Silent Circle also shuttered its encrypted email service a few hours after Lavabit shut down citing an ongoing legal battle.
"We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now," Silent Circle wrote in a blog post on Friday in reference to the closure by Lavabit.
The company, with U.S. headquarters in Maryland, said it had not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else from any government, and "this is why we are acting now."
The dominoes fall
The closure of Lavabit and Silent Circle reflect concern among email providers about government orders for customer data under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Most of these come in the form of "gag orders" that prohibit the service providers from discussing in public the orders for disclosure of customer data.
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