Few professionals generate business records as sensitive as those of counselors. People disclose things to counselors that they may never share with another human being, in confidence those things will never be disclosed. This confidence demands that counselors’ records be maintained with the highest possible level of security.

It has recently become clear that modern web technology is not nearly as secure as we once thought. The startling evidence has mounted that mass surveillance, data seizures, password release demands, gag orders and security backdoors have become common in the United States, where CounselorNote is based. CounselorNote has always been designed with security first in mind, but in the face of these extraordinary practices not even CounselorNote’s extensive security mechanisms are adequate. It is possible we could be compelled to give up your client data, maybe even under a gag order that would prevent us from notifying you. Frighteningly, this is a very legitimate concern - other American software developers have recently been forced to do the same.

We believe we have an inviolable responsibility to our customers to keep their business records safe. Given that responsibility, we don’t believe continued operation of CounselorNote is an acceptable risk. We have coordinated alternative solutions with our existing customers and shut down the application.

Our decision to shut down CounselorNote comes at no small expense to us. We have invested a great deal of time, money, thought, effort and care in this project. Unfortunately much of that appears to have been wasted. We wanted to create the perfect tool for counselors, and we think we came pretty close. But there is a risk we could be forced to use this tool against your clients, without your knowledge or permission, and that is unacceptable.

We hope to build a new version of CounselorNote that will be protected against these new security threats. It would use a special new "zero knowledge" architecture that would ensure we have no sensitive data to to give up - only unintelligible encrypted data. Before we can start, we are waiting for the dust to settle on these questions of mass surveillance, illegal wiretapping, forced disclosures and gag orders. Your data cannot be considered safe in the face of these threats.

If you are an American, please support political candidates that will roll back these unconstitutional and draconian national security policies. As the shutdown of CounselorNote demonstrates, these policies are hurting far more Americans than they are helping.

Thank you for all your support,

The CounselorNote Team