From the new report Reddit disappeared testimony canary

Like some other companies, every year Reddit publishes the Transparenct Report, which reports on the number of requests for information deletion, the issuance of confidential data about users, etc. Last year , a specific phrase was added to the report: “As of January 29, Reddit has never received the NSL subpoenas for the Foreign Intelligence Observation Observation Act (FISA) or any other classified request for user information. If we receive such a request, we will try to find a way to bring the fact of its existence to the public. ”

This is a classic example of a canary testimony - a method of transmitting information through silence or denial.

If it is forbidden to disclose information about NSL's secret agendas, including the very fact of receiving such agendas, then you can go for a trick. Imagine the dialogue.
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- Have you ever received an NSL agenda?
- No never.
- Have you ever received an NSL agenda?
- No never.
- Have you ever received an NSL agenda?
- On the advice of a lawyer, I refuse to answer this question.

In full compliance with the law, the person (in our case, the Reddit manual) refuses to answer the question. However, everything is clear.

So, on March 31, 2016, Reddit published a new Transparency Report , in which the aforementioned phrase is missing . This is how the testimony of the canary works. No laws are violated.

Reddit executive director Steve [spez] Huffman (Steve Huffman) is silent: “I was advised not to say anything in one way or another,” he wrote .

Reddit, Google, the Wikimedia Foundation, and other companies recently came out in support of a Twitter lawsuit against the US government, demanding that they be allowed to report information on the number of NSLs received.

It is known that the FBI dispatches more than 50,000 subpoena NSL annually. Companies have the right to challenge them in a secret court, but in the case of a successful verdict, even after many years, the mention of these agendas remains a serious crime.