Comment by jlgreco
12 years ago
As I see it: Compelled to be silent is one thing. Compelled to lie is another.
To me, the notion that the second shouldn't be possible is common sense. I find it hard to express how little it surprises me that you do not share this perspective.
The gag order prevents you from communicating the existence of the NSL. Whether you do so by e-mail or smoke signal or elaborate semaphore (the canary in the article) is irrelevant. The gag order doesn't compel you to lie, except to the extent you contrive to set up a situation where your only two choices are to lie or reveal the existence of the NSL.
Not that I agree with gag orders attached to warrants, mind you. But saying that it's just "stopping a process running on my computer" not "communicating information" is just wrong from an information theoretic point of view. Lots of things can be used as a semaphore to communicate information. I bet in other contexts (say insider trading), you'd agree that it doesn't matter whether some CEO tipped off his buddy about insider information by carefully varying load on a server to modulate response times on a web page, thus communicating bits of information.
"I bet in other contexts (say insider trading), you'd agree that it doesn't matter whether some CEO tipped off his buddy about insider information by carefully varying load on a server to modulate response times on a web page, thus communicating bits of information."
Ah, but what if the CEO is just taking a long time to reply to emails from friends, because he is very busy preparing for some huge business move -- is it insider trading if one of those friends sets up an options position that profits from increased volatility? This gets down to the difference between a side channel (inadvertent) and a covert channel (deliberate). The distinction does not matter from an information theoretic point of view; the same information is communicated in either case.
Unsurprisingly, it appears you are either confused or being purposely obtuse.
I do not doubt that they have constructed for themselves a legal scenario that allows them to command warrant canary operators to lie. On the contrary, I am suggesting that they have with all likelyhood done exactly that.
Who is confused? It is the canary operators that deliberately constructs for themselves a situation that offers only the choice between lying and complying with the gag order.
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