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Many countries subscribe to the common law, including the USA. The common law provides for punishment for violating the spirit of the law, rather than its letter. So it would seem that a warrant canary, as a loophole, could be closed by the courts, under the argument that saying that you have not, and then removing the statement is the same thing as saying that you had. And, indeed such decisions regarding other issue have been made.
However, at least in the USA, the argument is that the First Amendment trumps the common law here, meaning attempting to enforce the spirit of the gag order is impossible. Disallowing putting up the canary in the first place violates free speech restrictions. There is no law preventing it, and even if there was, it would be unconstitutional. Forcing a false update of the canary violates the restrictions on compelled speech. Compelled speech has been allowed in the past, but only if it is truthful. The usual use of this is to force true warning labels and ingredient lists. There has never been a single case in the US where compelled false speech, or even compelled speech that is neither true for false, has been upheld. In fact, it has been struck down every time. The only form of compelled speech allowed in the USA at all is truth. This is the legal case for warrant canaries in the US. Such stringent protection against compelled speech may not exist in other countries, and the legality of a warrant canary there cannot be determined so easily. Foreign governments may or may not have the ability to compel false speech. If they do, a warrant canary is useless. 74.211.60.182 ( talk) 22:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
A quick google gives me the impression that rsync.net is the only provider ever to have used this method. If there are others, the article would benefit from mentioning them. 92.195.60.23 ( talk) 16:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I favor continued inclusion of the free, CC-licensed image, and don't quite understand the rationale for its removal. Discuss? -- Lexein ( talk) 16:20, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I question the inclusion of "The legality of this method has not been tested in any court.[1]"
ArsTechnica article cited: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/apple-takes-strong-privacy-stance-in-new-report-publishes-rare-warrant-canary/
The citation is basically circular. The ArsTechnica article links back to this wiki page, which cites that article as a source, and neither has anything more definitive. How do we know it was not tested in a FISA court under seal? The quote in the article is written as the author's knowledge, and not quoted from his expert source. Please let me know if there is a more constructive way for me to raise this issue. This would be my first substantial edit, so I don't want to just change a page that is probably getting a lot of hits right now without some validation by other editors.
Gabe ( talk) 10:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)Gabe Kneisley (gabekneisley)
The phrase "warrant canary" alludes to the proverbial 'canary in a coal mine'. Both canaries expire when poisoned, and thus alert their watchers. See page 168 of a 1968 US Department of the Interior publication [1] Walter Dufresne ( talk) 15:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
Here's some potential source material or material that may lead you to source material for the article:
-- Jreferee ( talk) 15:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
In the first paragraph, the following appears: "A warrant canary may be posted by the provider to inform users of dates that they have not been served a secret subpoena" The word "dates" doesn't make sense to me. Should that be "data"? I'm not changing it, because it might be correct, but in a way that I don't understand. Bunthorne ( talk) 02:34, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
No, it means dates, as in "We haven't been served a warrant or NSL during January of 2014", "We haven't been served a warrant or NSL during March of 2014" with the conspicuous absence of February being a clear message that they *were* served a warrant sometime between Feb 1 and Feb 28. 159.153.4.50 ( talk) 02:15, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
The US security researcher Moxie Marlinspike states that "every lawyer we've spoken to has confirmed that [a warrant canary] would not work" for the TextSecure server.[15]
The same GitHub page links to an [EFF blog post]( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/warrant-canary-faq) that contradicts the conclusion in the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.24.181.238 ( talk) 15:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
There are a bunch of different types of methods that the government can use to obtain this type of information. Here is a rundown of what I understand about the types of orders available:
I think this article equally applies to these other (than subpoena) mechanisms, and we should consider a more expansive description of the covered mechanisms to include more than just subpoenas and NSLs. Int21h ( talk) 03:01, 4 February 2015 (UTC) Int21h ( talk) 03:12, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Would it be appropriate to provide a new section at the bottom of the page titled something along the lines of "Company's with Warrant Canaries"? My thoughts here are that there are not very many companies that do it as of now and I know several firms have reliable sources backing this. I'm sure most, if not all, have sourcing. DaltonCastle ( talk) 04:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@ User:Dodi 8238, lets discuss the Canary list. I understand the concerns here. There is a source that published that list but I would consider it primary. ( https://canarywatch.org/). I know policies on primary sources well: its generally best to avoid them but there are times when they are acceptable. This could be a helpful information section to a reader on the page however. Im sure some of the firms and organizations on this list have reliable sources for their individual warrant canary. What are your thoughts here? DaltonCastle ( talk) 21:26, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that really gets the idea across. The canary does inform its user that the provider has NOT been served, true - but is that really the aim of a warrant canary? Isn't the aim to inform the user - passively - when they HAVE been served? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.42.129.104 ( talk) 22:28, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
The words "aims to" should be deleted, and inform changed to informs. Because that's what the canary does. It aims to inform it's users that a secret subpoena HAS been issued without violating the gag order. 50.21.206.23 ( talk) 18:57, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
I read the articles linked in the citations for the statement "Warrant canaries have been found to be legal by the United States Justice Department, so long as they are passive in their notifications.[3][4][5]" None of these articles state that warrant canaries have been found to be legal, only that companies are arguing that they should be and that said companies believe the would be found to be if tested in court. But as far as I can tell no such test has yet happened, and in fact, the articles state the opposite in that some companies have been instructed in a letter by the government they may NOT use canaries, and Apple's removal of their canary indicates that one of two possibilities is that they are abiding by that letter. Vertigo220 ( talk) 22:29, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, as near a I can tell, it's impossible to legally prevent the removal of a warrant canary. But a law could be made to disallow putting them up in the first place (the law could murder the canary first). Additionally, common law allows a judge to attempt to rule on the spirit of the law and close loopholes. A warrant canary clearly violates the spirit of the law, without violating it's letter. Therefore, a prosecution and conviction is definitely possible, and would be a case of judicial legislation, effectively enacting a law against putting up the canary in the first place. Sich things should be tested in court. 74.211.58.163 ( talk) 17:52, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
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Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 12:51, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
The paragraph covering US case law under the usage section seems like original research, or at best unattributed from a comment on the Bruce Schneier blog previously cited https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/australia_outla.html#c6692535
5.151.178.168 ( talk) 18:31, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
This user hereby
states that he has NOT been approached by any government entities demanding his cooperation Watch for the disappearance of this notice. |
-- Wesha ( talk) 03:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
This article might benefit from discussion of why the communication providers would do this. Is it out of loyalty to their users, or as an act of civil disobedience? Also, how is this information "published"? On a dedicated page of their website or in communications? Cerulean Depths ( talk) 21:21, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Many countries subscribe to the common law, including the USA. The common law provides for punishment for violating the spirit of the law, rather than its letter. So it would seem that a warrant canary, as a loophole, could be closed by the courts, under the argument that saying that you have not, and then removing the statement is the same thing as saying that you had. And, indeed such decisions regarding other issue have been made.
However, at least in the USA, the argument is that the First Amendment trumps the common law here, meaning attempting to enforce the spirit of the gag order is impossible. Disallowing putting up the canary in the first place violates free speech restrictions. There is no law preventing it, and even if there was, it would be unconstitutional. Forcing a false update of the canary violates the restrictions on compelled speech. Compelled speech has been allowed in the past, but only if it is truthful. The usual use of this is to force true warning labels and ingredient lists. There has never been a single case in the US where compelled false speech, or even compelled speech that is neither true for false, has been upheld. In fact, it has been struck down every time. The only form of compelled speech allowed in the USA at all is truth. This is the legal case for warrant canaries in the US. Such stringent protection against compelled speech may not exist in other countries, and the legality of a warrant canary there cannot be determined so easily. Foreign governments may or may not have the ability to compel false speech. If they do, a warrant canary is useless. 74.211.60.182 ( talk) 22:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
A quick google gives me the impression that rsync.net is the only provider ever to have used this method. If there are others, the article would benefit from mentioning them. 92.195.60.23 ( talk) 16:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I favor continued inclusion of the free, CC-licensed image, and don't quite understand the rationale for its removal. Discuss? -- Lexein ( talk) 16:20, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I question the inclusion of "The legality of this method has not been tested in any court.[1]"
ArsTechnica article cited: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/apple-takes-strong-privacy-stance-in-new-report-publishes-rare-warrant-canary/
The citation is basically circular. The ArsTechnica article links back to this wiki page, which cites that article as a source, and neither has anything more definitive. How do we know it was not tested in a FISA court under seal? The quote in the article is written as the author's knowledge, and not quoted from his expert source. Please let me know if there is a more constructive way for me to raise this issue. This would be my first substantial edit, so I don't want to just change a page that is probably getting a lot of hits right now without some validation by other editors.
Gabe ( talk) 10:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)Gabe Kneisley (gabekneisley)
The phrase "warrant canary" alludes to the proverbial 'canary in a coal mine'. Both canaries expire when poisoned, and thus alert their watchers. See page 168 of a 1968 US Department of the Interior publication [1] Walter Dufresne ( talk) 15:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
Here's some potential source material or material that may lead you to source material for the article:
-- Jreferee ( talk) 15:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
In the first paragraph, the following appears: "A warrant canary may be posted by the provider to inform users of dates that they have not been served a secret subpoena" The word "dates" doesn't make sense to me. Should that be "data"? I'm not changing it, because it might be correct, but in a way that I don't understand. Bunthorne ( talk) 02:34, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
No, it means dates, as in "We haven't been served a warrant or NSL during January of 2014", "We haven't been served a warrant or NSL during March of 2014" with the conspicuous absence of February being a clear message that they *were* served a warrant sometime between Feb 1 and Feb 28. 159.153.4.50 ( talk) 02:15, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
The US security researcher Moxie Marlinspike states that "every lawyer we've spoken to has confirmed that [a warrant canary] would not work" for the TextSecure server.[15]
The same GitHub page links to an [EFF blog post]( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/warrant-canary-faq) that contradicts the conclusion in the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.24.181.238 ( talk) 15:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
There are a bunch of different types of methods that the government can use to obtain this type of information. Here is a rundown of what I understand about the types of orders available:
I think this article equally applies to these other (than subpoena) mechanisms, and we should consider a more expansive description of the covered mechanisms to include more than just subpoenas and NSLs. Int21h ( talk) 03:01, 4 February 2015 (UTC) Int21h ( talk) 03:12, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Would it be appropriate to provide a new section at the bottom of the page titled something along the lines of "Company's with Warrant Canaries"? My thoughts here are that there are not very many companies that do it as of now and I know several firms have reliable sources backing this. I'm sure most, if not all, have sourcing. DaltonCastle ( talk) 04:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@ User:Dodi 8238, lets discuss the Canary list. I understand the concerns here. There is a source that published that list but I would consider it primary. ( https://canarywatch.org/). I know policies on primary sources well: its generally best to avoid them but there are times when they are acceptable. This could be a helpful information section to a reader on the page however. Im sure some of the firms and organizations on this list have reliable sources for their individual warrant canary. What are your thoughts here? DaltonCastle ( talk) 21:26, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that really gets the idea across. The canary does inform its user that the provider has NOT been served, true - but is that really the aim of a warrant canary? Isn't the aim to inform the user - passively - when they HAVE been served? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.42.129.104 ( talk) 22:28, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
The words "aims to" should be deleted, and inform changed to informs. Because that's what the canary does. It aims to inform it's users that a secret subpoena HAS been issued without violating the gag order. 50.21.206.23 ( talk) 18:57, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
I read the articles linked in the citations for the statement "Warrant canaries have been found to be legal by the United States Justice Department, so long as they are passive in their notifications.[3][4][5]" None of these articles state that warrant canaries have been found to be legal, only that companies are arguing that they should be and that said companies believe the would be found to be if tested in court. But as far as I can tell no such test has yet happened, and in fact, the articles state the opposite in that some companies have been instructed in a letter by the government they may NOT use canaries, and Apple's removal of their canary indicates that one of two possibilities is that they are abiding by that letter. Vertigo220 ( talk) 22:29, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, as near a I can tell, it's impossible to legally prevent the removal of a warrant canary. But a law could be made to disallow putting them up in the first place (the law could murder the canary first). Additionally, common law allows a judge to attempt to rule on the spirit of the law and close loopholes. A warrant canary clearly violates the spirit of the law, without violating it's letter. Therefore, a prosecution and conviction is definitely possible, and would be a case of judicial legislation, effectively enacting a law against putting up the canary in the first place. Sich things should be tested in court. 74.211.58.163 ( talk) 17:52, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Warrant canary. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
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(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 12:51, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
The paragraph covering US case law under the usage section seems like original research, or at best unattributed from a comment on the Bruce Schneier blog previously cited https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/australia_outla.html#c6692535
5.151.178.168 ( talk) 18:31, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
This user hereby
states that he has NOT been approached by any government entities demanding his cooperation Watch for the disappearance of this notice. |
-- Wesha ( talk) 03:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
This article might benefit from discussion of why the communication providers would do this. Is it out of loyalty to their users, or as an act of civil disobedience? Also, how is this information "published"? On a dedicated page of their website or in communications? Cerulean Depths ( talk) 21:21, 9 December 2022 (UTC)