Legal evil used against Lavabit
May 21st 2014
This run down by Lavabit founder, Ladar Levison, on why lavabit shutdown after the Snowden email has a section that makes me rage and cry on the inside because of how insidiously evil it shows how the court system can be used by the government against the people:
Then, a federal judge entered an order of contempt against me without even so much as a hearing.
But the judge created a loophole: without a hearing, I was never given the opportunity to object, let alone make any any substantive defense, to the contempt change. Without any objection (because I wasn’t allowed a hearing), the appellate court waived consideration of the substantive questions my case raised – and upheld the contempt charge, on the grounds that I hadn’t disputed it in court. Since the US supreme court traditionally declines to review decided on wholly procedural grounds, I will be permanently denied justice.
Ladar ends with the following advice:
courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance under the shroud of secrecy, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process.
I second that. Secrecy in the court system should be considered a cancer and fought as aggressively as possible by those that want the whole system to live.
-dayne