Lavabit founder: 'My own tax dollars are being used to spy on me'

[kpete]

Lavabit founder: 'My own tax dollars are being used to spy on me'
Since shuttering his email service, which was used by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Ladar Levison has been stuck in a Kafkaesque legal battle – and that's about all he can say

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Levison first heard of Snowden when he revealed himself in the Guardian in June. The first he knew about Lavabit's involvement was when Snowden used a lavabit.com account to announce a press conference at Moscow's airport, where he was left in limbo following his flight from Hong Kong.

"It's not my place to decide whether what Snowden did is right or wrong," said Levison. "I understand the need for secrecy. I understand that the government needs to keep the names of people they are currently investigating and doing surveillance on secret. I am wholly opposed, and find it contrary to our way of life, for the government to keep the methods that they use to conduct that surveillance a national secret. What they are really doing is using that secrecy to hide un-American actions from the general public," he says.

The extent of government surveillance illustrated by Snowden's leaks shows that the Obama administration is willing "to sacrifice the privacy of the many so they can conduct surveillance on the few", Levison said.

As his legal woes mounted he and his lawyer, Virginia-based Jesse Binnall, set up a fund in the hope of raising some cash. "If there's one thing the government has it's no shortage of lawyers. My own tax dollars are being used to spy on me," he says. "If you took all the people we currently have employed as peeping toms and turned them into school teachers, we'd have a much smarter country," he said.



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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/lavabit-founder-us-surveillance-snowden

[KoKo]

1. Recommend!

[burnodo]

2. kick

in preparation for the "Guardian hates Obama" crowd

[MotherPetrie]

3. K&R