Lavabit case highlights legal fuzziness around encryption rules

While privacy advocates may see Lavabit as bravely defending US privacy rights in the online world, federal judges hearing its appeal of contempt-of-court charges seem to regard the now defunct encrypted email service as just being tardy in complying with government court orders.

Attorneys from both Lavabit and the US government agreed that the legal issues between them could have been resolved before heading to court, though neither party seemed to have an adequate technical answer of how Lavabit could have successfully passed unencrypted data to a law enforcement agency in order to meet the government's demands. Three judges from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond (VA) heard Lavabit's appeal of a contempt-of-court ruling, which it had incurred for not turning over to the government unencrypted data of a single user, presumably Edward Snowden. Judges Roger Gregory, Paul Niemeyer and Steven Agee presided over the hearing.