Kevin Poulsen reports:
Secure e-mail provider Lavabit just filed the opening brief in its appeal of a court order demanding it turn over the private SSL keys that protected all web traffic to the site.
The government proposed to examine and copy Lavabit’s most sensitive, closely guarded records–its private keys–despite the fact that those keys were not contraband, were not the fruits of any crime, were not used to commit any crime, and were not evidence of any crime. Rather, the government obtained a warrant to search and seize Lavabit’s property simply because it believed that the information would be helpful to know as it conducted its investigation of someone else.
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