[Houshalter]

It doesn't need to "trickery". It could be as simple as someone asking if you've received any warrants, and just not answering.

The government shouldn't have the ability to compel people to lie, that's the issue. As far as I know they don't have that ability, and there is nothing illegal about this.

[vacri]

They can compel people to lie already with the NSL - it just depends on how the question is phrased. "Removing a warrant canary" is no different to staging a question from someone that is "Say 'no comment' if you've received an NSL". In both cases, the absence of a response has been set up to convey the forbidden information.