From BoingBoing. Not much needs to be said here, apart from; Fuck You, Obama.
Lavabit, email service Snowden reportedly used, abruptly shuts down
Xeni Jardin at 12:05 pm Thu, Aug 8, 2013
Remember when word circulated that Edward Snowden was using Lavabit, an email service that purports to provide better privacy and security for users than popular web-based free services like Gmail? Lavabit’s owner has shut down service, with a mysterious message posted on the lavabit.com home page today. Below, the full message:
My Fellow Users,
I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on–the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.
What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.
This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.
Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLCDefending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Donation sent. Screw you, anti-constitutional NSA tossers.
There’s a very bad smell about this.
Same is happening in the UK – none of your data and communications is safe from snooping by government agencies. This issue would be a good one for Nigel Farage to get his teeth into.
Wow. The US has not had this sort of stuff happen since WWII. or possibly the Civil War.
The significant risk is that with a blaoted, radicalized, self-absorbed civil service we could see this become a long term situation. Certainly the alleged dangers are not being mitigated by domestic spying, as the multiple US terrorist attacks since the NAS was permitted to go domestic, proves.
Snowden ran to Hong Kong and finally ended up in Russia, BUT, their data hasn’t been safe for generations!! Not too many places left.
The lesson learned here is if you ever get an email from NSA, the US government, or any agency representing them, forward it to slash dot before reading it as you have no implied agreements with them to that point.
OK, I took some time out to watch a great moonshine era movie called Lawless.
I’ve calmed down a bit now.. 🙂
“Hope and Change” is doing well, then…
Perhaps the surprise is that in this day & age any individual considers any electronic information to remain “private”.
Lavabit messages presumably were.
[…] Lavabit: Email Service Snowden Reportedly Used, Abruptly Shuts Down […]
Silent Circle is also heading for the exit as far as e-mail is concerned.
‘“There are some very high profile people on Silent Circle- and I mean very targeted people- as well as heads of state, human rights groups, reporters, special operations units from many countries. We wanted to be proactive because we knew USG would come after us due to the sheer amount of people who use us- let alone the ‘highly targeted high profile people.’”
http://rt.com/usa/silent-circle-shutdown-lavabit-300/
‘Silent Circle plans to continue its encrypted phone and text services.’
Interview with ladar Levison, Lavabit’s owner here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service
“LADAR LEVISON: Unfortunately, I can’t talk about that. I would like to, believe me. I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore, which is why I’m here in D.C. today speaking to you. My hope is that, you know, the media can uncover what’s going on, without my assistance, and, you know, sort of pressure both Congress and our efforts through the court system to, in effect, put a cap on what it is the government is entitled to in terms of our private communications.”