Snowden’s Email Provider Goes Dark

Image: Lavabit

Ladar Levinson, founder of Lavabit, an alternative email provider, would rather shut his service down than hand over email information to the government. Apparently, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden used Lavabit when emailing interested parties about his briefing at the Moscow Airport, where he had been stuck for over a month. Those emails in turn attracted a flood of attention to the Texas-based company.

Levison published a letter on the company’s Facebook wall, explaining his situation—to the extent to which the law allows him—and justifying his decision to pull the plug to his users. You’d think that a crop of people who opt out of using popular and more established email providers would be understanding of his desire to take a stand on privacy issues.

Apparently not. Many users are commenting that they’re “really fn pissed off,” and, of course, some are already spewing garden-variety conspiracy theories. Many other commenters supported the decision that Levison took, particularly when explaining that he could not inform them sooner due to legal restrictions, which are still in effect. 

Meanwhile Wired reports that Levison isn’t really a “privacy absolutist,” because he complied with a routine search warrant targeting a child pornography suspect. So, they speculate, whatever forced him to pull the plug must have been particularly invasive. 

Levison concluded his entreaty by saying he “would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.” Anyone got a recommendation? 

The full body of his text is below. 

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:

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