
Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit - room271
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email
======
mililani
I'm surprised this isn't getting more traction on Hacker News. It's blowing up
on r/technology. Pretty surprising to see the mum reaction here. I was hoping
to get some more insight into the legal aspects of what happened here. Also,
the U.S. is devolving into a tyranny. Sadly, Plato surmised that all
democracies eventually devolve into tyrannies. Seems to be coming true.

~~~
eevilspock
Sadly, I think hacker news is dominated by the profit motive over the motive
of a common good. Even the libertarians here seem to be focused on the liberty
to become wealthy free of regulation. I expect this comment to get down voted,
even though it is a legit criticism, just as my questioning the morality of
ad-supported websites[1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7733713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7733713)

~~~
res0nat0r
This article seems to be leaving out a lot of details which have been
discussed many times previously on this site. Mainly with not complying with
the specific narrow warrants for individual users, dumbing down the encryption
and allowing user emails to be decrypted by admins in the first place, faxing
over encryption keys vs. supplying them digitally, and other antagonizing
things which required the government to broaden their request(s) for access.

------
mcv
Surely there should be something you can do to challenge an unconstitutional
court order, or when you think an unusual court order is interpreted in an
unconstitutional way. But how do you challenge that? Can you challenge a court
order at all?

~~~
magpi3
The Electronic Frontier Foundation appears to have done exactly that in this
case:

[https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-has-lavabits-back-
con...](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-has-lavabits-back-contempt-
court-appeal)

