No BitCoin? Well, here is the PRISM query to find out who contributed: SELECT FROM PayPalTransations WHERE hosted_button_id='7BCR4A5W9PNN4' AND referral_url like '%news.ycombinator.com%';
To quote myself from below because I find this issue so important to highlight:
So what if they can see that you donated to this pro-constitutional defense fund?
If you want to make a surveillance state less effective, you should generate _more_ noise, not less. When fascism is at risk of taking over, you don't just roll over and take it quietly because you fear they'll know you're against it.
As a person who has Nothing to Hide, I encrypt everything, and will gladly donate here. If we get everybody to use encryption, nobody will be suspect for using it. If you donate here, there's less risk that others will get hassled for donating.
Parallel construction gives pause. It goes like this:
1) Find list of people who you don't like (in this case, for legally donating).
2) Perform illegal searches to find things they have done which are illegal.
3) Find another excuse to perform a nominally legal search ("His tail-light was out. I smelled pot, and when I searched him I discovered a large amount of cash in his wallet.")
4) Arrest him for the activities discovered in 2, but allegedly discovered during 3.
tl;dr: Parallel construction allows for politically motivated searches which can lead to 'unrelated' convictions. You will never even know it happened, you'll just be cursing your bad luck.
my experience after looking at several bitcoin donation addresses is there aren't many bitcoins donated. Most of them have less than one bitcoin while kickstarter projects and paypal donations easily raise thousands of dollars.
Could it be that the donation addresses keep changing? I imagine if I was pushing for BTC donations, I'd change my address every time I received one...
Just asking, but how legit is this? Does anyone know who set this up and who is managing these donations? It is just a paypal page with nothing that obviously links it to lavabit.
They are(were) a fully-encrypted email provider that had no ability to monitor your emails. Edward Snowden hosted his account there, and they had to shut down because of (probably) US government intervention.
it starts to sound like providing fully encrypted solution (where provider just isn't able to cooperate because of no access to plain text) makes the provider de-facto accessory to whatever crime may be committed by perpetrators who used the solution while committing the crime. Basically fully encrypted solution (incl. without government backdoor) moves into the same category as assault gun, ie. something that regular good citizens supposedly just don't have legitimate uses for.
I'm not sure I catch your drift. I don't see how being an accessory enters the equation at all (how can you be held responsible for providing information you simply do not have?), and there are no current laws concerning "assault guns".
I get the reasoning. If you provide the ability to communicate securely without a government backdoor, the government will treat you like you assist terrorists.
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." - George W. Bush, Sept 20 2001
If a gmail user sends a plain text email to a lavabit user or vice versa, do they consider that scenario to be "fully encrypted". Or do both recipient and sender have to be lavabit users?
they perform(ed) encryption of your inbox using your account password, which they (obviously) don't store. Thus, everything you save to their servers is encrypted by them on your behalf, and they can't decrypt it without you.
if you email a gmail account, or a gmail account emails you, obviously a copy will end up on both, at least temporarily.
I don't see what more they could do, as a provider - all your metadata and emails encrypted properly for you, shut down completely when (the NSA?) comes knocking.
What legal action are we actually supporting?
Defending the rights of a mail provider to not be directly spied upon by the three letter agencies?
Transparency in regards to NSA letters?
I know they are limited in their speech regarding their legal issues, but is there any explanation on how the funds will be employed?
Keep in mind all your actions are being observed and collated somewhere. If you don't want hassle with your next police run in, or worse, don't live in the US and don't want "special attention" next time at the border, think twice about donating...
If you want to make a surveillance state less effective, you should generate _more_ noise, not less. When fascism is at risk of taking over, you don't just roll over and take it quietly because you fear they'll annoy you at the border.
As a person who has Nothing to Hide, I encrypt everything, and will gladly donate here. If we get everybody to use encryption, nobody will be suspect for using it. If you donate here, there's less risk that others will get hassled for donating.
At some point, we must take a stand - and that stance must be time, money, voice or vote (and preferably all four). If we continue to take no action, we become part of the problem by our submission and tacit endorsement of the abuse of the legal rights of others.
For me, personally, I think it's time to start standing up.
I don't think anyone here ever takes any pleasure in using PayPal. Especially with the seizures - maybe that's the biggest concern with using their service.
But that doesn't create an alternative. People have wanted one way farther back than the NSA info dump.
What did Lavabit think would happen by physically locating servers in the US? It's almost irresponsible to sell customers on the illusion of privacy and to not mention the risk of the servers being confiscated.
edit: This whole Lavabit thing is so dumb that I'm inclined to think it was a honeytrap designed to waste supercomputing cycles on decrypting random data.
