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posted by takyon on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the old-news,-breathe-normally dept.

After a U.S. federal judge cancelled a non-disclosure order, Ladar Levison made a public statement about his former e-mail service, Lavabit. The statement confirmed that Levison's shut-down of the service came in response to U.S. government actions against Lavabit user Edward Snowden.

That fact, which had been widely believed, was confirmed in March when the e-mail address <Ed_Snowden@lavabit.com> was mistakenly left in a court document being made public.

coverage:

[Ed's Note: Corrected spelling of Ladar Levison's name.]


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:24PM (#368044)

    Lavar Levinson

    Surely, you mean Ladar Levison [wikipedia.org]?

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:35PM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:35PM (#368048) Journal

      Corrected - thanks AC.

      • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:40PM (#368050)

        It still says Ladar Levinson instead of Ladar Levison (no 'n')

        • (Score: 2, Disagree) by janrinok on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:44PM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:44PM (#368053) Journal

          It is updating! Honest...

          • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:54PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:54PM (#368059)

            Surely, this isn't a caching error:
            "After a U.S. federal judge cancelled a non-disclosure order, Ladar Levison made a public statement about his former e-mail service, Lavabit. The statement confirmed that Levinson's shut-down of the service came in response to U.S. government actions against Lavabit user Edward Snowden."

            Do I get paid for being an editor?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:52PM

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:52PM (#368057) Journal

    Limelight on the whistleblower to talk less about the leaked embarassing things. Now on the whistleblower helpers too.

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:54PM

    by TheGratefulNet (659) on Thursday June 30 2016, @05:54PM (#368061)

    or, did some government patriot 'mistakenly' leave that name on the form?

    I hope the guy who did leave it there is still employed and not 6 feet under (this is the modern US; what we learned in school does not apply - we had a dose of reality and we know what our country really is, now).

    I'm ashamed of my country, the USA. this shit is an atrocity and afront to our freedom principles.

    we have allowed ourselves to put 'protect our own corrupticians' above all else. god help us all (to so speak).

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday June 30 2016, @06:13PM

      by Gravis (4596) on Thursday June 30 2016, @06:13PM (#368066)

      WAS it really a mistake?

      LOL, YES! (≧∇≦)/

      or, did some government patriot 'mistakenly' leave that name on the form?

      what you don't realized is that government agencies can be quite incompetent. remember when the TSA release exposed a bunch of stuff that should have been redacted but actually just set the background text color to black? yeah, that's the kind of stupidity we're dealing with here.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 30 2016, @07:09PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 30 2016, @07:09PM (#368084) Journal

      Mistaken non-redactions are pretty routine. A lot of classified info has been discovered because the redactor (wow, my spellchecker let that word slide) overlaid a black rectangle [schneier.com] onto a new layer in a PDF document. Accidentally leaving a bit of text in a court document requires even less thought. Could have been a botched Ctrl+F-job too.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Thursday June 30 2016, @08:44PM

      by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Thursday June 30 2016, @08:44PM (#368123)

      Except, where's the value to reconfirming what was already widely known. Everyone already knew it was to get to Snowden's account

      • (Score: 2) by dmc on Friday July 01 2016, @03:57AM

        by dmc (188) on Friday July 01 2016, @03:57AM (#368263)

        Maybe some soylenter can enlighten me as I'm way too disenchanted to bother RTFA, but- What precisely was the overt justification for this gag order? Now, I ask that somewhat pointlessly, as since 9/11 any legal reverence for the drastic tactical measure of a gag order seems to have left the collective consciousness, but... I'm still curious what bullshit rationale they are bothering to hold up as a pretense to a system of actual justice. Of course we all know that the draconian level of gag orders and 'secret' courts are the most prone to slippery slopism of anything... But seriously, what can the government legitimately (or even laughably vaguely legitimately) hold up as justification for this, instead of just publicly admitting this from the very beginning? As others have pointed out, pretty much everyone believed this from the beginning anyway, so the gubernment owning up to it from the start would seem to have zero consequence AFAICT. Other than of course the more nefarious conspiracy theories involving vast coverups of blatantly unconstitutional and borderline totalitarian behavior.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Capt. Obvious on Friday July 01 2016, @05:51AM

          by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Friday July 01 2016, @05:51AM (#368292)

          The justification wasn't exposed. But "surreptitiously watch a computer-savvy spy wanted for treason" is probably as good a reason for a gag order as I can think of.

          Most likely, they wanted to gather as much data on Snowden as possible before he realized his account was compromised. And, that seems fine. I mean, the phone company wouldn't notify you if they were ordered to tap your lines.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by gnampff on Thursday June 30 2016, @10:17PM

    by gnampff (5658) on Thursday June 30 2016, @10:17PM (#368180)
    Having an "Ed's Note" under a Story around Edward Snowden's former email address Ed_Snowden@lavabit.com is just brilliant!