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When the other side of the story is Ladar saying he hired a lawyer and the prosecution characterized it as an act of defiance.. then character attacks on both s
by friendlybus 7y ago
When the other side of the story is Ladar saying he hired a lawyer and the prosecution characterized it as an act of defiance.. then character attacks on both sides lose their value.
He turned over the keys on paper because that's all he had access to in the 3 hours he had to provide it.
https://youtu.be/g_lN-RAfzRQ?t=4485 https://youtu.be/g_lN-RAfzRQ?t=4485 Timestamp for the paper keys.
There is way more detail that shows he was put in extremely difficult situations and his ability to respond to quite a few legal mechanisms was severely limited by compressed timeframes and legal actions been done in parallel and out of sight.
The whole talk linked goes through a lot of it in detail, if you want to take the Wiki's story do.. but it's not the whole story in any sense of the word.
https://youtu.be/g_lN-RAfzRQ?t=5754 https://youtu.be/g_lN-RAfzRQ?t=5754 Timestamp for a Q&A question that asks specifically about the paper keys and he goes in to much more detail.
- iudqnolq 7y agoI'm not going to watch the entire talk. Just listening at the timestamp you provided, I think he confirms my characterization. He states that technically the government never specified how they wanted the keys, so he could hand them over however he wanted even if the format he provided was extremely hard to make use of. This isn't how the law works. Him saying that he thought up some clever trick, and not that his lawyer proposed a clever trick, is also a massive red flag. The document up on the screen in the video says he had 24 hours. That's enough time to type up an encryption key, if the printout was actually readable. Can you provide a cite for hiring a lawyer being characterized as an act of defiance? My assumption, given no further information, is that he didn't hire a normal lawyer in a normal fashion if that happened. Many things are unfair about the US legal system, I have never heard being penalized for having a lawyer being one of them.
- friendlybus 7y agoThe cite for an act of defiance is in the video I linked. It's not a strict penalty, but an argument from prosecution. If you listen to the talk he had flown to the court with a limited amount of equipment and he addresses the issue of "readability" in the Q&A section I linked. You didn't listen because he says himself he had 3 hours inside court proceedings to provide it. I'm not just going to transcribe a video for you. I've provided the source. I've spent enough time on this.
- iudqnolq 7y agoHe may have had three hours to provide it from when the judge denied his motion, but people who know what they're doing plan on what they'll do if they lose a motion ahead of time. He states that only lawyers are allowed to bring encrypted devices into federal courthouses. This is false. Likely he refers to the fact that you have to check electronic devices like cellphones at the security desk. Here's what the appeals court had to say about his production of the keys: > Despite the unequivocal language of the August 1 Order, Lavabit dallied and did not comply. Just before the 5:00 pm August 2 deadline, for instance, Levison provided the FBI with an 11-page printout containing largely illegible characters in 4-point type, which he represented to be Lavabit’s encryption keys. The Government instructed Lavabit to provide the keys in an industry-standard electronic format by the morning of August 5. Lavabit did not respond. > The Government sought penalties of $5,000 a day until Lavabit provided the encryption keys to the Government. The district court granted the motion for sanctions that day. Two days later, Levison provided the keys to the Government. By that time, six weeks of data regarding the target had been lost. http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/134625.P.pdf http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/134625.P.pdf If you know you might be forced to provide something, and you make it really hard for yourself to get that information in response, judges in the US legal system may well lack sympathy for you. I'm not seeking to make a value judgement about right and wrong here, I'm trying to argue that Levison's issues stemmed from deliberately choosing to do legally dumb things.