The Silent Circle warrant canary has no such statement. It says the opposite: if "no warrants have been served," such a declaration will appear. The declaration does not appear. The most obvious conclusion is they have been served with some a warrant or similar compulsory legal process.
I think it's unlikely that the wording was accidentally unclear. This came up in the HN thread in December, with <StavrosK> saying: "You're right, it looks like the wording is a bit unclear. I'll talk to the guys to see if we can get it updated, thanks." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8796912
On the other hand, on January 6, 2015: “There is nothing to report via warrant canary or otherwise because we have never been served with a warrant, subpoena or other legal requirement to provide anything.” https://support.silentcircle.com/customer/portal/questions/9...
It's really quite simple to get a warrant canary right and eliminate ambiguity. Look at rsync.net's example:
No warrants have ever been served to rsync.net, or rsync.net principals or employees. No searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on rsync.net assets... http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
The one we're using at http://recent.io/ is similar, and possibly more explicit:
As of [date], we have not received any legal process or demand from any federal, state, or local government. We have received no National Security Letters, civil subpoenas, search warrants, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders, grand jury subpoenas, or any other form of compulsory process.
As a community, we really need a way to keep track of status changes in warrant canaries. I wonder if https://canarywatch.org/ keeps archived copies.