Lavabit abruptly shuts down

Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by john_b on Thursday August 08, 2013 @04:48PM (#6181785)

There was a HN discussion about this two months ago [1]. The general consensus seemed to be that a court would not take the same kind of philosophical and logical approach that most HN types use, and would classify a failure to update the canary as effectively a communication that a NSL has been received. Since the courts only care about the facts that communication is occurring and that the court prohibited it, contempt of court would be the most likely result.

TL;DR: Judges don't philosophise about specific methods for circumventing their intentions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5871541

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Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by davorak on Thursday August 08, 2013 @10:51PM (#6183452)

After reading the thread the conclusion seemed to be that courts can not order you to lie, but may try to hold you in contempt of court for failing to update your canary.

If all actions but the one the government wants are ment with punishment then it is functionally equivalent to ordering/mandating/requiring a specific action.

If there is precedence for punishing all but the course of action desired by the government I would be interested. If there is legal precedence for ordering/mandating/requiring an action being different form punishing all but the desired action I would also be interested in knowing.

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Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by davorak on Thursday August 08, 2013 @10:39PM (#6183390)

I am going to read the thread now do you know if any court cases were mentioned that set precedence for requiring someone to lie to their customers?

I am definitely interested in any court cases that set a precedence for ordering/mandating/require lying.

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