Mail service Lavabit forced to close

“Dear friends, I was forced to make a difficult choice: to become an accomplice in a crime against the American people, or to give up almost ten years of hard work and close Lavabit. After much deliberation, I decided to stop working, ” writes the founder and owner of the Lavabit postal service, Ladar Levison (Ladar Levison).

Lavabit is an anonymous postal service that Edward Snowden allegedly used while in Sheremetyevo. The service supported encryption of mail in the browser before sending, so that even the archive on the server was stored in a securely encrypted form . Before closing, about 410,000 mail accounts were registered with Lavabit.

“I would like to have a legal opportunity to tell you about all the events that led to this decision of mine, but I cannot. I feel that you deserve to know what is going on. The first amendment should guarantee my freedom of speech in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress passed laws that say the opposite. At this stage, I can’t share the events of the past six weeks, although I sent the corresponding requests twice [to be allowed to do it], ”writes the founder of Lavabit. He does not intend to surrender and is now preparing documents for submission to the Court of Appeal for the fourth district of the United States. “A positive court decision will allow me to revive Lavabit as an American company,” he says.

Ladar Levison does not go into details of his business, but appeals to all users: “The past events taught me one very important lesson: until the decision of Congress or a clear judicial precedent, I __ do not recommend anyone to trust the personal data of a company that is physically tied to the United States” .
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Levison encourages all sympathizers to send donations to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund to support the future legal process.