Secret Government Crackdown on the People Having Secrets

A chilling story from Ars:

"'I was faced with the choice of watching it suffer or putting it to sleep quietly... it was very difficult,' he told Democracy Now. 'I had to pick between the lesser of two evils.'
What was that other choice? 'Unfortunately, I can't talk about that,'"

For those not familiar with Lavabit, it was a mail service (like Yahoo or GMail) that used encryption.  You could be reasonably sure that your email was read only by the intended recipient (normal mail is totally open - it can be read by any party on the network between you and your recipient).

The appearance here is that the government ordered Lavabit to share the encrypted mails - or shutdown.  And they chose to shutdown rather than participate in fraud against their customers.

The most shocking thing is that no one can discuss what the government has done.

So, we have secret laws, secret courts, with secret decisions, issuing secret orders which must be kept secret by those targeted.

And all to unravel any attempt by private citizens to keep secrets.