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The Guardian has a more detailed discussion of this shut-down and of Silent Circle...

The Guardian
Spencer Ackerman
8/9/13

Lavabit email service abruptly shut down citing government interference

<snip>The email service reportedly used by surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden
abruptly shut down on Thursday after its owner cryptically announced his refusal to become
"complicit in crimes against the American people."

Lavabit, an email service that boasted of its security features and claimed 350,000 customers,
is no more, apparently after rejecting a court order for cooperation with the US government
to participate in surveillance on its customers.

It is the first such company known to have shuttered
rather than comply with government surveillance.

Silent Circle, another provider of secure online services, announced on
later Thursday night that it would scrap its own encrypted email offering, Silent Mail.<snip>
Silent Circle said in a blogpost that although it had not received
any government orders to hand over information, "the writing is on the wall".

The founder of Lavabait, Ladar Levison, wrote on the company's website:
"I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes
against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work
by shutting down Lavabit."

The news was first reported by Xeni Jardin the popular news site Boing Boing.<snip>