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On the 8th August it was revealed that Lavabit, the encrypted email service that was believed
to have been used by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, had closed.
In a statement on the company's website, the owner and operator of Lavabit, Ladar Levison,
said that he had chosen to suspend operations to prevent becoming "complicit in crimes against
the American people".
Although Levison went on to say that he could not share the events that led to his decision
for legal reasons, his statement suggests that the Texas-based company had received
a search order from the US government and had been gagged from disclosing it.
Although Levison's decision to close the site means that users can no longer access the
service or their emails, it does mean that the NSA or any other part of the US government
will not be able to access them either.
For those of you who don't know, the idea behind encrypted email services is that only
parties authorised by a user can read that user's emails - to anyone carrying out surveillance,
such as the NSA, the emails would simply appear as gibberish.
But Levison's statement suggests that even encrypted email services can no longer protect
against surveillance by the US authorities. His final words were:
"I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with
physical ties to the United States."
And Levison's decision seems to have sparked a worrying trend.
By evening, the Maryland-based firm Silent Circle, had also taken the decision to close
its own encrypted email service called Silent Mail.
In a statement on its website the company said that following Lavabit's own statement
it had "seen the writing on the wall" and decided it was best to shut down Silent Mail.
However, the company also stated that it had not received subpoenas, warrants, security
letters or anything else from the US government and that the decision had been a preemptive
one.
In an interview with the New York Times, Mike Janke, Silent Circle's chief executive and
a former US Navy SEAL said that the company had shut down Silent Mail's server altogether
and that there was no getting it back.
The closure of these services isn't insignificant. Not only does Silent Circle counts heads of
state, human rights groups and deployed members if the military among its customers, in 2009
at least Lavabit was known to have as many as 140,000 users, including 70 companies.
This latest development in the NSA leaks saga comes as tensions between the US and Russia
over Edward Snowden and Syria grow even greater. The day before Lavabit and Silent Mail closed
down, the US President Barack Obama pulled out of a meeting with the Russian President
Vladimir Putin in a deliberate show of frustration at Moscow's decision to give temporary asylum
to Snowden the week before.
Well it seems like the NSA story and the battle over privacy rights and security is just going
to keep on going. As always we'd love to know what you think about this latest development
so let us know in the comments below and you can check out our other videos on the NSA
leaks here.