lavabit a bit of a hypocrite?

Democracy now has an interesting and self promoting in terms of contradictions, (hence hypocritical imho, interview with lavabits’ head Ladar Levison.

* Lavabit is a for profit company, not a service. If you wanted to enjoy its encryption – you had to pay. The state, and fbi as part of it, is the effective guarantor of law enforcement that at the end enforces the value numbers on exchange modes represent. Hence allowing mr Levison to finance his life.

* I doubt, given the above, lavabit – nor you or I – can pick and choose laws according to self-beliefs. We can fight for ideas and laws to change. However, this is very different from a guy saying something to the effect of: “well, I liked this bit of their request, but not another…”

* If lavabit was to say to its users that if one of them, only one that no one will know who, was targeted by fbi, lavabit will let the state into the previously private data – I doubt many of its users was to find that acceptable. (I wouldn’t..)

* Since lavabit is a for-profit operation, it strikes me as odd that mr Levison thinks its cool to complain about democratically evolved laws and practices, yet suppose his arbitrary decisions regarding users on “his” network – that was developed by usa tax payers money – is fine indeed..

I think mr Levison is interesting and perhaps pretty cool to meet and chat. It seems to me that the hypocrisy mentioned here are more than simply personal for lavabit’s head.. I think its more endemic to capitalism – hence many probable readers of theses lines might shake heads thinking there is nothing awkward at all there..