> There is no such thing as a legal obligation to lie. You can be under a legal obligation to not disclose it, or to not talk about it, yes, but to lie about it? No, absolutely not.
That is the logic behind the idea of a warrant canary, but my understanding is that they have never actually been tested.
The frequency with which rsync.net representatives bring up their warrant canary in community conversations (such as those on HN) suggests to me that their canary is still legitimately alive (one would expect them to be less proud of it, where it coerced), but do we really know that is the case? The very nature of these things prevents us from saying things like that with certainty.
For a time, until USA PATRIOT Act was amended, these letters were allowed to forbid you from consulting a lawyer about the letter. So if the letter included demands that it was not allowed to include (perhaps: "Lie."), how would you even know that those demands were not allowed? For that matter, if you received a letter today that said this amendment to the Act was not relevant in this particular circumstance and you were not allowed to consult a lawyer, what would you do? Call their bluff?
That is the logic behind the idea of a warrant canary, but my understanding is that they have never actually been tested.
The frequency with which rsync.net representatives bring up their warrant canary in community conversations (such as those on HN) suggests to me that their canary is still legitimately alive (one would expect them to be less proud of it, where it coerced), but do we really know that is the case? The very nature of these things prevents us from saying things like that with certainty.
For a time, until USA PATRIOT Act was amended, these letters were allowed to forbid you from consulting a lawyer about the letter. So if the letter included demands that it was not allowed to include (perhaps: "Lie."), how would you even know that those demands were not allowed? For that matter, if you received a letter today that said this amendment to the Act was not relevant in this particular circumstance and you were not allowed to consult a lawyer, what would you do? Call their bluff?