The email service allegedly used by "NSA leaker" Edward Snowden is no more.
The owner and operator of Lavabit, which encrypts communication between two people, shut down the site and .
"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," Ladar Levison wrote. "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."
How do we know this is the service Snowden used? , a representative from Human Rights Watch posted Snowden's . Also, Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian journalist who has been in contact with Snowden, .
As to what could be going on: Businesses are sometimes served with either Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders or a National Security Letter that usually comes with a gag order. The Electronic Frontier Foundation . Bill wrote about ; and back in March, we wrote about .
Update at 4:52 p.m. ET. Lavabit Has Complied In The Past:
that the the pro-privacy Texas company has complied with search warrants in the past:
"Court records show that, in June, Lavabit complied with a routine search warrant targeting a child pornography suspect in a federal case in Maryland. That suggests that Levison isn't a privacy absolutist. Whatever compelled him to shut down now must have been exceptional."
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAxNDQ2NDAxMDEyNzU2NzM2ODA3ZGI1ZA001))
