In August, Ladar Levison, the founder of Lavabit, said that he was shutting down the secure email service rather than become “complicit in crimes against the American people”. The government is said to have been looking for information on Edward Snowden but was blocked by Lavabit, thus starting an ongoing legal battle.  

Even after obtaining the encryption keys from secure email provider Lavabit through a court, the government was prevented by the court order and various laws from accessing other Lavabit users’ accounts, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday in a filing in an appeal by Lavabit.