I too, obviously, believe Lavabit's choice was noble and to be emulated. If every company did this, we'd all be vastly better off.
If the courts, NSA, congress has been forcing innoscents to work against their will then it will greatly change my view/ understanding of the US government, the problems faced by the american people and the world.
basic subpoena forces one to provide the required info. With a little bit of a stretch we can see how a subpoena can be issued for the [future] clear texts that "your webpage" ( an applet downloaded as part of the web page ) will "contain" before sending encrypted version back to your server - in short it means forcing to implement backdoor.
Oh sure, definitely, that seems like that is within the scope of the currently claimed power. As far as I know though the operator has the option of closing up shop however and therefore is not being forced to work against their will, but not a fun choice though.
I am interested in any case law that disallows the operator the option of shutting down rather then implement a back door or anything similar.