Although there is a very long way to go, America currently seems to be on path towards East Germany or China style surveillance.

”Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private.“ - Lyndon B. Johnson

But even professions that have confidentiality baked into their core (clergy, shrinks, doctors)* can be compelled to provide info to law enforcement. In some cases, they are legally required to report illegal conduct.

*EDIT: not attorneys (for the most part)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney%E2%80%93client_privile...

In a lot of states, for example, you can compel an attorney to testify about future or ongoing crimes, but not completed crimes someone is seeking legal advice for.

As an example, this is covered in california evidence code as section 956:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=evid&g...

"956. There is no privilege under this article if the services of the lawyer were sought or obtained to enable or aid anyone to commit or plan to commit a crime or a fraud."

EDIT: It kind of sounds like this is a grey area for attorney-client privilege[1]. I'm sure someone could successfully argue that privilege does not apply here because a) "LawyerBit" is not acting primarily as an attorney b) Email being email, the communications are disclosed to third parties

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney%E2%80%93client_privile...

Or even constructed such that the lawyer was central to all communication.

So client A contacts the lawyer to advise client B of X. The lawyer dutifully complies (perhaps in an automated fashion).

Whenever Client A wishes to contact another party who is not a client of the lawyer, the lawyer is given a client lead from Client A. The lawyer emails (the only time when mail goes to 3rd parties) the party, inviting him to go on his retainer so he can advise him on Client A.

While such a system would have to be automated, the system could delete any evidence of this automation, or at least plausibly deny specific instances of the automation.

Thus, all involved could argue the lawyer was manually involved every step of the way in the process, which only ever occurred on the lawyer's system, and the client systems of his clients.

You are doubtlessly right, though still fun to think about.

The law is (thankfully) not like code, and you can't always make a clever hack around the letter of it. When lawyers can, well, that' why they get paid well.

Then the lawyer couldn't delete the systems like Lavabit did because the government would have confiscated them as evidence of the conspiracy.

At that point, however, the 5th Amendment should apply, because the server provides evidence of a conspiracy the lawyer took part in, providing the encryption keys would also be providing evidence of the conspiracy; requiring the lawyer to testify against himself.

Some judges have tortured the 5th Amendment worse than this, so it's not entirely foolproof. Still, it's unlikely other lawyers would take this sort of abuse standing down, nor would the general public.

So even the most extreme legal logic I can think of would be unable to penetrate this arrangement, providing the computer security and encryption was all top-notch. Disclaimer: IANAL, though I'd be willing to be the IT employee for any legal firm that wanted to construct such a system.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has been doing a lot of work to encourage people to donate. I think the latest uptick has been the fireball effect at work.

I find that limitation to "American" (surely meaning US american) people an incredibly embarrassing and nationalist call to action and it alone made me instantly close the tab.

Unfortunately, the Constitution of the United States of America, the sacred document that Mr. Levison was attempting to preserve, does not guarantee that right to every human being -- only Americans.

I look at it at a first step. Once we've "restored" the Constitution and managed to guarantee the right to privacy for those covered by it, only then can we start to "expand" that to include every human being.

I have many friends from all around the world and I believe 100% that all of us should be afforded that same right to privacy that the Constitution gives me, but we've got to start somewhere...

(Disclosure: I'm an American and I have and do donate to the EFF, EPIC, the Tor Project, and I happily gave to Mr. Levison's defense fund immediately after it was announced a few weeks ago.)

1) Select an amount (I picked $25 as a test) 2) Advance to 'Step 2' 3) Go back to Step 1 4) Pick an amount again 5) Go to 'Step 2' 6) Fill out the form in detail 7) You'll be unable to hit the 'Continue' button

Edit:

Repeatable on other fundraiser pages.

I'll send the same via email.

Then, I thought about what might happen if I don't.

But, if everyone donates without regard of consequences then there will be none. So just donate!

$29,341 Raised of the $40,000 goal.

Like I said in the thread [0] linking to this crowdfunding campaign, I'm normally I'm hesitant to post one word comments like that, but in this case showing your donation breaks conformity behavior in large anonymous groups like the innocent bystander effect.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6486330

It looks like there is a new $96000 goal... someone else will have to do their share to pitch in.