NSA, Patriot Act, Snowden, Lavabit - Is U.S. Govt pushing the envelope too much?

You can debate the Snowden story various different ways. Is he a Traitor? Is he a Hero? You can argue both sides pretty effectively depending on your vantage point. One thing is for sure - most Americans are feeling uneasy about invasion of privacy by the government agencies.

There is one country in the World that can claim to be the true friend of "freedom of speech". And, that's the good old U.S. of A. However, recent events surrounding Snowden revelations around the NSA spying scandal have scarred that claim. Where there's smoke there's fire. There are a lot of interesting and shocking facts in Snowden's disclosures. Even President Obama has promised NSA surveillance reforms (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/obama-nsa-surveillance-reforms-press-conference).

Ladar Levison, Owner of Lavabit, a free secure email service used by Snowden, posted a letter on Socialnumber.com (http://socialnumber.com/discussion/become-complicit-crimes-against-american-people-or-walk-away-ten-years-hard-work) informing users that he had decided to suspend his service to protect Americans from "crimes against them". This move, apparently was driven by a secret NSA search warrant with a gag order (hint: Patriot Act = Govt can kill your constitutional rights anytime it wants).

Anyway, we hope Ladar will be able to pursue this legally and get his operations back up and running. Anonymous sites like Lavabit, Socialnumber.com and others allow users to express themselves freely which is a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Freedom of speech is desperately needed not only in the U.S. but around the globe. I hope the U.S. Government can keep a proper balance between going after the terrorists to protect citizens and protecting constitutional rights of the citizens.

- M.K.