privacy

Looking back one day, we may find that one of the great stories of the ‘Teens was the dawning recognition that a new kind of surveillance state was emerging, not just nationally, but globally. [1]

In remarks published on April 12, 2012, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski predicted that “[s]omeday soon they’ll decide it’s easier to watch all of us, all the time.”[2] Just a year and a half ago, this was still before “NSA disclosure” became a household phrase.[3] If you asked him today, would he change the tense of his statement?

Even before Edward Snowden called a press conference using a Lavabit email address, the FBI was interested in the secure email service.  Lavabit founder Ladar Levison tried to cater to the savvy consumer: providing private communication in a market where participants are increasingly aware of the government’s access to their data.  However, Levison shuttered his email service in August, after receiving a search warrant from the FBI compelling him to turn over Lavabit’s SSL encryption keys.  These keys would have exposed not only Snowden’s data, but also that of 400,000 other users.