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To expand on this. This is done as it is usually presumed the government can legally force your silence, but can't force you to say something (e.g we hadn't re

• cyphar 8y ago
  And to even further expand on it, the reason why they usually have a date is because it would be possible to argue that a company could be forced to keep an existing document on their website (since they aren't being forced to say something against their will, so much as being forced to not stop saying something they've already said). So the expiry is quite important in the function of a warrant canary. Although it should be noted that as far as I'm aware, warrant canaries haven't actually gone through the court system to determine if they are actually a legal way of circumventing gag orders. Not to mention that the legality of warrant canaries has mostly only been discussed by internet lawyers in relation to US laws -- in other jurisdictions they may not work at all (I've spoken to some Australian lawyers and they think that even the basis of the theoretical arguments don't apply in Australia). On the other hand, I don't know of any company that has actually used warrant canaries (and has "activated them" like Reddit did) which ended up being tried for violation of the NSL's gag order.