Another One Bites the Dust: Silent Circle Shuts Down Encrypted Email Service

There are some very high profile people on Silent Circle—and I mean very targeted people—as well as heads of state, human rights groups, reporters, special operations units from many countries. We wanted to be proactive because we knew USG would come after us due to the sheer amount of people who use us—let alone the “highly targeted high profile people.” So to protect everyone and to drive them to use the other three peer to peer products- we made the decision to do this before men on [SIC] suits show up. Now—they are completely shut down—nothing they can get from us or try and force from us- we literally have nothing anywhere.

– Michael Janke, CEO of Silent Circle

The recent big news in the tech world was that Lavabit, the encrypted email service used by Edward Snowden to communicate, was forced to shutdown by the U.S. government. In typical American gulag fashion, Lavabit was not permitted to tell the world about their six week battle with the “authorities” and the specifics related to the shutdown. While some of you may take this development negatively, I would argue it is all just part of the natural process of system change outlined by Gandhi, a master of the process. He said:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

We are merely in the fight phase. This is thanks to the Edward Snowden leaks, which made the “ignore and ridicule” phase no longer possible. It’s becoming increasingly obvious which side is winning, which is why the establishment is showing such desperation. Even back in June, polls showed that Edward Snowden was far more popular than both Barack Obama and Congress.

More on the Silent Circle drama from ArsTechnica:

Less than 24 hours after Lavabit shuttered its doors, another US firm is shutting down its encrypted e-mail service.

Silent Circle, a company that specializes in encrypted communications, said it is preemptively turning off its Silent Mail product. It’s doing so despite no urging at all from the government—no subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else, company co-founder Jon Callas wrote in a blog post today. “We see the writing on the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now.”

Company CEO Michael Janke told TechCrunch that given his user base, he knew the government was going to come after them sooner or later:

“There are some very high profile people on Silent Circle—and I mean very targeted people—as well as heads of state, human rights groups, reporters, special operations units from many countries. We wanted to be proactive because we knew USG would come after us due to the sheer amount of people who use us—let alone the “highly targeted high profile people.” They are completely secure and clean on Silent Phone, Silent Text and Silent Eyes, but email is broken because govt can force us to turn over what we have. So to protect everyone and to drive them to use the other three peer to peer products- we made the decision to do this before men on [SIC] suits show up. Now—they are completely shut down—nothing they can get from us or try and force from us- we literally have nothing anywhere.”

The preemptive move by Silent Circle is a contrast to what happened at Lavabit, a company that appears to be already embroiled in a dispute with the government. Ladar Levison, the founder of Lavabit, said terminating his service was the only option, lest he “become complicit in crimes against the American public.” He added that he’s fighting in court to be able to tell more details of his story. 

One more time so they can hear you kids: USA! USA!

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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