October 2013

A United States federal appellate court unsealed a set of documents pertaining to Lavabit, the e-mail provider of choice for former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The documents show that Lavabit’s founder, Ladar Levison, strongly resisted government pressure that would have resulted in the privacy of all users being compromised as a way to get at Snowden’s e-mail. Levinson went so far as to shutter the company, destroying its servers entirely.

“People using my service trusted me to safeguard their online identities and protect their information,” Levison wrote. “I simply could not betray that trust.” The Lavabit case is the best known example of a company willing to go to extreme lengths in order to protect its customers’ privacy. Since Lavabit has fallen (as has Silent Circle's Silent Mail service), many journalists and business people have speculated that foreign e-mail providers might have policies that would theoretically be more resistant to government intrusion, particularly in Europe and especially in Germany and Switzerland, which have strong data protection and privacy laws. But a closer look at German law in particular reveals that a German e-mail provider certainly wouldn't offer more protection—and would likely offer less—than a similar American e-mail provider. German firms aren't allowed to say anything if they have to hand data over.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) released a report detailing the impact of the government shutdown on a host of agencies under its purview, but the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications & Information Administration not among the case studies outlined.

The report was issued in advance of a hearing on Oct. 11, 2013 on the economic impacts of the shutdown. The report does include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Federal Aviation Administration, and Federal Trade Commission, among many others. Of the absence of the FCC, a committee spokesman said: “The staff report is not meant to be comprehensive but rather a snapshot of impacts of the shutdown. The hearing will take a deeper look at how the shutdown is impacting consumers, businesses and the economy. One can expect that the FCC and NTIA will be discussed during the hearing.”

The White House is defending its record of transparency after a scathing report found that the Obama Administration's unprecedented efforts to control leaks have had a chilling effect on journalism.

"From the day he took office, the President committed his Administration to work towards unprecedented openness in government," said Eric Schultz, a White House spokesperson. "As part of the President’s unparalleled commitment to reforming Washington, this Administration is the first ever to release White House visitor records," Schultz said. "Over the past four years, Federal agencies have gone to great efforts to make government more transparent and more accessible than ever, to provide people with information that they can use in their daily lives. Just this past year, the government processed more [Freedom of Information Act] requests, decreased the backlog, improved average processing times, and disclosed more information proactively." "But these are more than just statistics," Schultz continued. "They represent the efforts of agencies across the government to meet the President’s commitment to openness. While creating a more open government requires sustained effort, our continued efforts seek to promote accountability, provide people with useful information and harness the dispersed knowledge of the American people."

The White House says it has processed more than 2.5 million FOIA requests and highlights Obama's signing of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act as being among key achievements in its effort to increase transparency.

"We need to have a sensible adult conversation about what is necessary to be done, and how to do it, in a way that is as transparent as it can be, with as much oversight and citizens' understanding as there can be," said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Her words were echoed by the British shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who repeated her call in a speech in July for reform of the oversight of the UK intelligence agencies. Cooper, a former member of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee that oversees the agencies, said: "I have long argued that checks and balances need to be stronger – this would benefit and maintain confidence in the vital work of our security and intelligence agencies as well as being in the interests of democracy." The conciliatory language of Clinton and Cooper contrasted with that of MI5, whose director general, Andrew Parker, warned earlier this week that the leaked documents by Snowden had provided a gift to terrorists.