> Everywhere, the email service will have to give your emails to the police when they come knocking
The Australian law is broader and contains fewer checks than anything comparable in the developed world. It lets law enforcement compel, with no oversight and in secret, any Australian "to re-engineer software and hardware under their control, so that it can be used to spy on their users" [1]. (Australia has no bill of rights [2].)
The American analog is an intelligence agency getting a national security letter [3] stamped by a FISA court [4]. The order can compel disclosure of information on hand, but cannot compel a product to be re-engineered [5].
> "The order can compel disclosure of information on hand, but cannot compel a product to be re-engineered."
OTOH this could be unnecessary at large American companies because the needs of national security services may have been engineered in. Thinking of Room 641A [1], etc.
That service was worse than anything else because it failed to provide the crucial "availability" property. And in the end he gave the keys to the government anyways. So he failed on every count.
Notice that lavabit reopened again in 2017, and is now even open for new customers. I will try it, but I'm a bit scared of the likelihood that it will be closed again. Changing your email address is no small hassle, and I am already pretty happy with my fastmail one.
I moved my addresses over to my own domain (lyndsysimon.com) many years ago, way back when I was still using gmail as my provider. I've since switched a couple of times, and have never had to change my address.
These days I use Protonmail. I like it for what it is, and it checks all of my "privacy" boxes, but the search functionality leaves much to be desired. I understand the technical limitations that constrain that, but I still wish there were more options.
If you are pretty happy with fastmail, why switch? They will only access your email with a court order (fine with me). If you don't want this, I'd try ProtonMail, they encrypt the email, i.e. are unable to provide email content in clear text. The price is that email handling is (much) more painful.
> If you are pretty happy with fastmail, why switch?
I do not really care about my personal case, here.
But I try to maintain a (some say exaggerated) consistency in "paying with my wallet" according to my principles. Since the Australian government provisions seem an unacceptable betrayal to its citizens, the only way that I can make some pressure in favor of them is by visibly boycotting Australian tech companies. If I were an Australian citizen concerned with the AABill I would certainly appreciate this gesture. My fastmail account is just a 80 EUR/year epsilon amount which will not affect the economy in the least. But it is symbolic gesture in the right direction.
I am still undecided on dropping my fastmail account. But if I do I'll try to make as much noise as possible regarding the reasons.
The Australian law is broader and contains fewer checks than anything comparable in the developed world. It lets law enforcement compel, with no oversight and in secret, any Australian "to re-engineer software and hardware under their control, so that it can be used to spy on their users" [1]. (Australia has no bill of rights [2].)
The American analog is an intelligence agency getting a national security letter [3] stamped by a FISA court [4]. The order can compel disclosure of information on hand, but cannot compel a product to be re-engineered [5].
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-fight-online-priva...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/australia-encrypt...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute