I saw a post about this earlier, it is a nothingburger.

The user in question paid for his account with a personal credit card, he didn’t use an anonymous payment alternative which are available.

Proton has stated that they will comply with law enforcement requests, but are working to maintain as few logs as possible.

This is an opsec failure on the user’s side.

This is not Proton handing IDs of their customers to the government on a silver platter, this is their customer not understanding the service they use.

People shouldnt need to think about opsec to have private emails. False advertising on Protonmails part, and government policy issue in the countries in question.

Arguing about what people should or should not have to do is pointless.

It changes nothing and removes the debate from being practical to being theoretical.

It’s not theoretical. Protonmail should not have handed over the personal data for victims of political persecution.

How do you think it would play out if protob refuses lawful orders from a court in the country they operate in? 

I do think proton does a lot of misleading advertising, but its still on the user to research and have good opsec. Paying with a card when crypto is an option, using the same service for both email and a vpn, using that service from a public wifi near where you are known to live while actively doing crimes.. Proton is running a business not a criminal protection racket. 

Privacy is not a crime, nor is protesting.