Interview with Ladar Levinson of LAVABIT (Must see)

[Renegade]

I'm not really a fan of Amy Goodman, but when she gets some people on, I can't stay away:

http://www.democracy...owdens_email_service

EXCLUSIVE: Owner of Snowden’s Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov’t

...

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, well, I’ve—thank you, Amy. I’ve compared the decision to that of, you know, putting a beloved pet to sleep, you know, faced with the choice of watching it suffer or putting it to sleep quietly. It was a very difficult decision. But I felt that in the end I had to pick between the lesser of two evils and that shutting down the service, if it was no longer secure, was the better option. It was, in effect, the lesser of the two evils.

...

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.

What can you say? This fellow's business has been destroyed because he had some moral convictions. Rare. Very rare.

And destroyed why?

Just shameful.

[rgdot]

Makes for very sad listening, the people (the populace at large) still do have it in their hands though.

[40hz]

Grim. No other word for this.

[Renegade]

Some of what is said in there is just nuts. e.g. On the topic of Silent Circle shutting down:

LADAR LEVISON: I can certainly understand his position. If the government had learned that I was shutting my service down—can I say that?

JESSE BINNALL: Well, I think it’s best to kind of avoid that topic, unfortunately.

 

When ignorance of the law is no excuse, and you're not allowed to know the law... you're not going to have a good time.

[mouser]

Well worth watching.

Actually for me the most interesting point of all was made not by the subject of the interview, but in the comments shown of Edward Snowden, in praising his actions.  Snowden points out that if the large companies had the guts to do what this guy did, and shutdown their services for even a day in protest to the government trying to bully them into doing these things (that they say the object to), it would cause enough backlash that the government would have to back down.

For me, truly the shocking and outrageous part of all this is the fact that these new security laws prevent people from even talking about the broad outlines of what they are being charged with, or being forced to do.

We can't discuss the propriety and wisdom of the underlying requests being made of them when people like this can't even tell you what the government was trying to make them do.

[Tinman57]

  Whoever controls the information controls the people, which is why they made these laws.