While I am not a lawyer, it appears that this concept might indeed hold some merit. A similar strategy is used by organizations focused on civil rights, known as a “warrant canary”. Essentially, it’s a method by which a communications service provider aims to implicitly inform its users that the provider has been served with a government subpoena, despite legal prohibitions on revealing the existence of the subpoena. The idea behind it is that it there are very strong protections against compelled speech, especially against compelled untrue speech (e.g. updating the canary despite having received a subpoena).
While I am not a lawyer, it appears that this concept might indeed hold some merit. A similar strategy is used by organizations focused on civil rights, known as a “warrant canary”. Essentially, it’s a method by which a communications service provider aims to implicitly inform its users that the provider has been served with a government subpoena, despite legal prohibitions on revealing the existence of the subpoena. The idea behind it is that it there are very strong protections against compelled speech, especially against compelled untrue speech (e.g. updating the canary despite having received a subpoena).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) seems to believe that warrant canaries are legal.