Whatever protections US citizens have against the federal government usually fall through whenever national security is involved. What one federal court of app

Whatever protections US citizens have against the federal government usually fall through whenever national security is involved. What one federal court of appeals decides doesn't necessarily apply in other districts. The Eleventh Circuit made the Fifth Amendment ruling in 2012, but Lavabit temporarily shut down in 2013 due to FBI demands to hand over encryption keys [1]. (Lavabit was founded in Texas, which is in the Fifth Circuit [2].) The FBI can still send national security letters, which prohibit receivers from telling the public about them [3]. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling only applies to Pennsylvania, and the prosecutors were from Luzerne County, not the FBI [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Fifth_Circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter#Contentious_aspects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter#Conte... [4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/police-cant-force-child-porn-suspect-to-reveal-his-password-court-rules/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/police-cant-forc...