Ladar Levison, Edward Snowden's e-mail provider

While you may not be familiar with Ladar Levison or his email service Lavabit, you've certainly heard about one of its users. His email address was [email protected]., the computer specialist who leaked classified details about the American government's surveillance program. Today, meet the man who also got caught up in the law for having an email service, and his fight for privacy.

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The American who shut down his business when he felt his government wanted too much.

"They essentially tapped into both the Brazilian telecommunications system inside the ministry as well as some of their electronic communications. They were able to map out the patterns of communications, so with whom Brazilian officials were speaking, who was calling them and how long they were speaking for, what the network of association was as well as electronic communications".Journalist Glenn Greenwald

Earlier this week, journalist Glenn Greenwald dropped a bombshell when he told our colleagues at As It Happens that Canadian officials spy on members of the Brazilian government. Mr. Greenwald says he got the information from Edward Snowden, the former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency.

Last summer, Mr. Snowden went public with the details of a sprawling, NSA campaign to monitor phone calls, e-mails and web-searches. At the time, Ladar Levison ran a small, secure e-mail provider called LavaBit. Edward Snowden was one of his customers.

And that brought Ladar Levison into a battle with his own government, one that would test his resolve, as well as his principles. Ladar Levison was summoned to a grand jury, held in contempt of court, fined thousands of dollars and threatened with arrest. In the end, he decided his the best course of action was to shut-down his business.

Ladar Levison is able to speak publicly about this now because a US Federal Court lifted a gag order and unsealed the documents in the case last week.

Ladar Levison was in New York City.

We invited the FBI and the US Department of Justice to comment. Neither replied to our request.

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This segment was produced by The Current's Gord Westmacott.