Warrant Canaries

[Zenaan Harkness]

On 4/5/15, Ryan Carboni <ryacko at gmail.com> wrote:
> IANAL, but laws are pretty clear. You cannot change your behavior in any
> way that a jury could judge would lead to someone being tipped off.

Whoa there cowboy!

IANAL but the common law is pretty clear: you cannot compel
performance (in general that is, certain writs excepted of course).

Now the rest is my unpacking, and a bit of ranting, and I realise you
added "IANAL", but if you're thin skinned, stop reading now and go to
law school (you need to).

When you use the phrase "You cannot change your behavior in any way",
you are speaking to acting, and leading the reader to presume an
"unlawfully demonstrative" action on the part of the actor; this is an
entirely different slant to that presumed by the warrant canary: that
is, performing lawful actions during a period of time, and later
ceasing to act or ceasing to do that thing. Ceasing to do something,
is lack of performance, which is entirely different legal territory to
acting, or performing an act.

In common law (in general), you cannot compel me to act, to perform
some action. Let's say we put up a web cam in an office across the
street from my office, and each morning I wave from my office at that
webcam - this could be my 'canary' for my "private email" customers.
Can a court (that is, lawfully), order that I wave out my office
window, in exactly the same manner as I have been doing for the last
three years, at exactly the same time, wearing exactly the same
clothes and same hairstyle (let's say I have been shaving my head). So
now, my shirt gets stained ("accidentally" of course:) with tomato
sauce, I miss my barbershop appointment for a few weeks, so my hair
grows, my razor stops working, so I can't shave and I grow a beard and
mustache, I'm really tired each day now, so I wave more slowly than I
used to, I also look subtly sad/happy compared to normal, and, oh how
could it have happened, the rent for my office doesn't get paid, and I
get an eviction notice, so sad, so sad, I can no longer wave out my
office window each morning.

How the FUCK is a court going to order me around to stop every one of
these "variations" in my "behaviour"?!! Are you serious when you say a
jury would convict me of unlawful non-behaviour? Or that a court is
going to order that I behave in precisely these
ways/times/fashions/etc?

Please!! Some people might be so stupid as to soak up such rubbish,
but I have some hope that not everyone is so dum/ uncreative as to
swallow such bullshit.

Secondly, when you say "...in any way that a jury could judge...", I
am reminded of one (USA) phrase to describe juries as "the gang of 12"
- a "gang" referring, AIUI, to the relative unpredictability of the
outcome one might get - but this has a very positive side, refer in
particular to the Trial of William Penn and Bushel's Case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushel%27s_Case

In the hindsight of the Trial of William Penn and Bushel's Case, one
might be inclined to consider such "random" legal outcomes from the
so-called "gang" of 12, to instead be rare "bastions of sanity"
(verdicts) from the "final stronghold of justice" (jury/"gang" of 12)!

Our language is somewhat required (for communication that is) on this
list or elsewhere; it is a tool - one we may use for good or for evil
(choose your definition, I won't argue your definition, although it
might not match mine).

Subtleties of implication, nuance of unspoken presumptions, leading
statements and questions, can lead the uninformed reader to thoughts
or (worse) conclusions, which thoughts and conclusions are most
definitely NOT in our interest!

Please, THINK before you type.

Thanks :)
Zenaan