Duncan Frissell writes:
Note that a court could cite you for contempt for not complying with a subpoena duces tecum (a subpoena requiring you to produce objects or documents) if you fail to turn over subpoenaed backups.
Assume that your application is running (mirrored) on five machines ...
I think that Mr. Frissell's suggestion falls into the category of what I've humbly termed "digital flash paper" mechanisms. In the days of yore, numbers runners and gangsters and nefarious bad guys would keep records on cellulose (?) flash paper which could be ignited and destroyed very rapidly should Elliot Ness be seen approaching the front door. Another (simpler) suggestion made by a friend was to devise motion-sensitive devices which would cause total corruption of information stored on a disk if it were moved. My highly esteemed legal opinion is that this could be considered criminal obstruction of justice, though as with the contempt of court issue such a charge might be preferrable to one of Sedition :-) -- Mike McNally