Jason Mick’s Story — about How the Federal Government Shut Down Lavabit Entrepreneur Ladar Levison — Should Outrage Every Freedom-Loving American — and You Thought the Fourth Amendment Actually Meant Something

© 2013 Peter Free

 

14 November 2013

 

 

Citation — to Jason Mick’s short article

 

Jason Mick, Owner of Lavabit Faces $10K Fine For Protecting His Users From Federal Spying, Daily Tech (13 November 2013)

 

 

Who is Ladar Levison and why should we care?

 

About a month ago, I answered these questions — here.

 

Mr. Levison is an American hero, in a time in which few outside the military have emerged.

 

 

In view of what happened to Mr. Levison — we might as well put on our gulag suits and be done with Liberty

 

We are allowing completely out of control national security apparatchiks to do whatever their misguided brains can dream up to crush citizens’ freedoms — in the poorly reasoned game of national defense.

 

Here (again) is what is going in on, in Jason Mick’s words

 

From Daily Tech:

 

 

Ladar Levison had a thriving business.  His encrypted email service was heavily used by corporate users that valued protecting their trade secrets.  The Obama administration, however, stepped in and crushed this American success story.

[O]ne of the [Edward] Snowden reports [see background here] carelessly showed his email -- revealing he had a Lavabit address.  Now President Obama and his bipartisan backers had a new victim to sink the teeth of the judicial system into. 

 

Mr. Levison was ordered not just to hand over Mr. Snowden's encryption keys, but the keys of all of his users -- every single one.


Mr. Levison was faced with a tough choice.  He could give the government the keys, which federal officials could potentially use to conduct corporate espionage on behalf of their campaign donors without the victims or public ever knowing. That was choice A.

Or he could defy the order and face imprisonment under the provision of 50 USC § 1861/18 USC § 2703 (which define the federal government's rights to unconstitutional seizures) and 50 USC § 1881a (which defines the punishment for exercising ones Constitutional rights and refusing to comply to said seizures). That was choice B.
 
Instead he opted for choice C -- to act in civil disobedience while being careful not to directly defy the legal statutes of the USA PATRIOT Act.  He allegedly ducked out his back door when he first saw federal agents coming to his home, denying them a chance to deliver a subpoena.
 
The Obama administration's FISA court was not happy with this action.


It held Mr. Levison in contempt of court and authorized the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to install malware on Mr. Levison's servers -- R -- and fine him $5,000 for every day he did not turn over his customers' encryption keys.

Mr. Levison exercised his Constitutional rights and waited two days, before defiantly delivering a printout of the keys printed in size 4 font.  But by then he'd already shut down his business and purged his servers, leaving nothing for the feds to collect.


Mr. Levison stated in a brief release, "[I refuse] to become complicit in crimes against the American people."

 

© 2013 Jason Mick, Owner of Lavabit Faces $10K Fine For Protecting His Users From Federal Spying, Daily Tech (13 November 2013)

 

These Government actions constitute intentionally concealed, federally sponsored domestic terrorism — all done in the name of anti-terrorism.

 

 

The moral? — Street smarts left Mr. Levison both heroic and free — BUT . . .

 

He is (more likely than not) out $10,000.  And his completely legitimate business has been destroyed.

 

 

Is this the kind of Federal Government we want?

 

Is this the Constitution we thought America had?

 

Don’t talk to me about the terrorist threat, when our own Government is doing more to crush American Liberty than millions of al Qaeda sympathizers could ever do.

 

Our willingness to subject ourselves to the Feds’ secret trampling of our rights is an embarrassment to American courage.