The sole purpose of a warrant canary is to say something akin to: "We have received no warrants or NSLs."
The Silent Circle warrant canary has no such statement. It says the opposite: if "no warrants have been served," such a declaration will appear. The declaration does not appear. The most obvious conclusion is they have been served with some a warrant or similar compulsory legal process.
I think it's unlikely that the wording was accidentally unclear. This came up in the HN thread in December, with <StavrosK> saying: "You're right, it looks like the wording is a bit unclear. I'll talk to the guys to see if we can get it updated, thanks." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8796912
On the other hand, on January 6, 2015: “There is nothing to report via warrant canary or otherwise because we have never been served with a warrant, subpoena or other legal requirement to provide anything.” https://support.silentcircle.com/customer/portal/questions/9...
It's really quite simple to get a warrant canary right and eliminate ambiguity. Look at rsync.net's example:
No warrants have ever been served to rsync.net, or rsync.net principals or employees.
No searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on rsync.net assets...http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
The one we're using at http://recent.io/ is similar, and possibly more explicit:
As of [date], we have not received any legal process or demand from any federal, state, or local government. We have received no National Security Letters, civil subpoenas, search warrants, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders, grand jury subpoenas, or any other form of compulsory process.
As a community, we really need a way to keep track of status changes in warrant canaries. I wonder if https://canarywatch.org/ keeps archived copies.
[...] it does not prevent them from using force to coerce us to produce false declarations [...]
so if the declaration is present it's still not guaranteed that no gag order was issued.
Looks to me like a desperate attempt to patch a broken system (US policy/law). You could even go that far to assume that it is only a marketing stunt as such statements have no other value otherwise.
You are correct that U.S. policy is in some ways broken, but incorrect in assuming that warrant canaries serve no purpose or firms can be compelled to lie. The far better arguments are that such an order would be unconstitutional -- look at the NSL 1A litigation for a good parallel.
That's why CanaryWatch.org is run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, NYU's Technology Law & Policy Clinic, and the Calyx Institute. I moderated an event at HOPE X last year with Nick from Calyx (and Ladar from LavaBit) and they have spent quite a bit of time thinking through this.
The Silent Circle warrant canary has no such statement. It says the opposite: if "no warrants have been served," such a declaration will appear. The declaration does not appear. The most obvious conclusion is they have been served with some a warrant or similar compulsory legal process.
I think it's unlikely that the wording was accidentally unclear. This came up in the HN thread in December, with <StavrosK> saying: "You're right, it looks like the wording is a bit unclear. I'll talk to the guys to see if we can get it updated, thanks." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8796912
On the other hand, on January 6, 2015: “There is nothing to report via warrant canary or otherwise because we have never been served with a warrant, subpoena or other legal requirement to provide anything.” https://support.silentcircle.com/customer/portal/questions/9...
It's really quite simple to get a warrant canary right and eliminate ambiguity. Look at rsync.net's example:
No warrants have ever been served to rsync.net, or rsync.net principals or employees. No searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on rsync.net assets... http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
The one we're using at http://recent.io/ is similar, and possibly more explicit:
As of [date], we have not received any legal process or demand from any federal, state, or local government. We have received no National Security Letters, civil subpoenas, search warrants, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders, grand jury subpoenas, or any other form of compulsory process.
As a community, we really need a way to keep track of status changes in warrant canaries. I wonder if https://canarywatch.org/ keeps archived copies.