It appears that the FBI's original request was narrowly targeted to Snowden and completely above board, warrant and all. It didn't give them the keys to the Kingdom.
When lavabit refused to comply,the FBI got more aggressive. Which seems like exactly what would happen. Think about it. What if the FBI subpoenaed financial records from a Bank who refuses to open the safe they were in. Well, the US Marshals are going to show up at the bank with a court order,break open the vault, and get access to all the records and take the one they want. It's not an unreasonable search provided there are checks that they only get the one record they are looking. In fact, arguably the Bank breached it's duty to it's customers by forcing the US Marshals to go through all their records rather than the Bank doing it self.
Obviously, it's not so clear in this case since Lavabit apparently finally did offer to hand over some data, but it is along those lines.
When lavabit refused to comply,the FBI got more aggressive. Which seems like exactly what would happen. Think about it. What if the FBI subpoenaed financial records from a Bank who refuses to open the safe they were in. Well, the US Marshals are going to show up at the bank with a court order,break open the vault, and get access to all the records and take the one they want. It's not an unreasonable search provided there are checks that they only get the one record they are looking. In fact, arguably the Bank breached it's duty to it's customers by forcing the US Marshals to go through all their records rather than the Bank doing it self.
Obviously, it's not so clear in this case since Lavabit apparently finally did offer to hand over some data, but it is along those lines.