In 2013, when I profiled Ladar Levison, Edward Snowden’s erstwhile email provider, Ladar wouldn’t tell me whom the FBI was hunting when the agency asked for access to the encrypted emails on his Lavabit servers. Ladar couldn’t tell me. He was (and still is) under a gag order and could be sent to jail for revealing the FBI’s target. But I and everyone else assumed that the FBI was after Snowden. And now we know that for certain.
On March 4, the government posted redacted Lavabit court documents on the PACER public-access system. But the feds didn’t redact one crucial bit of information, the email address of their target. That address: [email protected]. The mistake was spotted by the folks at Cryptome and published online. I’ll see if I can get a quote from Ladar, but the guy is pretty busy with his next project.
UPDATE (3:28) I finally got Ladar. He says, “Regardless of what anyone else says, including the government, I am still forbidden by the court from discussing the identity of the investigatory target. Hence, the need to continue with an appeal.”
