When a service provider's cooperation is required, it can:
- Turn away informal requests and say, "come back with a court order"
- Appeal subpoenas it feels are unreasonable
- Return exactly as much data as required by court order (search warrants are supposed to be narrow; overly broad search warrants are vulnerable to defense lawyers)
- Fall on its sword if it feels it has been required to do something extremely unethical and legal channels for objection have been exhausted (Lavabit)
While a service provider cannot legally resist government writ large, it can limit its disclosures to what the judiciary actually requires, rather than what police want. (At least in criminal law, these are actually meaningfully different.)
A service provider that has been backdoored is giving every cop/analyst/whatever far more than they are legally entitled to.
- Turn away informal requests and say, "come back with a court order"
- Appeal subpoenas it feels are unreasonable
- Return exactly as much data as required by court order (search warrants are supposed to be narrow; overly broad search warrants are vulnerable to defense lawyers)
- Fall on its sword if it feels it has been required to do something extremely unethical and legal channels for objection have been exhausted (Lavabit)
While a service provider cannot legally resist government writ large, it can limit its disclosures to what the judiciary actually requires, rather than what police want. (At least in criminal law, these are actually meaningfully different.)
A service provider that has been backdoored is giving every cop/analyst/whatever far more than they are legally entitled to.