DOJ says Lavabit cannot prevent search warrants by 'locking its front gate'

Even after obtaining the encryption keys from secure e-mail provider Lavabit through a court, the government was prevented by the court order and various laws from accessing other Lavabit users' accounts, the US Department of Justice said in a filing in an appeal by Lavabit.

The government said in the filing in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that the information it wanted from a single unnamed account was user log-in information and the date, time, and duration of the email transmissions, and dismissed Lavabit's "parade of hypotheticals" regarding unlawful actions the government could take. "Were a government officer to do as Lavabit fears and 'rummage' through other users' communications without authorization, that would be a crime," DOJ wrote. Just as a business cannot prevent the execution of a search warrant by locking its front gate, a provider of email cannot block court-ordered surveillance by refusing to provide necessary information, including encryption keys, DOJ said in the filing. "That other information not subject to the warrant was encrypted using the same set of keys is irrelevant," the DOJ said in apparent reference to Levison's claim that providing the encryption keys would expose other users' accounts to government surveillance. "All other data would be filtered electronically, without reaching any human eye," the government said in its filing.