[jcranmer]

This is a colorable argument, but I think it's ultimately a pretty poor argument:

First, freedom from compelled speech is not an inherently stronger (or weaker) freedom than freedom of speech. If the government can prevent you from saying something, then it can almost certainly prevent you from saying it by not not saying it.

Second, national security is one of the most powerful legal trump cards in practice. The government saying that something is necessary for national security will be treated as fact by the court, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

Third, the purpose of freedom of speech is to protect freedom of expression. Speech that isn't expressive in nature has a much lower bar to clear for the government to be able to restrict it. Warrant canaries strike me as essentially commercial speech, which the government has pretty wide latitude to regulate.

[phpisthebest]

>>The government saying that something is necessary for national security will be treated as fact by the court, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

Citation please

>> Speech that isn't expressive in nature has a much lower bar to clear for the government to be able to restrict it. Warrant canaries strike me as essentially commercial speech, which the government has pretty wide latitude to regulate.

This case law around NSL have not been vary favorable for the government, Appeals courts have struck down the gag order provisions of the laws in the place, and are poised to do so again should a case come before them. The current make up the Supreme Court also leads me to believe they would not look favorably on Gag orders, though they would on the larger issue of National Security

[tptacek]

This is a circular argument. If the gag orders in question are struck, the canary doesn't do anything: you can just tell people you were served with the court order. But if the canary matters, that means we're dealing with a nondisclosure order that did, at least for the moment, survive strict scrutiny. Since there isn't a legal concept of "super strict scrutiny", that leaves the question of why people believe the canary will fare any better than the objection to the gag order.