when they are secretly trampling over them. I’ve yet to see any evidence that Snowden has done anything to hurt anyone. 1. Not a single one of your rights has been “trampled over” by the NSA’s programs. 2. As stated above multiple times, he has made it easier for terrorists to plan their attacks in secret and harder for the federal government to stop them from killing Americans. > [@](#): > > But I could name you a government responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths due to an illegal invasion of a country. And I could name you a country to this day that routinely kills civilians by the dozen in terroristic attacks in countries with which it is not at war. Russia? You know, the country your Real American Hero Edward Snowden apparently thinks is a better guarantor of human rights and civil liberties than the US? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/33 "2013-08-21T17:01:56Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > 1. As stated above multiple times, he has made it easier for terrorists to plan their attacks in secret and harder for the federal government to stop them from killing Americans. Great Ghu, you’ve actually reached the point of suggesting that your assertions somehow become more credible because you’ve repeated them over and over… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/34 "2013-08-22T16:31:59Z")
In the long run, the issue may become moot with the rise of [a new generation of encrypted e-mail services](http://rt.com/news/mega-secure-email-lavabit-359/), immune by design to this sort of interference: > [@](#): > > Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz is working on a highly-secure email service to run on a non-US-based server. It comes as the US squeezes email providers that offer encryption and Mega’s CEO calls Lavabit’s shutdown an “honorable act of Privacy Seppuku.” > > Mega’s Chief Executive Vikram Kumar, who is heading the development of the company’s own end-to-end encryption technology to protect the privacy of the future email’s users, has reacted to the Lavabit founder’s decision to suspend his service’s operations – an act, which was shortly followed by voluntary closing down of another secure email service, Silent Circle… > > Mega doesn’t hold decryption keys to customer accounts and “never will”, thus making it impossible for it to read the emails. This also means that Mega by design cannot be forced to rat on its users by intelligence agencies… ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/35 "2014-05-20T19:23:41Z")
The owner of Lavabit has posted an explanation at the Guardian: > **[Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email)** > > Ladar Levison: For the first time, the founder of an encrypted email startup reveals how the FBI and the US legal system made sure we don't have the right to much privacy in the first place I find it sickening the guy wasn’t allowed the traditional legal protections the American judicial process has allowed for hundreds of years. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/36 "2014-05-21T00:08:57Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > No. They should post a very prominent protest on each page that is non-specific and warning about all contributions. The SDMB should do the same. We live in the United Stasi of America. [Cory Doctorow makes an interesting point](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/09/nsa-sabotage-dead-mans-switch) – the government may be able to tell you “you may not state this specific truth”, but the bar is much higher to a hypothetical requirement “you must tell this specific lie”. This suggests a “dead-man switch” workaround: > [@](#): > > …Jessamyn West, a radical librarian, conceived of a brilliant solution, a sign on the wall of her library reading “THE FBI HAS NOT BEEN HERE (watch very closely for the removal of this sign).” After all, she reasoned, if the law prohibited her from telling people that the FBI had been in, that wasn’t the same as her not not telling people the FBI hadn’t been in, right?.. > > This gave me an idea for a more general service: a dead man’s switch to help fight back in the war on security. This service would allow you to register a URL by requesting a message from it, appending your own public key to it and posting it to that URL. > > Once you’re registered, you tell the dead man’s switch how often you plan on notifying it that you have not received a secret order, expressed in hours. Thereafter, the service sits there, quietly sending a random number to you at your specified interval, which you sign and send back as a “No secret orders yet” message. If you miss an update, it publishes that fact to an RSS feed. > > Such a service would lend itself to lots of interesting applications. Muck-raking journalists could subscribe to the raw feed, looking for the names of prominent services that had missed their nothing-to-see-here deadlines. Security-minded toolsmiths could provide programmes that looked through your browser history and compared it with the URLs registered with the service and alert you if any of the sites you visit ever show up in the list of possibly-compromised sites. > > No one’s ever tested this approach in court, and I can’t say whether a judge would be able to distinguish between “not revealing a secret order” and “failing to note the absence of a secret order”, but in US jurisprudence, compelling someone to speak a lie is generally more fraught with constitutional issues than compelled silence about the truth… ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/37 "2014-05-21T00:42:00Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > 1. They also helped people commit treason, like Edward Snowden. > 2. Lavabit does not have the legal authority to determine what constitutes privileged communication. If they were served an order to open certain documents to the government and they refused it, then they’re the ones breaking the law, not the government. I bet the US postal service has helped people commit treason. We better shut that down. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/38 "2014-05-21T00:49:38Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > The owner of Lavabit has posted an explanation at the Guardian: > [Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit | Ladar Levison | The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email) > > I find it sickening the guy wasn’t allowed the traditional legal protections the American judicial process has allowed for hundreds of years. So he ran a service that was helping people break the law, obstructed a government probe into the criminal activities of his clients, and shut down the company because he couldn’t in good conscience allow criminals to be brought to justice. And he’s the victim here? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/39 "2014-05-21T00:54:09Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > I bet the US postal service has helped people commit treason. We better shut that down. If the Postal Service were actively making it impossible for criminal communications or shipments of illegal goods in the mail to be tracked, and they actively refused an attempt by the government to find those shipments? Then yes. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767/40 "2014-05-21T01:16:42Z")
But they do. The USPS doesn’t know what’s in the parcels/letters, nor do they try to find out. And, if anyone asks to see them they will refuse, barring a court order. And, I would doubt very much that they would be willing to route all post through an NSA/FBI/CIA/Whatever facility for inspection and reading. If such an order were provided, I would consider it their moral responsibility to refuse to comply (and though I am no constitutional scholar, I think such an order would be illegal). Now, if such orders are given openly and subject to debate, then the courts could weigh in BEFORE any damage was done, and at least theoretically justice would be served. Once we gag the very presence of such a request we render the entire constitution moot. Really think for a minute about the actual effect of these gag orders. With that principle in place, the government can literally do anything it wants, since the very act of debating them is illegal. We could apply that logic to activities of the police. We could arrest people with secret warrants and try them in secret courts, then make it illegal to discuss these as well. That anyone could support such unchecked power boggles my mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-lavabit-and-groklaw-have-shut-down-because-of-the-nsa/666767.md?page=3)