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Edward Snowden e-mail provider Lavabit faced 'pen register' order

Lavabit—the e-mail provider that shut down last month in a surveillance-related dispute with the federal government—was faced with a "pen register" order that could have been used to obtain information in real-time when National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden logged into his account and might even have been used to seek his password.

A legal filing federal prosecutors made Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit shows that on June 10 a judge issued an order to the company in question that requires a provider to turn over retrospective information on a user or users, such as the IP address logged in from, time of connection, and header information on emails sent or received through the account.

On June 28, prosecutors got a second order known as a "pen register" that typically allows the government to get similar information for up to 60 days into the future, according to the new filing (posted here.)

"A pen register can be used to get the same kind of data, but in real-time," explained Chris Soghoian of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Some experts have speculated that one of the orders served on Lavabit may have been unusual, perhaps requiring the firm to capture a password that is normally not stored by the company's systems. Lavabit stored e-mail in an encrypted form so that only a user or someone in possession of the electronic key could make sense of it.

Neither Lavabit nor Snowden are mentioned by name in the court documents. However, the timing of the filings and appeals, along with the identity of the lawyers involved make it clear the dispute involves Lavabit. The link to Snowden is less certain, but he is known to have used the secrecy-oriented e-mail provider.

The orders straddle in time the filing of criminal charges against Snowden and the first order was issued just after his identity became public.

On June 9, the Guardian publicly identified Snowden as the source of leaked documents describing NSA surveillance programs, including a massive database of information on calls made to and from U.S. phone lines. The first order sent to Lavabit was issued the next day.

On June 14, Snowden was charged in a criminal complaint with theft of government property, disclosing national defense information and disclosing communications intelligence information. The docket number for the complaint bears the initials of the same judge who issued the surveillance orders to Lavabit, Senior Judge Claude Hilton.