Legality of warrant canaries

[David]

I know an amusing story with the USSS and certain hardly large ISP.

They got served with the usual paper, as they had many times before. One 
thing looked different, however. They pulled file copies of past USSS 
subpoenas, and this was one paragraph of boilerplate shorter. You guessed 
it, the agent had left out the "Shhh! You can't tell..." paragraph. Oops, 
perils of cut & paste.

So they checked with their attorney, who noted that point as well. And they 
set up the vacuum cleaner on the account in question, and per instructions, 
emailed the USSS agent......and cc'ed their subscriber.

The agent was quite upset and irate, with a variety of threats.....until 
they pointed out her demand was one paragraph short. Then she got even 
nastier, as she realized she'd stepped in it.

Finally a more senior DOJ person explained to her that Pogo applied in 
spades[1] and she shut up and went away, none too happy.

The End.


1] "We have met the enemy, and he is us..."