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Nicholas Merrill famously fought a 11 year legal battle (and finally won) the right to reveal all aspects of a National Security Letter (NSL) served to him. Almost all such letters are accompanied by a complete gag order.

https://www.calyxinstitute.org/news/federal-court-invalidate...

EDITED / CORRECTIONS - Thanks commenters - The battle was won by Nicholas Merrill not Ladar Levison of Lavabit fame as I originally posted.)

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It was Nicholas Merrill from a little ISP called Calyx Internet Access that famously challenged the NSL process.

LavaBit's Lamar Levinson is assumed to be under a gag order from some request he was given by the US government, of which he declined by way of folding his company and claiming that he could not comply moving forward if he was no longer the middleman of some form of communications.

As a further correction, the Lavabit founder's name is spelled Ladar Levison.

Rather than making assumptions, you can read about the specific kinds of legal process involved in the Lavabit case at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

You can also read the Fourth Circuit decision on his appeal, among other things.

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