Law students and their professors; I don't think my "bro deal" with them is transferable, sadly. (we're trying to get law review and/or conference papers out of it, too)
The whole thing is quite unsettled right now, and unique to every case. I'd probably contact EFF. If I were looking for someone to pay, Marcia Hofmann is now a commercial option, and she's probably the best in the world.
Please consider also looking for a criminal defense attorney with significant experience defending people in federal court. When it hits the fan and you get a court order and are being threatened by federal prosecutors, lawprofs don't do you much good. You need someone who has experience fighting back.
...they are screwing up the world for the rest of us, for everyone.. Choices being made by the tech-savvy and law ignorant are creating the precedents, while destroying themselves, that form the foundation for computer law going forward. We may be saddled with bad law for decades...
The point seems to be: when a random computer person provides a service, and that service is targeted by federal prosecutors, and idiotic judges use the opportunity to cripple civil society, it's the random computer person's fault. Are lawyers and judges simply vengeful automatons, whom any citizen should expect to destroy civilization if given any opportunity? Maybe others in the jurisprudential profession could help defend society from their colleagues?
You've missed the point big time. They screw things up when they pick inexperienced lawyers whose inexperience costs them their cases. If they pick experienced lawyers who lose despite their experience, then no one is blaming them.
The context is important here: Levison was initially defended by a small business lawyer who was only 4 years out of law school. That was truly a boneheaded decision and may very well be why Lavabit crumbled so quickly.
Well sure I see that point: one should hire good attorneys. If one cannot afford good attorneys, one is boned. That doesn't seem profound. (Not particularly just either, but whatever.)
My previous comment was thinking more generally. Society has in the past successfully weathered innovations in technology and commerce without the legal profession running amok. Often innovators were not "connected" enough to hire the best legal representation, if they did so at all. What's different this time?
> Well sure I see that point: one should hire good attorneys. If one cannot afford good attorneys, one is boned. That doesn't seem profound. (Not particularly just either, but whatever.)
The author addressed this ad nauseam in the comments. In particular, see:
> My previous comment was thinking more generally. Society has in the past successfully weathered innovations in technology and commerce without the legal profession running amok. Often innovators were not "connected" enough to hire the best legal representation, if they did so at all. What's different this time?
I don't think technological innovation has ever had the potential to disrupt existing power structures as much as the Internet and cryptography. I'm not sure what you mean by "legal profession running amok," but if you mean bad court decisions and draconian government legal theories, that's nothing new. We're only starting to see this in the context of technology because of the aforementioned clash between technology and government power.
I don't think technological innovation has ever had the potential to disrupt existing power structures as much as the Internet and cryptography.
That's a bold statement. You don't think the cotton gin and improved looms contributed to the numbers of people enslaved in the antebellum southern USA? You don't think the railroads and telegraph contributed to the settling of the West? You don't think the rise of manufacturing, which pulled multitudes of (black and white) Southerners north, changed both the South and the Midwest?
I'm not sure what you mean by "legal profession running amok," but if you mean bad court decisions and draconian government legal theories, that's nothing new.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not comparing Lavabit to Dred Scott in terms of the degree of injustice the two parties suffered. Mostly I just don't know a great deal of legal history and this historical "worst case ever" is what came to mind. However, I have never seen the unfortunate Mr. Scott blamed for the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. So, bad court decisions: not new. Blaming the victims of those decisions: new.
Mostly it just speaks to an audacious sense of entitlement on the part of any attorney who upon news of a fresh new legal outrage, immediately excoriates the victims of our federal Department of Injustice. When he says a society without Lavabit is better than a society in which Lavabit doesn't have him (or a similarly experienced and wise litigator) on retainer, that is self-serving. He is fundamentally no different than the feds, because he also wants the legal profession to act as a check on all innovation. The slight cosmetic difference is that he wants to be the one running things, because his judgment is better than that of the feds.
Of course we mustn't fall victim to the classic is/ought confusion. When in legal trouble, it's best to be well-represented. However, when any developer who wants to help people maintain a modicum of privacy and dignity is automatically in legal trouble, we all have legal trouble.
The whole thing is quite unsettled right now, and unique to every case. I'd probably contact EFF. If I were looking for someone to pay, Marcia Hofmann is now a commercial option, and she's probably the best in the world.