Like half a dozen people have tried to argue that, because the order was lawful and Levison had complied with previous lawful orders, he has no moral justification for refusing this one.
Let's not beat around the bush. You're willfully missing the point. The lawfulness of the order is not at issue; the target of the order is. I would happily obey a lawful order to turn in a fugitive rapist hiding in my basement; I would not willingly obey a lawful order from the same authority to turn over an escaped slave, even if I lived in a slave-holding nation.
If you don't think that Snowden should have broken the law to inform the public of massive, unsupervised, hidden government surveillance and lies about same, that's fine. But say so, don't go making disingenuous sidewise arguments and thinking you're sly. Yes, Levison disobeyed a lawful order. Laws should be obeyed because they are just, not because they are laws.
No, the difference this time is that FBI demanded to install their own equipment inside of Lavabit facilities, having access to all users' data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6487852
Let's not beat around the bush. You're willfully missing the point. The lawfulness of the order is not at issue; the target of the order is. I would happily obey a lawful order to turn in a fugitive rapist hiding in my basement; I would not willingly obey a lawful order from the same authority to turn over an escaped slave, even if I lived in a slave-holding nation.
If you don't think that Snowden should have broken the law to inform the public of massive, unsupervised, hidden government surveillance and lies about same, that's fine. But say so, don't go making disingenuous sidewise arguments and thinking you're sly. Yes, Levison disobeyed a lawful order. Laws should be obeyed because they are just, not because they are laws.