To protect his users and avoid imprisonment, he would have had to fix <i>both</i> problems: not taunting and slow-rolling the DOJ, and doing that having designed a system that either (a) didn&#x27;t give him the technical ability to decrypt messages or (b) allowed him to easily do that selectively.<p>The real problem with Lavabit is that it was incompetently designed and made security promises it was flatly and obviously unable to keep. From the transcripts, it seems like Levison tried to represent to the DOJ that his system was stronger than it was, when it was clear to anyone technical that he could easily comply with DOJ&#x27;s demands.<p>Regarding judges: it may be that Levison happened after reform of the national security letter laws, so that simply as a result of timing, Levison&#x27;s predicament had to involve a judge. However: even if that hadn&#x27;t been the case, a judge would have been involved as soon as Levison (or Calyx) refused to comply.