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Site Launches To Track Warrant Canaries
Trailrunner7 writes: In the years since Edward Snowden began putting much of the NSA's business in the street, including its reliance on the secret FISA court and National security Letters, warrant canaries have emerged as a key method for ISPs, telecoms, and other technology providers to let the public know whether they have received any secret orders. But keeping track of the various canaries scattered around the Web is difficult, so a group of legal and civil liberties organizations have come together to launch a new site to monitor the known warrant canaries.
The Canary Watch site is the work of the EFF, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and NYU's Technology Law and Policy Center and it works on a simple concept. The site maintains a list of all of the known warrant canaries and periodically checks each organization's site to see whether the canary is still there and then lists any changes to the status. Right now, Canary Watch lists 11 organizations, including Lookout, Pinterest, Reddit, and Tumblr.
"Canarywatch lists the warrant canaries we know about, tracks changes or disappearances of those canaries, and allows users to submit canaries not listed on the site. For people with interest in a particular canary, the site will show any changes we know about," Nadia Kayyali of the EFF said in a blog post.
The Canary Watch site is the work of the EFF, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and NYU's Technology Law and Policy Center and it works on a simple concept. The site maintains a list of all of the known warrant canaries and periodically checks each organization's site to see whether the canary is still there and then lists any changes to the status. Right now, Canary Watch lists 11 organizations, including Lookout, Pinterest, Reddit, and Tumblr.
"Canarywatch lists the warrant canaries we know about, tracks changes or disappearances of those canaries, and allows users to submit canaries not listed on the site. For people with interest in a particular canary, the site will show any changes we know about," Nadia Kayyali of the EFF said in a blog post.
I'm pretty sure that the whole point of a canary is that while it's OK for a court to say "You may not speak of this", and "You must speak of this truthfully unless it's self-incriminating", it's not currently OK for a court to say "You must speak falsehood about this", at least in US law.
It's NOT okay for a court to say "you may not speak of this".
I really wish someone would have the balls to stand up to the blatantly unconstitutional bullshit prevalent in the system.
I haven't been served any court order. I haven't been ordered to not tell you that. It's pretty clear that I can't currently be in violation of an order that does not exist. Therefore, publishing a canary (prior to any court order) isn't illegal, the reasoning goes.
Suppose later I do receive an NSL or court order. Can the government legitimately force me to lie and publish statements saying I haven't? Is there any law that gives the executive branch the authority to order us to lie? If so, is that law repugnant to the first amendment and therefore void? Those are two open questions, questiond that Twitter and the Obama administration are litigating right now. Twitter says the first amendment gives them the right to say they have not received any NSLs. The Obama administration says they have the right to prevent Twitter from saying that.
The FBI would likely explain that the secret judge had already secretly signed a secret warrant in the secret court, sorry we can't show you but pinky swear it exists. That's the sort of rule of law we have these days, sadly.
To which I would, very politely reply, "that might be true, I'm not a lawyer and honestly don't know. I'll have to consult with my lawyer and get back to you. Rest assured it is my intention to comply with the law, but I need to know what the law is first and my lawyer is the professional who advises me of that"
I would also politely suggest that if they would like a quicker response, bring me a normal warrant signed by a judge and they'll get instant service.
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I fully understand the attitude of many police officers and federal agents, they think walking into a business and flashing their badge gets them access, and often it probably does. Some people probably comply out of a sense of being a patriot, or just to get them out of their office.
On the other hand, I don't hand out business information to anyone who just walks into the door, at least not without a court order.
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May I say... the whole idea of dealing with anyone from the government, be police or FBI, is to show respect for their position and for the law, I find that goes a long way towards having friendly conversations. There is no room for "tough guy" talk, they'll win that one...