Donate to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7BCR4A5W9PNN4

by sethbannon • 13 years ago

204 46 13 years ago

paypal.com

mjolk• 13 years ago

1. The link doesn't work.

2. As a non-Lavabit user, who are they and why should I give them money?

josephpmay• 13 years ago

They are(were) a fully-encrypted email provider that had no ability to monitor your emails. Edward Snowden hosted his account there, and they had to shut down because of (probably) US government intervention.

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

it starts to sound like providing fully encrypted solution (where provider just isn't able to cooperate because of no access to plain text) makes the provider de-facto accessory to whatever crime may be committed by perpetrators who used the solution while committing the crime. Basically fully encrypted solution (incl. without government backdoor) moves into the same category as assault gun, ie. something that regular good citizens supposedly just don't have legitimate uses for.

mieses3• 13 years ago

If a gmail user sends a plain text email to a lavabit user or vice versa, do they consider that scenario to be "fully encrypted". Or do both recipient and sender have to be lavabit users?

sp3322• 13 years ago

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181081

plainOldText• 13 years ago

This is who they are/were:

About: http://web.archive.org/web/20130429153529/http://lavabit.com...

Philosophy: http://web.archive.org/web/20130403130816/http://lavabit.com...

Privacy: http://web.archive.org/web/20130403130804/http://lavabit.com...

bestdayever• 13 years ago

Why didn't you just link to their site which already has the link and explains why we should be donating to them?

http://lavabit.com/

ics• 13 years ago

It would probably have been caught by the duplicate checker.

sp3322• 13 years ago

The link from the lavabit homepage is https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_b... which actually works.

computer4• 13 years ago

It is important to remind people that they _always_ have a choice, and that there will be support for those that make the right choice. So donate.

DevoAKA• 13 years ago

Donating to a Lavabit Legal Defence Fund through PayPal seems a bit of an oxymoron though, no?

mindstab• 13 years ago

Keep in mind all your actions are being observed and collated somewhere. If you don't want hassle with your next police run in, or worse, don't live in the US and don't want "special attention" next time at the border, think twice about donating...

kmfrk• 13 years ago

I don't think anyone here ever takes any pleasure in using PayPal. Especially with the seizures - maybe that's the biggest concern with using their service.

But that doesn't create an alternative. People have wanted one way farther back than the NSA info dump.

microcolonel• 13 years ago

Could mail him some gold.

computer4• 13 years ago

No.

If you want to make a surveillance state less effective, you should generate _more_ noise, not less. When fascism is at risk of taking over, you don't just roll over and take it quietly because you fear they'll annoy you at the border.

As a person who has Nothing to Hide, I encrypt everything, and will gladly donate here. If we get everybody to use encryption, nobody will be suspect for using it. If you donate here, there's less risk that others will get hassled for donating.

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

Keep in mind all your actions are being observed and collated somewhere.

Absolutely, which is why I donated.

hnha• 13 years ago

j"ust following orders" like a good citizen? change requires change.

incongruity• 13 years ago

Where do we draw the line?

At some point, we must take a stand - and that stance must be time, money, voice or vote (and preferably all four). If we continue to take no action, we become part of the problem by our submission and tacit endorsement of the abuse of the legal rights of others.

For me, personally, I think it's time to start standing up.

fixxer2• 13 years ago

I love your line of reasoning: can't win, don't fight.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

Bitcoin, please.

mieses3• 13 years ago

Seriously. First they colocate in Texas. Then use Paypal for donations. It's like they are trying to martyr themselves.

finnh• 13 years ago

Just donated $100. Never heard of them before today, but am very happy to support the fight they are undertaking on all our behalf.

mieses3• 13 years ago

What did Lavabit think would happen by physically locating servers in the US? It's almost irresponsible to sell customers on the illusion of privacy and to not mention the risk of the servers being confiscated.

edit: This whole Lavabit thing is so dumb that I'm inclined to think it was a honeytrap designed to waste supercomputing cycles on decrypting random data.

nodata• 13 years ago

For those not trusting random PayPal links, you can click the donation link at the bottom of this page: http://lavabit.com/

nkuttler• 13 years ago

Thanks. I was really surprised when I saw this on the front page as I wasn't aware of the fund and didn't see how to verify the recipient.

fnordfnordfnord• 13 years ago

I Don't trust Paypal. I sent him something to support@lavabit.com I'll update if it is rejected or something.

thepumpkin1979• 13 years ago

No BitCoin? Well, here is the PRISM query to find out who contributed: SELECT FROM PayPalTransations WHERE hosted_button_id='7BCR4A5W9PNN4' AND referral_url like '%news.ycombinator.com%';

computer4• 13 years ago

To quote myself from below because I find this issue so important to highlight:

So what if they can see that you donated to this pro-constitutional defense fund?

nailest• 13 years ago

my experience after looking at several bitcoin donation addresses is there aren't many bitcoins donated. Most of them have less than one bitcoin while kickstarter projects and paypal donations easily raise thousands of dollars.

narcissus• 13 years ago

Could it be that the donation addresses keep changing? I imagine if I was pushing for BTC donations, I'd change my address every time I received one...

sev• 13 years ago

Who cares...it's not illegal to donate.

jlgreco4• 13 years ago

Parallel construction gives pause. It goes like this:

1) Find list of people who you don't like (in this case, for legally donating).

2) Perform illegal searches to find things they have done which are illegal.

3) Find another excuse to perform a nominally legal search ("His tail-light was out. I smelled pot, and when I searched him I discovered a large amount of cash in his wallet.")

4) Arrest him for the activities discovered in 2, but allegedly discovered during 3.

tl;dr: Parallel construction allows for politically motivated searches which can lead to 'unrelated' convictions. You will never even know it happened, you'll just be cursing your bad luck.

mindslight• 13 years ago

What's your point? Use Bitcoin to avoid supporting SQL? Or to make them write another query?

billclerico• 13 years ago

the block chain is public anyway...

fixxer2• 13 years ago

Google et al. should be donating to them. This would be a nice, indirect, low risk way to establish legal precedence, wouldn't it?

33a• 13 years ago

Just asking, but how legit is this? Does anyone know who set this up and who is managing these donations? It is just a paypal page with nothing that obviously links it to lavabit.

siculars• 13 years ago

$50 inbound. USA Agitator watch list here I come!

arrowgunz• 13 years ago

Poor choice for funding a good cause.

mathattack• 13 years ago

I wish I could give this a dozen upvotes!

CompulsiveCo• 13 years ago

What legal action are we actually supporting? Defending the rights of a mail provider to not be directly spied upon by the three letter agencies? Transparency in regards to NSA letters? I know they are limited in their speech regarding their legal issues, but is there any explanation on how the funds will be employed?

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