Snowden's email provider shuts down in face of FedCoat harassment.

Freedom.


Lavabit, email service Snowden reportedly used, abruptly shuts down

Xeni Jardin at 12:05 pm Thu, Aug 8, 2013

http://boingboing.net/2013/08/08/lavabit-email-service-snowden.html

Remember when word circulated that Edward Snowden was using Lavabit, an email service that purports to provide better privacy and security for users than popular web-based free services like Gmail? Lavabit's owner has shut down the service, and posted a message on the lavabit.com home page today about wanting to avoid "being complicit in crimes against the American people."

According to the statement, it appears he rejected a US court order to cooperate with the government in spying on users.

The email service offered various security features to a claimed user base of 350,000, and is the first such firm to have publicly and transparently closed down, rather than cooperate with state surveillance programs. The email address Snowden (or someone sending emails on his behalf) is reported to have used to send invites to a press conference at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in mid-July was a Lavabit account.

Below, the full message from Lavabit's founder and operator Ladar Levison:

My Fellow Users,

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. 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.

What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.

Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC

Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.

Update: Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian has more:

Several technology companies that participate in the National Security Agency's surveillance dragnets have filed legal requests to lift the secrecy restrictions that prevent them from explaining to their customers precisely what it is that they provide to the powerful intelligence service – either wittingly or due to a court order. Yahoo has sued for the disclosure of some of those court orders.

The presiding judge of the secret court that issues such orders, known as the Fisa court, has indicated to the Justice Department that he expects declassification in the Yahoo case. The department agreed last week to a review that will last into September about the issues surrounding the release of that information.

There are few internet and telecommunications companies known to have refused compliance with the NSA for its bulk surveillance efforts, which the NSA and the Obama administration assert are vital to protect Americans. One of them is Qwest Communications, whose former CEO Joseph Nacchio – convicted of insider trading – alleged that the government rejected it for lucrative contracts after Qwest became a rare holdout for post-9/11 surveillance.

"Without the companies' participation," former NSA codebreaker William Binney recently told the Guardian, "it would reduce the collection capability of the NSA significantly."

So much for freedom of speech. There is no such thing any more. I was in court yesterday and there was a case due to come up for a jury trial. It was a pre trial hearing. A woman called another woman a nasty name and for that there is going to be a jury trial??? I still can't believe it.

WHL wrote:So much for freedom of speech.  There is no such thing any more.  I was in court yesterday and there was a case due to come up for a jury trial.  It was a pre trial hearing.  A woman called another woman a nasty name and for that there is going to be a jury trial???  I still can't believe it.

The jury is last bastion against tyranny that the citizen has.

If you know anybody that is going to be seated on that jury, make sure they are aware of this:


New Hampshire Adopts Jury Nullification Law

J.D. Tuccille|Jun. 29, 2012 2:34 pm

http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/29/new-hampshire-adopts-jury-nullification



Jury nullification, in which jurors refuse to convict defendants under laws they find objectionable or inappropriately applied, is a favored tactic of many libertarians who, rightly or wrongly perceive individual liberty as, at best, a minority taste among their neighbors. They like the idea of a tool that can be wielded on the spot to shield people from powerful control freaks without first having to win a popularity contest. But nullification is useful only if people know about. And last week, New Hampshire's governor signed a law requiring the state's judges to permit defense attorneys to inform jurors of their right to nullify the law.

On June 18, Governor John Lynch signed HB 146, which reads:

a Right of Accused. In all criminal proceedings the court shall permit the defense to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts in controversy.

Short, simple and to the point. Nullification advocate Tim Lynch, of the Cato Institute, thinks it's a step in the right direction, though not necessarily a game-changer. Says he:

This is definitely a step forward for advocates of jury trial. Allowing counsel to speak directly to the jury about this subject is something that is not allowed in all the courthouses outside of New Hampshire–so, again, this is good. I am concerned, however, that this language does not go far enough. We don’t know how much pressure trial judges will exert on defense counsel. As noted above, if the attorney’s argument is “too strenuous,” the judge may reprimand the attorney in some way or deliver his own strenuous instruction about how the jurors must ultimately accept the law as described by the court, not the defense. I’m also afraid what the jurors hear will too often depend on the particular judge and, then, what that judge wants to do in a particular case.

So the law is an improvement over the old order, especially in an era when courts and judges are overtly trying to suppress jury independence, but one whose effectiveness is yet to be determined.

But is this faith in jury nullification misplaced? How likely are we and our neighbors to symbolically flip our middle fingers to the powers that be and free defendants charged with, say drug offenses or gun law violations? After all, the power has long existed, but you don't often hear of juries staging revolts.

It does happen, though, as a much-covered 2010 Montana case demonstrates, when a trial never even started because the court was unable to find enough jurors willing to convict somebody for marijuana possession. And a lot of nullification may fly under the radar, because it results in hung juries rather than full acquittals, and because judges and prosecutors really want to keep it quiet.

Back in 1999, the Washington Post wrote:

In courthouses across the country, an unprecedented level of juror activism is taking hold, ignited by a movement of people who are turning their back on the evidence they hear at trial and instead using the jury box as a bold form of civil protest. ...

The most concrete sign of the trend is the sharp jump in the percentage of trials that end in hung juries. For decades, a 5 percent hung jury rate was considered the norm, derived from a landmark study of the American jury by Harry Kalven Jr. and Hans Zeisel published 30 years ago. In recent years, however, that figure has doubled and quadrupled, depending on location.

That article featured a pre-gunrunning Eric Holder objecting that, "There is a real potential danger if this problem goes unchecked."

The article's hung jury estimate wasn't just guess work. A 2002 study (PDF) on hung juries by the National Center for State Courts found that "In 63% of cases in which the jury deadlocked, the majority of jurors voted in favor of conviction compared to 24% of cases in which the majority of jurors voted in favor of acquittal ..." Such numbers are considered a strong, if not conclusive sign of widespread nullification. Two of that study's authors, Paula Hannaford-Agor, of the National Center for State Courts, and Valerie P. Hans, of Cornell Law School, penned a 2003 paper (PDF) published in the Chicago-Kent Law Review that said:

The criminal justice community has become increasingly concerned about the policy implications of jury nullification, especially as jury nullification manifests itself in hung juries. A number of communities, especially in California, report that up to one-quarter of all criminal jury trials routinely result in mistrials due to jury deadlock.

That paper also concluded that strictly defined nullification isn't always distinguishable from doubts about the strength of a case, since the two tend to run together when jurors are skeptical about the credibility and legitimacy of police and the courts.

So jury nullification may be one of those things we're already soaking in without realizing it, because people with doubts about the law stubbornly bring acquittals or deadlock juries without painting their actions in political colors. Now, in New Hampshire, maybe we'll get to see what happens when jurors are told that what they're already doing is officially OK.

I don't even suppose the jury has been picked yet. I was just there trying to collect money.