Not necessarily, it is not at all clear that the government has the authority to demand a private business surrender SSL keys. Such an could very well be in violation of the 4th amendment.
You are correct, in that the government does have the authority to demand information on a specific person, but due to how Lavabit was designed that information was encrypted in such a way that only Edward Snowden could provide the password for decryption.
In most systems data is stored in plain text (or encrypted with a cipher key known by the system administrator), so surrendering data in readable form is not an issue.
You are correct, in that the government does have the authority to demand information on a specific person, but due to how Lavabit was designed that information was encrypted in such a way that only Edward Snowden could provide the password for decryption.
In most systems data is stored in plain text (or encrypted with a cipher key known by the system administrator), so surrendering data in readable form is not an issue.