Lavabit founder: 'If You Knew What I Know About Email, You Might Not Use It'

[wtmusic]

[div style="float: left; padding-right: 12px;"]"Ladar Levison, 32, has spent ten years building encrypted email service Lavabit, attracting over 410,000 users. When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was revealed to be one of those users in July, Dallas-based Lavabit got a surge of new customers: $12,000 worth of paid subscribers, triple his usual monthly sign-up. On Thursday, though, Levison pulled the plug on his company, posting a cryptic message about a government investigation that would force him to 'become complicit in crimes against the American people' were he to stay in business. Many people have speculated that the investigation concerned the government trying to get access to the email of Edward Snowden, who has been charged with espionage. There are legal restrictions which prevent Levison from being more specific about a protest of government methods that has forced him to shutter his company, an unprecedented move.

“This is about protecting all of our users, not just one in particular. It’s not my place to decide whether an investigation is just, but the government has the legal authority to force you to do things you’re uncomfortable with,” said Levison in a phone call on Friday. 'The fact that I can’t talk about this is as big a problem as what they asked me to do.'

Levison’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, who is based in Northern Virginia — the court district where Levison needed representation — added that it’s 'ridiculous' that Levison has to so carefully parse what he says about the government inquiry. 'In America, we’re not supposed to have to worry about watching our words like this when we’re talking to the press,' Binnall said."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/09/lavabits-ladar-levison-if-you-knew-what-i-know-about-email-you-might-not-use-it/

[Kelvin Mace]

1. Waiting on the Snowden/Greewald haters

to attack these people as part of the conspiracy in 3...2...1...

[cantbeserious]

3. The Character Assassins May Be Waiting For New Government Talking Points

eom

[Kelvin Mace]

8. I really do not understand

these people. If they have bought into the entire "we are protecting you from terrorists" lie, why are they hanging around here? Why are they not over at Free Republic or Red State, or hanging out with the anti-science crowd?

To quote the Bene Gesseret, "Fear is the mind killer". The "national security" types play on people's fears and people allow themselves to be controlled by fear.

My first thought on the morning of 9/11 was not "Holy shit, terrorists are going to kill me!" it was "Fuck, here comes the police state."

[Jackpine Radical]

28. "Fuck, here comes the police state."

Exactly the same reaction here--my wife & I were apart at our different places of work when we heard about it. When we met at home, we had both independently arrived at LIHOP.

[Kelvin Mace]

34. I am afraid that I don't subscribe to that theory

I certainly am cynical enough to understand why people hold this opinion, but it falls afoul of too many logic tests.

However, once it did happen, BushCo and the varied parts of Eisenhower's "military industrial complex" wasted no time profiting on the fear.

[valerief]

77. Because war means nothing without profit. nt

[WinkyDink]

111. "logic tests"? You mean like how NORAD "failed"? You mean like how Bush's brother

was in charge of WTC security (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm)?
You mean like how Bush sat and acted unshocked, unhurried, uncaring---as though he knew there would be no further attacks?
You mean how WTC-7 collapsed without being hit (don't try to claim that buildings collapse from unattached proximity!)?
You mean how no human remains or fuselages were found in either the Pentagon or Schwenksville crashes, even though such remains have been found in virtually every other airplane crash (the Everglades one might be an exception), including Lockerbie?
You mean how we were conducting "war games" simulating the WTC attacks AT THE VERY SAME TIME?
You mean how subsequently Condoleeza Rice swore under oath that such a scenario was never ever even considered?
You mean how the steel from the towers was carted off to Fresh Kill, NY, without any forensic investigation?
You mean how absolutely no surveillance-camera footage of any of the accused hijackers in Boston or JFK exists or was shown to the public; that the only picture we have is of Mohammed Atta and another man going through security at an airport to board a flight TO Boston? (Boston....hmmmmm...)
You mean how the former SG Olson claimed his Conservative commentator wife called from AA-77 when such a call, no matter which type he claimed, was impossible?

THOSE "tests of logic"?

[Kelvin Mace]

120. Sorry

Most of the claims you are making have been discredited or shown to simply not be true.

I am so sorry, but i reject those claims as i reject all the JFK conspiracy claims.

[awoke_in_2003]

84. It took me a bit...

I was stunned, like most. Once the Patriot Act was being talked about about, I stopped being stunned and started being pissed.

[valerief]

46. When we got news in the office of a second plane hitting the WTC, my first reaction was,

"Shit, what is Bush doing to us?"

Later I was appalled to learn we weren't supposed to express that idea at all.

I think the Snowden bashers aren't real DUers. They're probably paid by the 1% to muck up DU and sites like it.

I have a friend who says things like, "No, (this one or that one) is a real DUer. They have a lot of posts and have been around for years." To me, that translates to, "My parish priest would never hurt my son."

[Kelvin Mace]

53. A number of the NSA supporters

are long-time DUers, which is very sad to me. They actually seem to buy into this "if you have nothing to hide, why object?" line. They can be perfectly rational on other topics.

However, there are also those who championed Obama and now that he has turned out as bad as some of us warned, they have to much invested in being right and cannot face that they were duped. So, they attack all critics and turn their back on reality.

I doubt anyone is being paid. It is easy to get people to act against their own interests for free by simply manipulating their fears.

[valerief]

57. My friend who I spoke of in my previous email is an Obama Mama.

I don't think she wants to admit disappointment in him, so she's been avoiding DU.

I voted for Kucinich in 2008 myself. I knew it would never happen, but he was my preference. I knew either Hillary or Obama would get the nomination. When my friend would extol the wonderfulness of Obama, I expressed hesitancy, and she didn't like that. But I'm also not naive. I knew then only a Republicanesque candidate could ever be elected as a Dem prez in this "aren't Jesus and sports and guns wonderful?" America, and in this climate, we have to be grateful for whatever crumbs we get.

Here's what I think of Dem and Repub pols.

The Dem pol is an old man on a park bench tossing crumbs to pigeons.
The Repub pol is an old man shooting pigeons.
We're, of course, the pigeons.

[Kelvin Mace]

62. Excellent anology

I am very tired of being classed a "traitor" or "paid shill" or "naive fool" because I refuse to cheer and clap on command and because I point out crimes being committed by "our" side.

I also catch hell for pointing out that voting for the "the lesser of two evils" is still evil.

I had one fellow this week attack me for criticizing Dems, claiming I was "excusing" Republicans by blaming Dems.

Huh? How the frak does that work?

[valerief]

63. Ha! I believe it used to be called brainwashing.

And I'm fully aware that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil, but we pigeons still need the crumbs.

[elehhhhna]

66. MAy I add that they are sitting on the same godam bench

[valerief]

71. Yes, you may. You're right. And it's in Central Park. Thanks! nt

[arikara]

73. Excellent analogy

I hope you don't mind me using it.

[valerief]

93. Go for it. nt

[rosesaylavee]

104. +1000

[WinkyDink]

113. Yes! "We're, of course, the pigeons."

[Bryn]

128. Great quote about the pigeons

I tweeted it. Hope you don't mind.

[valerief]

130. Nope. I thought of it ages ago and have posted here a few times. It seems to fit. nt

[left is right]

76. my first thought was similar

"What has bush done?" and I too learned very quickly that it was not a thought to express aloud

[roguevalley]

92. someone on another thread with an ungodly amount of posts next to their name

told me that they didn't care about the NSA crap because the President was making them feel safe. I am floored. Fuck the Constitution. No one in power will stop with your emails and stuff. But for some, they don't care. I am glad I am old.

[iamthebandfanman]

97. while i think there are paid

folks on DU with agendas (as well as a few folks working for china) ...

I think youre being a bit overly paranoid....

just because someone has a differing opinion than you doesn't make them your enemy or a traitor.

I do agree with the notion about post counts tho... it means nothing.

I tend to look at born dates of folks for some validation of their dedication

I really hated it when DU allowed folks to change their names... I think it was sneaky.

btw my reaction to watching the second plane hit on TV, while I in bed trying to wake up for a college class i had later in the day, was 'not with bush president.. wonder how long before we invade iraq'. :p

a lot of us new about their agenda for Iraq long before these sneaky fucks weaseled their way back into the white house..

[arely staircase]

122. Skinner on "paid shills"

1. This whole who-is-the-paid-shill witch hunt is disruptive nonsense.

It betrays an utter lack of creativity on the part of the people making the accusation. They are so convinced that they are right that they cannot imagine someone else might hold a different point of view in good faith. Either that or they are incapable of advocating for their own point of view on the merits.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1259&pid=2716

[BlueManFan]

91. Mine Was Oh Shit--The Bush Presidency Isn't Going To Be Joke Anymore---God Help Us

I already knew about Carnivore.

[nebenaube]

95. and green lantern n/t

[MyNameGoesHere]

94. Mine was "We have an idiot in charge" eom

[Swagman]

100. agreed..just why are they so determined to push the 'terra' line and why

do they have these things in common ? : Assange is an 'egotist", Snowden is coward hiding in Russia, Greenwald is etc etc blah blah.

the term sleepers comes to mind.

[gulliver]

115. Fear is the mind killer.

I'm actually motivated to support democratically elected government actions 1) because I support the people's right to have their vote honored, and 2) because I like to see the bad guys get their asses kicked.

I think the people who are afraid of democracy have allowed their minds to be killed. No one has been hurt by anything Snowden/Greenwald revealed. They are just a distraction, and they will go nowhere. Meanwhile real liberals are concerned with real problems.

[Aerows]

9. I think they already got them

the new one is character assassination of Snowden via armchair psychology.

[nenagh]

13. +1000

[Warpy]

51. No they're out in force today

How dearly they clutch the chains that bind them...

[cherokeeprogressive]

64. Hundreds of blue links have been sent already. n/t

[Th1onein]

125. Damn it, Cherokeeprogressive!

This gets me every time. My keyboard needs saran wrap on it.

[PSPS]

2. "In America, we’re not supposed to have to worry about watching our words..."

Levison’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, who is based in Northern Virginia — the court district where Levison needed representation — added that it’s 'ridiculous' that Levison has to so carefully parse what he says about the government inquiry. 'In America, we’re not supposed to have to worry about watching our words like this when we’re talking to the press,' Binnall said."

The sad truth is that this isn't America anymore.

[cantbeserious]

4. + 1,000

eom

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

35. It's like CU4P (Corporations United for Profit) nt

[valerief]

45. Yep, it's now the USSA. nt

[Frosty1]

80. So much for our constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech!

[defacto7]

127. This is so true.

And not for some time now.

[GiaGiovanni]

5. Read the whole article at the link

Chilling

[wtmusic]

6. Yes.

We can't go on this way.

[dkf]

7. So are we allowed to call this guy a patriot?

I do.

[cantbeserious]

10. A Patriot In My Eyes

eom

[dixiegrrrrl]

69. He has company:

Silent Circle, which makes software that encrypts phone calls and other communications, announced in a company blog post that it could "see the writing on the wall" and decided it best to shut down its Silent Mail feature.
The company said it was inspired by the closure earlier Thursday of Lavabit, another encrypted e-mail service provider that alluded to a possible national security investigation.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57597726-38/silent-circle-follows-lavabit-in-shuttering-encrypted-e-mail/

[NutmegYankee]

11. I'd rather the huy just comes out and says everything.

Do a press conference with the 1st Amendment pasted overhead, and dare the authorities to act in violation of their oaths and the Constitution.

It's time to reclaim our rights.

[dkf]

14. It would be too much to ask. It's so sad that doing the right thing is against the law.

[NutmegYankee]

15. The law is obviously unconstitutional.

But someone has to break it and get charged for it to get struck down. Someone needs to contact the ACLU and make the move.

[dkf]

20. What would they be charging him with anyway?

[enlightenment]

26. Something from the Patriot Act, probably,

which is a neat method of bypassing protections afforded individuals by the Bill of Rights.

[NutmegYankee]

36. They would be charged under 18 USC § 1510, section (e)

Up to five years in Prison. This was added as part of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, Public Law Nr. 109-177.

[dkf]

70. Wow. That's significant.

[Le Taz Hot]

103. Constitutionality is determined by the USSC.

Roberts heads up the secret FISA court. What are the odds the Supremes will come down on the side of the people?

[NutmegYankee]

105. 9 justices and an issue that crosses the left/right divide, pretty good I think.

[Jesus Malverde]

17. What are the penalties for ignoring a NSL

Prison and financial ruin.

[NutmegYankee]

37. Assuming the Gov't won in court.

A high profile case with ACLU assistance would be horrifically embarrassing and would likely result in striking down the statute. Only a court can issue a gag order, and a NSL does not have court approval.

[bonniebgood]

12. So 'free market' is when the gov want you be free. nt

[Democracyinkind]

16. Well thanks for not warning me you prick.

Why the obfuscation? If you got a fucking NSL and decided to shut down, why do the whole "down for maintenance" schtick? You've fucked many people with this. Me included. Many of us used Lavabit bsck in the days when Eddie was still a proud Paulite and hadn't any need for your services.

[Jesus Malverde]

18. Bravo you win...nt

[wtmusic]

22. It's possible he would have had to turn over all of your communications

IMO it's more likely you've been fucked by the NSA.

[Democracyinkind]

29. Ultimately by the NSA, no doubt.

That does not excuse the obfuscation. I could have changed services the day he got the letter, instead I was goaded to wait for 2 whole days believing the "maintenance" obfuscation, for which there was absolutely no need.

He's right in what he is doing, IMO. Doing it this way - double-fucking his clients - was a pretty shitty way to take the high road.

[wtmusic]

31. Totally understand why you're pissed

but I would like to know the whole story before passing judgement.

It's possible it was the less shitty of two very shitty options from which to choose.

[AppleBottom]

39. This is the power of the NSA gag order, if you say anything you go to jail.

or Guantanamo for obstructing some nonsense.

[Democracyinkind]

42. I get that.

But he could have disclosed the fact that he was going to shut down - without mentioning why - without giving people the false impression that it was merely a maintenance issue.

[vanlassie]

50. Before calling him a prick...

Don't you think you might need a few more details? Use your imagination, put yourself in his place, and think what might have caused YOU to take the same steps including the timeframe. I hope you can do this.

[Democracyinkind]

56. You should re-read my post, then.

I think he has taken the right course. But there was no reason to mislead his customers and his employees.

[vanlassie]

59. Re-read mine.

[Democracyinkind]

60. I don't think I need - or will ever get - more details.

I am not the only customer that can't excuse the way this went down.

If there is any detail to this story that can sufficiently explain deluding customers and employees I'll be happy to re-adress that judgment. But I think it's unlikely to come from Lavabit or the national security agency.

BTW - This is not the first such issue with Lavabit. There was a prior 2 day shut down the communication of which enraged many paying customers. They promised not to pull that off again, yet they did.

Again, I think the overall stance that he is taking is the right one.

[vanlassie]

78. Failure of imagination, my friend. You are

SURE you know how it came down! But...you actually don't. Because you're not omnipotent. Feeling frustrated is one thing. But calling the guy a prick? Not knowing the details? That's a bit much.

[Democracyinkind]

79. I'm not omnipotent.

I see no way how the situation could have forced him to claim it had to with maintenance issues. Lavabit reps were claiming that everything would be dandy even on friday. If anything this issue highlighted the fact that they really don't give a damn about communicating coherently and honestly with their customers (which was apparent before Snowden). I won't hold my breath for any fancy explanation as to why he let his rep delude customers, but if there is such an explanation I'll gladly acknowledge it.

[AtheistCrusader]

87. On friday, Lavabit employees, including the owner may have honestly and earnestly believed that.

Owner may have gotten a 'halt operations' order from whichever alphabet soup agency caused this, and after two days of them haranguing him, he may have just thrown in the towel.

Until he can speak freely, it's unfair to assume he chose to go out this way.

[Democracyinkind]

99. It would be an astonishing coincidence if there

actually was maintenance work done just while they received a NSL.

[AtheistCrusader]

118. Not exactly what I meant.

They may have called it maintenance, believing that it was a temporary stop-work. (They may have even taken the opportunity to DO some maintenance.)

[Tikki]

19. I can't think of one reason I wouldn't use my e-mail.

Tikki

[AllyCat]

108. Not now...but if they collect enough of your email and stash it for some day

when you decide to fight an injustice in your community...they will be able to rifle through all the stuff you sent years ago, filter it to suit their needs, and defeat you. It doesn't matter if you have "nothing to hide". You, and most other Americans have "nothing to hide". Yet when the corporate states want you to comply...they'll find plenty you should have hidden. If only you'd known then...

[Tikki]

119. Well, the NSA has been around for 60 years and I have been politically...

active for many, many years.
They have my number and it is not what they are looking for.

I'd say about 99% of us here on DU are of no consequences to the government..

That may be the real problem. We are not even a blip, when we should be at least
a little blip to catch their attention as we try to make the World we live in a safer, more equitable, livable place.

If they are reading our concerns about our Country's future shouldn't those concerns be what is noted and
then acknowledged!!?

Tikki

[AllyCat]

132. You are right: we are of no consequence. So why are they collecting our data?

If you ran for public office, worked really hard for a progressive cause that started to give you name recognition, people started to follow you, the media started to cover you, and the corporations don't like you...then you would have all the dirt dug up from decades worth of emails, phone calls, and texts.

And I doubt they are reading it. Just collecting it for future use if needed. And if they WERE reading it...I really don't think the PTB give a rat's behind about our concerns if they are not the same as THEIR concerns. Which they aren't.

[ProSense]

21. Interesting

Levison isn’t an privacy absolutist. He has cooperated in the past with government investigations. He says he’s received “two dozen” requests over the last ten years, and in cases where he had information, he would turn over what he had. Sometimes he had nothing; messages deleted from his service are deleted permanently.

“I’m not trying to protect people from law enforcement,” he said. “If information is unencrypted and law enforcement has a court order, I hand it over.”

In this case, it is the government’s method that bothers him. “The methods being used to conduct those investigations should not be secret,” he said.

...article. That's good to know.

[PowerToThePeople]

23. These services need to be moved to another country

One that will respect rights.

Lavabit may even be able to do this.

[MineralMan]

24. Very interesting.

The question I have is one of trust. I wonder about the wisdom of trusting communications to any vendor. Personally, I use Yahoo, and have no concerns because my emails are of no value to anyone except me and those with whom I communicate. I would not trust Yahoo with sensitive information sent via email. Frankly, I would not trust any email server. Since I send nothing of that sort via email, though, it doesn't really matter.

But, if my email required encryption, for some reason, I'd be very, very careful with that email. I certainly wouldn't rely on information provided by any vendor regarding security issues. Essentially, it is impossible to know, with any degree of certainty, whether a vendor is worthy of trust to that degree.

Luckily, I have no such communications to make, so it's not really an issue for me. My work product is not sensitive in nature, and of no interest to anyone but the clients I work with. My personal life is extraordinarily boring. My political communications are made only on DU, and are all posted publicly, so they're not encryption worthy.

If, however, I was doing something that was sensitive and would jeopardize anything in my life, I would not trust any vendor to act as an intermediary in any communications of that nature. Not any vendor. I would find ways to communicate that did not involve any third party at all. Any encrypted material would never be sent in the clear beyond my immediate control. I'd encrypt on a computer not connected to any network and either send the already encrypted material via email or via another communications method. The point is that it would simply never be available in unencrypted form to anyone in transit. Never.

It's amazing to me that anyone who requires encrypted communications would use any third party vendor to handle that encryption. That would make the encryption completely fallible from the moment it left my control.

[wtmusic]

27. IMO if you're going to extreme lengths to encrypt end-to-end

you would probably get a search warrant based on that alone. They'd get your keys and all of your communications that way.

Without transparency on the government's end, it's a really a no-win situation.

[MineralMan]

30. No, not necessarily.

There's a lot of encrypted communication, to prevent industrial espionage and other things. I'm not involved in anything like that, but some of my clients are. I only work on the publicly available content they use, so it doesn't really matter, but some of my clients work with all sorts of confidential material, and they encrypt it in-house and it stays that way until the recipient uses a key to unencrypt it. None of that information is interesting on a national security basis, but it gets encrypted because other are interested in it.

We all go to HTTPS websites. We trust them with financial, credit, and medical information. The government isn't interested in that stuff. They have access to it already if they need to look at it.

There, are, however, criminals and others who encrypt specifically to keep government agencies from knowing what's in their communications. Now, that stuff is interesting to those government agencies, and that's what they're looking for, not the ordinary communications of people and businesses.

Most of us never communicate anything that anyone but us are interested in. And that's the actual reality. Most of us are simply not of interest to anybody. Often, we're not even of much interest to people who receive our communications. DU is evidence of that, for sure.

[wtmusic]

33. You're assuming the NSA can distinguish between what's "interesting" or not

without knowing the contents.

There, are, however, criminals and others who encrypt specifically to keep government agencies from knowing what's in their communications. Now, that stuff is interesting to those government agencies, and that's what they're looking for, not the ordinary communications of people and businesses.

How does the NSA differentiate between "ordinary communications of people and businesses" and the communications of "criminals and others" - without knowing the contents?

"Criminals and others" are undoubtedly working very hard to appear to be the "ordinary communications of people and businesses".

[MineralMan]

38. Metadata.

If you've actually read the disclosures in the briefing documents Snowden released, it's easy to understand. The algorithms used by the NSA to examine communications metadata is about recognizing associations with known bad guys. Unless such associations appear, they're simply not interested in the content of the communication.

That's how it all works. Without algorithms designed to discard the huge majority of uninteresting communications, there are not enough people and computers on the planet to look at all of it. In actual fact only a tiny, tiny part of the communications are interesting at all to the NSA, FBI, etc. And all of those are discovered through associations revealed by analyzing the metadata, with specific targets in mind. Phone numbers. Email addresses. IP addresses. Other metadata.

What the NSA does is whiz through that metadata looking for references to actual targets. Did the target communicate with someone? Did someone communicate with the target? If so, then the NSA algorithms make note of that. One association isn't important, since the likelihood of any useful information would be extremely small. What the algorithms are looking for are multiple associations. Did an entity in the associated communications then communicate with another target? Were there multiple associations or communications over some period of time? Did two targets communicate with each other? How often?

The NSA algorithms analyze associations and provide some sort of ranking data that human analysts can look at. It flags stuff that the algorithm is designed to flag, and some actual human being then looks at those flags and makes a determination whether there's a reason to go further and find out what sort of communication is going on.

At that point, other people are involved and eventually an order is sought to actually go and collect content data associated with specific targets. FISA has to approve that collection. Then, and only then, is actual content collected for analysis.

That's what happens. It's all in the information provided by Snowden. But nobody's actually reading that information. They don't have time to bother. I read it. I'm still reading it as new information is available.

Information associated with specific targets and associations is what they're looking for. You're not one of those targets, and neither is anyone you communicate with. You're screened out in the first pass when metadata is looked at. Nobody cares about your communications. They don't matter.

[wtmusic]

43. You have no evidence that's how it works.

You're assuming it's all about recognizing assocations with "known bad guys" - based on what? What Obama has said publicly?

Far more likely that all communications are prioritized, and that includes yours and mine. If you've had a lot of communications with someone in Yemen, whether it's a wholly innocent business commnication or not, you are receiving a higher level of scrutiny than someone who has not.

This "known bad guys" stuff is nonsense.

[MineralMan]

44. But I don't have a lot of communications with someone in Yemen.

None of my communications are interesting at all.

What evidence do I have? I have the released briefing slides and other information on the NSA programs. It all makes perfect sense. I also worked at the NSA in the late 1960s while in the USAF, which gives me a little bit of insight on the organization. Only a little, but it helps me understand the current documentation.

"known bad guys" is not nonsense. The whole thing is about that.

I'm not one. I don't know any. Nobody's interesting in anything I communicate. They're not interested in you, either. You're as boring as I am, I'm sure.

[wtmusic]

48. I'm as boring as you are?! That cuts.

WADR, data collection, analysis tools, and hardware are silly complex compared to the 1960s. You say that nobody's interested in anything you communicate, but I would beg to differ. Current experience with databases and encryption leads me to believe that everything is collected, everything is prioritized automatically. Given the capabilities, there's no reason not to.

You post on DU, you're supportive of Ed Snowden? You're prioritized at a higher level than a day-job dude who struggles with Outlook. You go to extraordinary lengths to encrypt communications end to end? Use TOR networks/browser? You're a few big notches up on that scale. They want to know what you are so insistent on trying to hide.

I'll amend my earlier statement - obviously communicating with "known bad guys" is going to increase your priority level. But who determines what a "known bad guy" is? Does that include people who are supportive of Palestinian rights? Could that conceivably morph into "anyone who opposes the sitting President's political agenda"? "Anyone who opposes corporate influence in government"?

The possibilities for the government and others misusing exabytes of lower-priority data concerning protestors, dissidents, voting, coercion, blackmail, extortion, fraud, are truly endless. It's gotta stop.

[MineralMan]

52. I'm not stuck in the late 1960s, you know.

I've moved on and kept up.

I don't encrypt any communications. I could, but there's no reason for me to do so. As I said, I'm boring from the perspective of any government.

[greiner3]

109. I usually click on your OPs;

However, your 'logic' with your posts on this topic will leave me much less inclined to do so in the future.

Sucks to be me I guess.

[MineralMan]

110. OK. Your choice.

[elehhhhna]

67. Tice claimed they looked at Congress, media, business etc.

I know they don't care about me but if they have private info they can use to blackmail gov't and the press, we are all screwn.

[arikara]

74. Have you ever seen the crazy list of words that they watch for?

Innocuous ones like pork, airplane, wave, burn, flood to name only a few.

[questionseverything]

114. mineral man said

<<<At that point, other people are involved and eventually an order is sought to actually go and collect content data associated with specific targets. FISA has to approve that collection. Then, and only then, is actual content collected for analysis. >>

this is kind of a parsing of words,the gov't has admitted repeatedly they want to keep a "haystack" including " capturing" content...what mineral and the gov't say is that they are not spying until they actually look (collect)at the "captured" content...the aclu disagrees,the "haystack" itself is illegal

[7wo7rees]

89. ^This is the point of this whole argument.

The readers of our data can come to whatever conclusion they want about what you and I write and say.
And now they're looking at a lot more of it than we thought we allowed.
Anyone can be made to look criminal, given enough source data to configure.
Dirty police states have more to hammer you with if they want you gone.

[progressoid]

47. "We trust them with financial, credit information. The government isn't interested in that stuff."

Uh, yes they are.

Drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorists, etc often use legal businesses and non-profits as fronts for their activities. To track them, the government will "follow the money".

[MineralMan]

49. The government has access to financial transactions already,

and does not have to use the NSA or other intelligence agencies to discover them. Existing reporting laws for the banking industry take care of that pretty well, with the FBI being the lead agency involved with domestic money laundering, etc. The DEA does the "war on drugs" thing. The NSA, CIA, DIA and other such organizations are interested in issues relating to other countries. It's all divided up, with only a little cross-over. The agencies are competitive, mostly, and cooperative with each other only sometimes. That leads to a bunch of other problems, but those are not the current topic, really.

My point in this thread is that I would not trust third parties with sensitive communications. What's to stop government agencies from setting up such "secure" hubs and email handlers? Think about it. They're interested in such communications. Why would they not be in the lead in offering such services - on a sub rosa basis, of course?

I find it amusing that nobody ever considers such a thing when such companies suddenly "shut down." Don't you?

[progressoid]

54. So, money launderers are honest when they file bank forms?

I read a stat somewhere that about 1% of laundered money is recovered. Seems access to financial transactions may not be all that helpful.

While you may not trust such third parties, obviously others have. Why else would the NSA want to shut them down?

[MineralMan]

55. Yah, OK, then.

You go right ahead and trust "Bob's Secure Email" system, then.

[progressoid]

61. I don't.

Nor do I really trust my financial institution to keep anything secure. But, like 99.9% of us, I don't have much of a choice.

I was just pointing out that the govt is interested in financial, credit information etc. Regardless of email (encrypted or not).

[Th1onein]

124. No, but they DO have to have WARRANTS and those have to be SPECIFIC.

And when you get your info from WARRANTLESS spying by the NSA and you share it with the FBI, that's when you need to "re-create" investigations, because you have to cover up that your evidence was obtained unlawfully, and is fruit of the poisoned tree.

[Progressive dog]

25. I probably wouldn't post on message boards either,

or use the telephone if I thought that the NSA had a reason to spy on me.

[MineralMan]

32. Exactly.

[jtuck004]

68. We/you/me aren't the one that makes the judgement about whether you should be snooped on.

That is in the imagination of the spy.

[Progressive dog]

81. Yes, it certainly is in someone's imagination

eom

[millennialmax]

40. I'll continue to use the Gmail account I've had for 6+ years, worry free. eom

[AppleBottom]

41. Poor guy the NSA gag order prevented him from telling his customers the whole truth.

[bhikkhu]

58. The NSA is welcome to read my email

Google does, and for all I know chinese hackers do as well. The internet is a public place owned by no one, and snooped on by everyone.

Its what the information is used for that might bother me, but I have far less concerns about what use any government might have for my internet activity than the uses a corporation might have. And even there its just annoying spam trying to sell me stuff.

[NoMoreWarNow]

107. well, sure, then you won't mind giving me your email address and password, right?

if not, why not?

[bhikkhu]

116. We trust different people for different reasons

...google, more or less, and other corporations, because the motive of themselves and their employees is well known - simply to make a profit. They are pretty predictable and work within a set of rules. Any individual within a corporation could misuse the data, but that would be prosecutable, and it is in the interests of the organization to maintain trust with their customers.

Then the government, which does just have, but is the source of our official identification data. They have a large variety of private data on myself and my family, by their nature. Of course they have all sorts of things that could be misused, but any government employee works under a set of rules and controls to eliminate misuse by individuals within the government, and consequences are well defined if that were to happen.

How many people in the IRS could have leaked Romney's tax information, for instance, or any other candidate's, yet that didn't happen?

If I trust the government to educate my children, to manage my retirement, to process my taxes and so forth, I also trust them enough that I don't care if they have "the capability" to read my emails. I can't imagine any reason they would want to, but the capability is simply a product of technology.

[TorchTheWitch]

134. people like you scare the ever-loving shit out of me

You would have been happy as a pig in shit living in Soviet Russia. Yeah never mind the Constitution and privacy rights and all that silly nonsense that the formation of this country was all about and that thousands of people have fought and died to protect for you. You're happy to just toss your rights down the garbage shoot as though they were nothing.

<<<CLICK>>>

[Cryptoad]

65. Totally amazing ,,,,,

that there so many people on DU that truly thought that anything on the Internet even emails was ever a private domain.

Where have yall been for 20 years!?!

no wonder the Far Left has become bedfellows with the far right!

[whistler162]

83. Realize the same ones are likely also pro-Marijuania decriminalization

and draw your own conclusions!

[RainDog]

98. really?

since the majority of Americans support full legalization of marijuana, and 70% of the American population has supported legalization of medical marijuana for more than a decade - how can you draw such a stupid conclusion about the opinion of anyone regarding any other issue other than decriminalization or legalization of marijuana?

You sound like you stepped out of a bad Nixon parody.

[Rex]

72. Please I use Google and Yahoo mail.

Might as well be called CIA and NSA mail.

[moondust]

75. "This is about protecting all of our users"

I'll take a wild guess that the government demanded access to Snowden's e-mails and Levison got scared that they'd find a lot of other illegal or nefarious stuff hiding behind the security wall--which could possibly incriminate him as well as 'our users'--so he abruptly deleted everything and pulled the plug.

[wtmusic]

86. No.

That's like saying if I conduct illegal activity via Gmail that Google is somehow responsible.

Maybe he just felt responsible for the protection of the privacy his customers had entrusted to him. Not that that will prevent many from ascribing ulterior motives to him.

[nolabels]

102. It really would have just sounded like so much crazy talk years ago

But then again, who knew posting and thinking in today's world that the government wasn't going to come in and play like a square player. When there were things like democracy on the discussion table that the anticipation would be too much for them to handle if you look back with forethought. We had lots of hints to be fair, but a big clue should have been when they had jumped the shark and installed *.

They need to go lay an egg and the discussion will still go on, in spite or despite of that entity

It was a bad idea to think people who could take advantage of things wouldn't. I can respect law enforcement has a job to do, but trampling on every bodies civil rights was and is not part of the deal. Mostly too we know that the main impetus for this thing going on was not even the law enforcements deal but more of totalitarian right-wing zealots wet dream. It it quite easy to remember those types would be behind stuff like this when you think about a pompous ass like Oliver North testifying before congress years ago.

No we haven't forgotten and know what's up

[wtmusic]

117. Most troubling is Obama's support for this "totalitarian right-wing zealots wet dream"

It's become a cancer not limited to one party but one endemic to our political system. As odd as it might seem, I'm more than happy to join forces with teabaggers on this issue. It simply cannot stand.

[AtheistCrusader]

88. Guarantee they'll toss him in jail if he deletes anything.

[Life Long Dem]

82. The NSA doesn't spy on American citizens when they are in a foreign land.

Many people have speculated that the investigation concerned the government trying to get access to the email of Edward Snowden,

[WinkyDink]

112. Right.

[JDPriestly]

85. And so it begins. The government knows where Snowden is. What more do they need to know?

Do they also want to persecute his family and friends because he could not longer bear the burden of knowing the government was exceeding reasonable bounds with its surveillance program?

This is the sign of a government way in over its head, scared to death of not being able to protect the people. But what are they afraid of? They can listen into the conference calls of the leadership of Al Qaeda, so it certainly is not Al Qaeda. What scares them so much about the American people that they need to track and read our e-mails and phone calls, Google searches and other internet activity and snoop on some of the content of what we say and do?

What are they hiding that we don't know and that they don't want us to know?

What kind of mayhem do they think that Americans are plotting behind their backs (in open view on the internet and in phone calls)? It makes utterly no sense.

No sense whatsoever. If they want to find criminals, they should follow ex-cons, not indiscriminately follow and investigate everyone. It is an incredible, absurd waste of money.

Of course, it keeps a lot of people employed. I guess that is the upside.

Why have an internet if you have to keep it under surveillance all the time?

Maybe keeping the internet under surveillance is costing our government more than the internet is worth.

[nolabels]

121. Sure is a funny thing how the founders erected the government to serve the people

The day the military-industrial complex murdered JFK was the day they started flipping the script. Nowadays people want to discuss how the corporate-controlled government wants to get into all or any of every bodies business. It's not the discussion about how things are going forward anymore, but how much is being captured by such. It's like they took a piece of the Third Reich and grafted it onto the US tree and are just now finally chopping that final living piece of the US part. It's like they wanted to make sure it was growing correctly before they got rid of the top of the host tree.

I like to draw parallels in nature and human society to see how the the trajectory works. After all many things with with living organisms involved follow similar patterns. One of the particularities here is mostly pathogens rarely take over the host completely but this is starting to look like one of those exceptions

Grafting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting

[JDPriestly]

123. Yes. Terrorism is such a lame excuse.

Most of the officially recognized terrorists have been foreigners or of foreign birth and Muslim.

That is a rare profile in the US. I do not agree with ethnic or religious profiling. But why in the world are they using terrorism to justify collecting all our metadata? The number of people who fit the profile of terrorists is very small within the US, and the number of American residents who could possibly have any contact with terrorists is miniscule.

[nolabels]

129. They have run out credible enemies

A lot of people who hang around here have spent a of time trying to figure out what happened on 9/11. I don't know the percentages of who thinks or believe what but i would put money on the mihop theory. The expansive growth of the metadata wasn't able to take off till mihop was accomplished. The final sucker punch before they could take whatever measures they wanted. It's a strange group think they have.

The idea they have all this data and on and on seems irrelevant to me. A more coherent view if you used logic would be of that idea has gone amok. There is no real practical use of such large data bases unless you were needing to run a totalitarian state or had it out in the open in some weird way and were doing research with it.

What it seems me is just another way to waste money secretly. Of course it's used for intimidation and to create the illusion of knowledge but it's really not a self-perpetuating enterprise. That's to say it's of no great practical use especially when you consider the amount of resources invested in such.

[JDPriestly]

131. I agree with this.

"There is no real practical use of such large data bases unless you were needing to run a totalitarian state or had it out in the open in some weird way and were doing research with it."

I don't agree with this.

"it's of no great practical use especially when you consider the amount of resources invested in such."

It can be put to great practical use if your goal is establishing a totalitarian state or at least propagandizing people so that they will be complacent and do what you want.

[nolabels]

133. They would never be able to implement a totalitarian state in the US

The recent gun nut explosion was not because nobody saw it coming. It should seem sad that had to come down to that but that what it looks like to me. The gun nuttery is what keeps it at bay. And no doubt, with out it, a totalitarian state would of happened here in US long ago. That is why the information is a waste of time for them and or whoever. It's like watching the movie "Predator vs Aliens"

[JDPriestly]

135. I don't want to insult you, but to think that one guy with a machine gun can outrun a drone

is naive. Weapons are not the answer.

Stopping the beast of indifference before it numbs its prey is the answer.

[Douglas Carpenter]

90. knr

[iamthebandfanman]

96. It was a failing business/service

and I tend to think hes using this as an excuse..

not that its not a valid excuse with valid concerns, because it is...

but lavabit is/was a joke, imho.

[Democracyinkind]

101. It started to feel like a bad joke long before this happened.

As I said earlier, this just tops off a history of terrible, almost non-existent customer service by Lavabit.

[Civilization2]

106. The fact that I can’t talk about this is as big a problem as what they asked me to do. --says it ALL

just wow,. land of the free?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

126. I think we all know now, thanks to a courageous whistle blower and journalist

Edward Snowden is a modern day Paul Revere with a thumb drive full of news that Tyranny is coming!

Edward Snowden's Dad Calls Him 'Modern Day Paul Revere'
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/edward-snowdens-dad-calls-modern-day-paul-revere/story?id=19554337

Hmmm... who knew how influential a DU meme could be