I disagree. If the judge wanted an electronic copy then he or she could ask for that, which is indeed what the judge later did. Levison would have known that his initial 'compliance' wouldn't make the problem go away, but it did buy him some time while the judge figured out what to do next (or the FBI figured out that they needed to be more precise in what they were asking for). He didn't refuse to comply at any point - he complied with the original request, at which point the judge gave him fresh instructions and ordered him to comply with those or face a fine.
Consider it from another perspective - people often request data from governments or large corporations and, when ordered or pressured into providing it they often do so in the least helpful format available. They are rarely punished for this because the law doesn't really have a position on whether CSV is a better document format than PDFs of scanned printouts, or whether a 50-page printout is more useful than a CD-ROM or USB stick. Why should the rules be any different for someone like Levison?
There are specific terms in the GPL[1], and probably elsewhere, that address this issue:
[3(a)] Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;
It's still open to some interpretation, such as exactly what constitutes "customary media", but probably does rule out the printed on the side of a cow[2] approach taken here.
It's not entirely fair to call this "resisting evil". The Feds went through the appropriate, judge-authorized channels to get the information. Is every search warrant an act of evil? And is each person served with the warrant the arbiter of what is evil and what isn't?
I support what Snowden did. Yet we must admit that it was illegal, and the feds had every justification to get a warrant for is communications. This wasn't carte blanch monitoring, this was targeted data collection.
Of course I realize that, but we're not talking about abstract concepts here, we're talking about a narrow and specific set of circumstances.
Do you really think it was evil of the Feds to get a court order to inspect the communications of someone that was known to, without a shadow of a doubt, be leaking classified information? I do not.
I think Snowden was right to do what he did, I think the Feds were right to respond with a search warrant request to investigate him, and I think the judge was right to grant it.
Don't focus too much on Snowden. The rightness or wrongness of his behavior is not germane to this discussion. Levison provided a lawful service to willing consumers. Snowden was the pretext the FBI used, but it's clear in this case that they also wanted the ability to surveil other customers of Levison's besides Snowden. That's evil.
> Don't focus too much on Snowden. The rightness or wrongness of his behavior is not germane to this discussion.
Snowden is the context. Ignoring the context in rarely a good idea. And while I agree that the rightness or wrongness of his behavior is not germane to the discussion, his actual behavior is most certainly germane. If the Feds requested, and received, a court order because Snowden wrote a critical blog entry of the government that would be one thing. Requesting and having it granted because of his actual actions is another thing entirely.
> Snowden was the pretext the FBI used, but it's clear in this case that they also wanted the ability to surveil other customers of Levison's besides Snowden.
Is that absolutely clear to you? Because it isn't to me. The Feds gave Levison a chance to provide lawfully requested information on Snowden that did not require decryption and Levison refused. Okay, if they couldn't compel Levison to alter his code to provide the requested metadata, they could compel him to give up the keys to that information directly. What do you expect them to do? Give up and go home? Pout?
Levison stood up for his convictions and I applaud him for that. I'd like to think that I would have done the same thing in his shoes. That doesn't mean I vilify the Feds for doing what they did. I don't feel anyone acted unreasonably, much less evil, at least not with the information we have available to us right now.
What do you expect them to do? Give up and go home?
When they determine there is no lawful or ethical way to prosecute someone, I absolutely wish they would would give up and go somewhere. Unfortunately I'm not naïve enough to expect that. (I stipulate we don't agree on the facts in this case; I intend merely to contradict the idea that LEOs and prosecutors ever have to do anything.)
Is that absolutely clear to you? Because it isn't to me.
From the "big announcement" earlier today:
During an investigation into several Lavabit user accounts, the federal government demanded both unfettered access to all user communications and a copy of the Lavabit encryption keys used to secure web, instant message and email traffic.
Right, that's the same thing I just typed. They requested the encryption key that would give them access to everything after Levison refused to modify his code to give them access to only the one thing. If they're able to get a warrant for Snowden's data, and the only way they can lawfully obtain it is a method that also gives them access to everything, then that's what they are going to do.
Like I said, I don't find that evil. From their perspective, the only way to lawfully get Snowden's data incidentally required they get the keys to all of the data.
The entire point of Lavabit was keeping communications secure. It was in fact designed to have the property that you and the government would have liked to "modify" away. The government's position was akin to telling Ford Motors to sell dangerous vehicles to bad people, and then after they refuse forcing them to sell dangerous vehicles to everybody. If you want to outlaw safe vehicles, do that in an open session of Congress. Search warrant proceedings are not the proper fora in which to legislate what sorts of online services are legal.
It's clear that we have different thresholds for the concept of evil.
> The entire point of Lavabit was keeping communications secure. It was in fact designed to have the property that you and the government would have liked to "modify" away.
I truly don't see how that's pertinent. So because Lavabit designed a "secure" service and promised their customers secure communications, their customers, and by extensions Lavabit, are shielded from the judicial process of the country Lavabit resides in? Even in cases when they have the technical capability to comply? Seems a bit much.
Lavabit claimed security, not shielding from the judicial process (they complied with other warrants in the past, supposedly). And if they did claim shielding from the judicial process, then their product did a shit job of backing it up. That they could even technically comply with a warrant makes them just as vulnerable to the judicial process as every other service. How is that the government's fault?
> If you want to outlaw safe vehicles, do that in an open session of Congress. Search warrant proceedings are not the proper fora in which to legislate what sorts of online services are legal.
This statement is ridiculous. The search warrant process is authorized by Congress and issued by the judicial branch. It's no secret. Should every search warrant be run through Congress?
> It's clear that we have different thresholds for the concept of evil.
At least we can agree on that. As I've said, I'm a Snowden supporter, and I've contributed to the Lavabit defense fund. But federal agents investigating a national security leak by issuing a search warrant to a provider located in the continental US whose only means of complying is unlocking their entire service (whose fault is that?) doesn't fit the bill of "evil" for me.
At this point we're probably talking in circles though, so I'll leave my thoughts there.
Levison's conduct in prior incidents shows that he had cooperated with the gov't when the scope was limited to a single account. It is only when the gov't pushed for the ability to decrypt all customers' data that he refused.
But remember, civil disobedience means you agree to the legal consequences of your actions. In the case of contempt of court, it means jail time until you comply.
Defenders of the status quo really don't get to define this term. Civil disobedience will be, whatever it must be. In a hundred years blowhards on the intermind will compare their political opponents unfavorably with Levison, Snowden, etc. It will be just as ridiculous and unseemly as it is now.
>>He didn't refuse to comply at any point - he complied with the original request
Just like the parent said, while he kind of technically complied. But, again, it's more than obvious to everyone that it's not what was expected/demanded from him.
>>Why should the rules be any different for someone like Levison?
Because it's related to Snowden. Again, it's quite obvious to everyone, that it's a hot issue and the government might go far to solve it.
Like it was said above, while I really support and respect Levison, it's not something you should be trying to fool - it's not a computer program...
When you have lost, the best you can do is to lose with dignity: he had lost (either by complying, whereby he would be failing to his clients or by not complying, whereby he would suffer a penalty). He took what looks to me the better option: comply "formally".
So that he cannot be said to have not obeyed the mandate and at the same time making it clear that he did not want to comply.
Against the Leviathan the only possible defense is foolishness. This gives you publicity (in a '''''free''''' society and the conscience of your own freedom).
> Just like the parent said, while he kind of technically complied. But, again, it's more than obvious to everyone that it's not what was expected/demanded from him.
Government and judicial institutions do this all the time, so to anyone with a common sense, it's more than obvious to everyone that it's exactly what was expected/demanded from him.
Just like the parent said, while he kind of technically complied. But, again, it's more than obvious to everyone that it's not what was expected/demanded from him.
No, it really isn't. This is precisely why interactions between the law and technology are often quite confusing, because there's a mismatch between what the law says and the technological reality. It wasn't obvious what the law was demanding of him because such demands are rare and judges haven't figured out a boilerplate form of words to ask for the surrender of PGP keys or SSL certificates in particular file formats yet, and so they ask in general terms for 'encryption keys', leaving much open to interpretation. The existence of such ambiguities is why lawyers earn as much money as they do.
Levison wasn't 'fooling' the law at any point - he complied with the request as presented to him. The FBI wasn't happy with that response and went back to the judge for a more tightly-worded request, backed up by a threat of fines. At no point was the legal process subverted, 'hacked' or 'fooled'.
My point is that this is how the law works. If a judge wants you to do something then it is incumbent upon the judge to specify clearly what that is. You can't refuse without facing legal sanctions, but if the judge is vague or imprecise then you have at least some freedom to interpret the judge's instructions yourself. As I said earlier, corporate and government lawyers are experts in finding the most favourable interpretation of judicial rulings for their clients, and many legal cases revolve around reaching an interpretation of the law that is unambiguous enough to be enforceable.
Because it's related to Snowden. Again, it's quite obvious to everyone, that it's a hot issue and the government might go far to solve it.
Like it was said above, while I really support and respect Levison, it's not something you should be trying to fool - it's not a computer program...
What are you trying to say here? Sure, the government cares a lot about this case. But the judiciary and the government are not the same thing, and the law, as a matter of principle, is meant to apply equally in all cases. There are no special cases where the law should be applied differently because the case has the attention of senior government officials. You might say that I am being somewhat naive in that belief, but I think that most judges would agree that their role is as neutral arbiters of the law, not agents of the government of the day.
There is absolutely no sense in which it's possible to describe Levison's actions as incorrect. You can believe that he should have surrendered the keys in electronic format immediately, despite not being asked to do so, or you believe that he should have refused point blank to disclose them and thus disobey the judicial order, but those options are variously immoral or illegal, and the action of providing the printed copies of the keys was neither.
Consider it from another perspective - people often request data from governments or large corporations and, when ordered or pressured into providing it they often do so in the least helpful format available. They are rarely punished for this because the law doesn't really have a position on whether CSV is a better document format than PDFs of scanned printouts, or whether a 50-page printout is more useful than a CD-ROM or USB stick. Why should the rules be any different for someone like Levison?