Demise of two leading US encryption providers
Silent Circle and Lavabit have shut down, latter for reasons said to be refusal to conspire against Americans.
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Two US companies offering coded email service to Americans have shut down.
One of them, Lavabit, was used by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, while Silent Circle shut down and erased all of its consumers’ emails even though it had not been contacted by the government.
The implications of both Silent Circle and Lavabit’s closure of their email services appear clear: If you are using an internet service provider based in the US, the chances are they have almost certainly given the US government access to your data.
Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi reports from Washington, DC.
