Lavabit is fighting for its first amendment rights.
Lavabit is a little known provider of encrypted email solutions; or should we say, it was one.
Its creator, owner and operator, Ladar Levison, decided to suspend operations, after one of the company’s most notorious users appeared to be the former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.
Snowden sent out an email from a Lavabit email address; when the service was active, anyone could register a highly encrypted email account.
Like Gmail and Outlook (formerly, Hotmail) the service was free.
Unlike these, however, NSA had no backdoor to tap into, as everything was encrypted on the client side. In other words, not even Lavabit themselves could give NSA access to snoop around.
Facing the closure of service or the apparent surrender of crucial information related to the encryption algorithms to the NSA, Levison chose the former.
After much soul-searching, Levison decided to suspend operations and fight his own battle at court. In doing so, he is advising those that value their privacy, to avoid using American-based email providers.
We aren’t sure if he will prevail, or if he will be able to maintain his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
What is sad and ironic, at the same time, is that his request for financial support through a fund is managed by PayPal – the very last place one should be donating money through, given the circumstances of NSA tapping into major American corporations.
This post is 100% true!
