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Comment by AstralStorm | Hacker News Reader

Warrant canary depends on agreed upon inaction, which shields it somewhat. You cannot exactly compel speech by a gag order.

This, being an active process, if found out, is violating a gag order by direct action.

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Warrant canaries depend on action, the removal or altering of the canary document. It’s too clever but no more clever than what Israel is requiring here.

the canary notification method is a lack of updates, not a specific update.

you update your canary to say that nothing has changed, at a known cadence.

if you ever dont make the update, readers know that the canary has expired, and so you have been served a gag order warrant.

changing or removing the canary in response to a warrant is illegal. not changing it is legal.

for an equivalent cloudwatch setup, its checking the flag for "alarm when there's no points"

Yes, the equivalent of a warning canary would be that Google pays the Israeli government a set of payment every month such as 3100 shekels (for +31, NL) and then suddenly November 2025 they stop issuing it. That would mean there's a legal investigation targeting Google by the Dutch prosecutor (OM) involving Israeli data.

I suspect they didn't go for this route as it is too slow.

I would think to stopping doing something is equally an action as to do something, in regards to warrant canaries and gag orders. You had to take make some change to your process, or if automated take an actual action to disable. In either case, there was a cognizant choice that was made

The legal theory is that in the US the first amendment prevents the government from forcing you to make a false update. I don’t know if it’s ever been tested.

As I understand, this theory wouldn’t even hold up in other countries where you could be compelled to make such a false update.

What if I, sometimes, annually paint a canvas with an artistic interpretation of a canary bird? Can a government compel me to make an artistic expression with specific content, at my own expense? What if I'm just not in the right kind of creative mood to make it a good painting?

Or maybe I can bill the government for the compelled artwork -- I'm afraid I'm tremendously expensive as an artist.

Yes but the theory, at least in the US, is that the government cannot compel you to say something. That is, they can't make you put up a notice.

More specifically, the theory is that cannot compel you to lie, there are all kinds of cases where businesses are compelled to share specific messages.

As far as I've seen, the examples of that have always been things like health warnings and ingredients lists, where showing that message is a condition of being in that (licensed) business, and applies equally to any company.

Do you have a more custom example in mind?

All sorts of consent decrees, a huge amount of union and workplace law requires things to be posted for employees.

For employee things, I can understand being required to notify parties in agreements the company has entered into. As far as I understand, consent degrees are settlements and as such a mutually-agreed mechanism for ending a lawsuit early; their terms are whatever the parties negotiate and do not come from the government.

To be more precise, the law requires employees to publish the nlrb notice in well trafficked or otherwise conspicuous locations.

I think there are other places where "government mandated corporation inform people of their rights" is a thing, especially with things like data use and sharing.

In terms of consent decrees, that was the wrong example. But lots of judgements do involve various notification requirements.

Car manufacturer warranty recall letters are probably a good example. I get them even though I've never done business with the car manufacturer -- I bought the vehicle from a private party.

But that still sort of connects (at least in my mind) to health warnings etc.

What do you think of this angle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45892680

Ah, that was confusing to me. Thank you.

yea, I get that, but my gut tells me this doesn't pass the sniff test

It's a choice you make and action you take either way, be it not updating a canary or sending a covert financial transaction

That it has not been tested in court is why it's still a "theory" (hypothesis?)

My hope is that a jury of our peers would stay closer to the spirit than the letter of the law

Inaction is not action.

The choice to cease perform an act, when you have been consistently doing it, is itself an action

No, making a choice to do nothing is not considered action by any legal definition.

And this would be why warrant canaries aren't seen as a proven legal shield yet.

>Warrant canaries depend on action, the removal or altering of the canary document.

No, they can simply not publish a warrant canary in the future, which will tip people off if they've been publishing it regularly in the past.

Right - the whole premise is that the government cannot compel speech (in the US). So if you publish something every week that says, “we’ve never been subpoenaed as of this week” and then receive a subpoena, the government can’t force you to lie and publish the same note afterwards. The lack of it being published is the canary here.

Whether you can be compelled to lie under these circumstances or not is not a resolved question of law. Although it seems fairly likely that compelling speech in this way is unconstitutional, if it has been tested in court, the proceedings are not public.

Good thing no one is doing anything unconstitutional right now?

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