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Are they shutting down preemptively because shutting down a service that has received an NSL is illegal? I'll be watching what happens to Lavabit to find out.
by pkinsky 13y ago
Are they shutting down preemptively because shutting down a service that has received an NSL is illegal? I'll be watching what happens to Lavabit to find out.
- akavlie 13y agoWait, what? Shutting down a service that has received an NSL is illegal? Source?
- antimatter 13y agoHe's asking if it's illegal, not claiming that it is.
- drivingmenuts 13y agoIANAL, but a reasonable guess tells me that while shutting down the service wouldn't be illegal, you would still be on the hook for the requested data. You don't pony up, the Feds would, at a minimum, charge you with obstruction of justice and consequences would follow.
- pkinsky 13y agoNSLs come with gag orders, and it's possible that the government would view shutting down a service entirely as a violation of the duty not to disclose. It gets fuzzy here, because we're speculating on how a secret court will rule on a body of secret law while working hand in glove with the NSA.
- kbart 13y agoI'm not a lawyer, but I would bet that can be classified as "destruction of evidence".
- joetek 13y agoIf they get rid of the service and the data pre-emptively, they can safely destroy the data. Once they've recieved an NSL, they have to comply with the order and provide the data (or at least the metadata) or be in contempt of court.
- TheLegace 13y agoThey probably want to just dispose of all the data that NSA is technically and legally allowed to snoop into their servers. Since there are no real laws for online privacy I wouldn't expect laws about private data when a company shuts down.