Cross posted at Before it's News
News broke last week that the Lavabit founder, Ladar Levison,who chose to shut down his email services rather than betray his users, has been threatened by the U.S. government for doing so, in the name of "non-compliance."
Via TechDirt, Levison claims "that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order."
"Levison stressed that he has complied with "upwards of two dozen court orders" for information in the past that were targeted at "specific users" and that "I never had a problem with that." But without disclosing details, he suggested that the order he received more recently was markedly different, requiring him to cooperate in broadly based surveillance that would scoop up information about all the users of his service. He likened the demands to a requirement to install a tap on his telephone."
The video below explains in more detail:
