Seems like it would make sense for users to demand that any US based service includes a warrant canary, just like rsync.net's implementation. A global canary + separate canaries for individual accounts would also make sense.
And thus the canary is legally useless--if you're going to have the penalties of violating a national security order, might as well just do it in a straightforward manner.
If the judge says "don't paint your wall red" that means "or anything close by any means".
It doesn't matter you tried to hack your way out with an automatic vermillion paint flinger setup before the order. You still are supposed to "make the wall not get painted red".
And look at how email retention works.
They can most certainly hold you in contempt because you got your self in that mess.
>look at how email retention works.
Document retention policies are allowed because otherwise the civil court system would be prohibitively expensive (lawyers have to read all your email once you get sued basically). Once you get a court order that says to, you have to stop destroying email, etc, disabling your automated destruction systems.
The only reason to have canaries is to violate the terms of gag orders. Judges aren't sympathetic to that.
I'm pretty sure I have some truecrypt containers I've forgotten the passwords to, sure hope I never get arrested!
I am not saying they're not worthy of that contempt, merely that they don't care if they are, just if you're showing contempt for the process and violating the order
But to say that a canary I set up a decade ago is contemptuous of a court filing made a month ago is ridiculous.
No it's not: You show contempt for the idea they could demand you silently turn over information. It's seething out of your posts here on HN even.
I don't think it's right they can do this, but I do think it's quite clearly preemptively raising a middle finger to the whole thing; it is "I cross my fingers behind my back so my swears don't count" type of stuff that judges don't accept and toss you in jail for.
You don't get to outthink and out maneuver this crap: You have to beat it in the system.
If there is any precedence for any US court requiring public citizen to lie I definitely want to know about it.
If the courts are acting like they have this power then it will greatly change my perception of how the courts, NSA, and congress are currently acting.
I am not sure what I think about your scenario off the top of my head but I do consider it different.
TL;DR: Judges don't philosophise about specific methods for circumventing their intentions.
I am definitely interested in any court cases that set a precedence for ordering/mandating/require lying.
If all actions but the one the government wants are ment with punishment then it is functionally equivalent to ordering/mandating/requiring a specific action.
If there is precedence for punishing all but the course of action desired by the government I would be interested. If there is legal precedence for ordering/mandating/requiring an action being different form punishing all but the desired action I would also be interested in knowing.
The question is not "can a US court compel XYZ US citizen to lie", it is "can a US court compel XYZ swiss citizen to lie".
So you should take note, of course, if our warrant canary ceases to update. You should also take note if the US one updates but the swiss (or Hong Kong) one does not ...
This is made easier as a local warrant canary is available to all account holders in their /tmp dir ...
ssh username@rsync.net tail -200 /tmp/canary.txt
Cheers!
To be honest, I'm even a little nervous that something as innocuous as "I wish I could tell you more about the circumstances leading to the decision" could be seen as communicating the presence of an NSL indirectly, and lead to contempt of court.
I don't know how FBI/NSA notifications are received in the US. But you can communicate to your uses any FBI/NSA/LE notification before reading the content. Of course, the notification should be posted to a medium where you don't have further control over, so there's no way for you to remove the notification.