The encrypted email provider Edward Snowden used has been forced to shut down, for reasons they are prohibited from telling us. In this case, it’s not hard to guess, and I applaud its owner Mr. Levison for his conscientious and doubtless costly choice. How many other businesses have experienced similar demands from three-letter federal agencies, but lacked either the strength of character that required or the security of circumstances that allowed Mr. Levison to take the high road?

America is a country with secret police, secret law, and secret verdicts rendered by secret courts.

This is the kind of horror story we used to tell about East Germany or the Soviet Union.