Lavabit

[dan@geer.org]

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/lavabit-snowden-appeal-lost-144112

Lavabit Loses Contempt Of Court Appeal

Failure to hand over encryption keys could land Lavabit founder Levison
with hefty fines
On April 17, 2014 by Thomas Brewster

Lavabit, the email service once used by whistleblower Edward
Snowden, has lost an appeal against a contempt of court ruling
that he delayed the US Government's attempts to gather information
by refusing to hand over encryption keys.  the email service,
which has since closed, was eventually forced to comply anyway.

The US government asked for SSL keys to look at the metadata
(dates and other details of communications) for a specific Lavabit
user, believed to be Snowden, The service's founder Ladar Levison
at first refused, and when forced to comply, provided the keys
printed in a tiny typeface.

The court ruled that Lavabit had not followed correct procedures
in its initial hearings, and had not raised a specific challenge
to the district court's authority under the so-called "pen/trap
statute".  Levinson could now be fined for contempt.

"Levison's statement to the district court simply reflected his
personal angst over complying with the pen/trap order, not his
present appellate argument that questions whether the district
court possessed the authority to act at all," read a statement
from the fourth US circuit court of appeals Judge G Steven Agee.

"Arguments raised in a trial court must be specific and in line
with those raised on appeal."

The case stems back to June last year, when the US government
sought to acquire private keys for SSL encrypted traffic of a
specific Lavabit user, thought to be Snowden. Officials sought
to put a tap on the communications of that target to collect
metadata.

Levison, when approached by FBI officials, refused to hand over
the keys, which eventually led to the contempt of court charge.

According to the court filing denying his appeal, Levison suggested
he could provide the content the government was after, rather
than using their interception tools. The government decline the
offer, saying it needed real-time acquisition of the target's
data.

A device to intercept traffic was installed as part of the
pen/trap order, but could not gather usable information as the
encryption keys had not been provided.

Officials did eventually get the keys in August 2013, however.
"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," the court
ruling read.

Levison could now be fined thousands of dollars.