Warrant canaries

[yarblek]

Do warrant canaries work? Apparently Australia at least has made them illegal. How about the US? Have they ever been legally challenged and/or has SCOTUS ever weighed in on them? Are there federal or state laws against them?

A warrant canary is a message that (usually) a website or similar continually publishes and updates, telling readers that they have not been issued a warrant or subpoena. When they are issued a warrant with a gag order, they simply either remove the message or stop updating it. This appears to have some potential implications about compelled speech and lying. If they are actually pointless then why do they still exist?

@Wikipedia - Warrant canary

That said, case law specific to the United States would render the covert continuance of warrant canaries subject to constitutionality challenges. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and Wooley v. Maynard rule the Free Speech Clause prohibits compelling someone to speak against one’s wishes; this can easily be extended to prevent someone from being compelled to lie. New York Times Co. v. United States protects one exercising the First Amendment to publish government information, even if it is against the wishes of the government, except under grave and exceptional circumstances previously set by act and precedent. The latter also carries the weight of acting against a direct government intervention similar to a government intervention against a warrant canary.