> What would "tested in the US courts" look like? Would the federal government take an entity to court, demanding that they put their warrant canary back up, as a form of compelled speech?
The warrant canary exists because disclosing such warrants is illegal and carries some penalty. I imagine the federal government would bring a case to apply that penalty, and the courts would have to decide whether "removing a canary" === "illegally disclosing a secret subpoena." If so they can freely apply the penalty, and the penalty will carry legal precedent for being applicable to warrant canaries, and it will have a chilling effect on sites that wish to use one.
But the question here is: what counts as removing? Is inaction on your part considered removing?
If i smoked every day, and chose to stop smoking, but the act of me stopping smoking is a signal to some third party that is deemed illegal, can the gov't compel the continuation of smoking?
At the point that the US government prosecutes you, the cat is out of the bag and they don’t care about making you put the canary back. What they care about is punishing you, with jail time or a large fine or some other penalty, to discourage other people from attempting the same “loophole.”
The warrant canary exists because disclosing such warrants is illegal and carries some penalty. I imagine the federal government would bring a case to apply that penalty, and the courts would have to decide whether "removing a canary" === "illegally disclosing a secret subpoena." If so they can freely apply the penalty, and the penalty will carry legal precedent for being applicable to warrant canaries, and it will have a chilling effect on sites that wish to use one.