If a government agency issues a secret warrant, doesn’t that imply rsync.net has to provide a valid canary at the right time as well?
I don’t get how this is useful.
There is no known case of US charging someone over a warrant canary.
There have been plenty of warrant canaries that have ceased to be updated - e.g. Reddit, and more recently, Storj.
1. Forcing registered sex offenders to alert people in their neighborhood
2. Correcting misstatements
Often that is also often a condition of probation, meaning they are still under the authority of the courts and are still being "punished" by the system in leiu of prison. This is seen as the individual "giving up" some of their rights either by committing the offense or agreeing to the terms of probation instead of prison. This would also apply to #2.
Neither one of those justification for infringement of the 1st amendment would apply in the cases of an NSL which are already on very very shaky legal ground and gag orders on them have been ruled constitutional in the past, currently they are only constitutional because a person getting an NSL now as the ability to appeal the NSL to a federal court, something that was previously missing
First, freedom from compelled speech is not an inherently stronger (or weaker) freedom than freedom of speech. If the government can prevent you from saying something, then it can almost certainly prevent you from saying it by not not saying it.
Second, national security is one of the most powerful legal trump cards in practice. The government saying that something is necessary for national security will be treated as fact by the court, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.
Third, the purpose of freedom of speech is to protect freedom of expression. Speech that isn't expressive in nature has a much lower bar to clear for the government to be able to restrict it. Warrant canaries strike me as essentially commercial speech, which the government has pretty wide latitude to regulate.
Citation please
>> Speech that isn't expressive in nature has a much lower bar to clear for the government to be able to restrict it. Warrant canaries strike me as essentially commercial speech, which the government has pretty wide latitude to regulate.
This case law around NSL have not been vary favorable for the government, Appeals courts have struck down the gag order provisions of the laws in the place, and are poised to do so again should a case come before them. The current make up the Supreme Court also leads me to believe they would not look favorably on Gag orders, though they would on the larger issue of National Security
But what if they just put you under a gag order, and then when you stop updating the warrant canary they charge you with violating the gag order? Would that still fall under the compelled speech cases?
The former has been tested and is (for some reason) within the bounds of the first amendment. While forcing someone to publicly say something false almost certainly is outside the bounds of the first amendment.
Did we, in fact, create a poison pill provision in 2006 with regard to legal service, etc., ? Yes, we did.
Will this be a wild west data caper with dramatic conclusions and brave, desperate actions ? No, it won't be.
If there's one thing you should know about rsync.net it's that it's a very boring company. We're going to keep it that way.
If worst comes to worst, say "Sorry bro, lost the key in a boating accident, nothing I can do".