>Under the terms of the deal, the mechanism works like this:
> If either Google or Amazon provides information to authorities in the US, where the dialing code is +1, and they are prevented from disclosing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels.
This sounds like warrant canaries but worse. At least with warrant canaries you argue that you can't compel speech, but in this case it's pretty clear to any judge that such payments constitute disclosure or violation of gag order, because you're taking a specific action that results in the target knowing the request was made.
A warrant canary works by removing information, not by transmitting it. You put up a sign like "The FBI has not issued a warrant" and then remove it if they do, even if there is a gag order stating you cannot disclose that they issued you a warrant. This only works because you have not told anyone that a warrant has been issued but they must infer that the missing canary implies such a warrant has been dispatched.
Agreed. This is direct. It is like putting up a posting "The FBI *has* issued a warrant". Which this would be in direct violation of a gag order. Their codes are even differentiating who the issuer is. I'm pretty confident a comprehensive set of warrant canaries detailing every agency would not comply with gag orders either as this leaves little ambiguity. But this isn't even doing that. It is just straight up direct communication.I think what is funniest is that it could have been much more secret. When I saw the reference in the intro to payments I was thinking "don't tell me they're so dumb they're coding info like Costco". That they'd use the cents to detail access. Like .99 for all clear and .98 for access. But that's not "clever" at all lol
> warrant canary works by removing information, not by transmitting it.
You transmit information by changing the content of the transmission, basically just like any communication works
> This only works
do you know that? Haven't heard of it actually working in any high profile case.
> because you have not told anyone that a warrant has been issued
you have told them explicitly by agreeing to a scheme both parties understand and by enacting the message change under said scheme. You basically just used some encoding to hide the plain message
I think a canary works by having a date it was last updated and expiration date, and you just stop updating it if the condition no longer holds. You don't modify it if the event occurs, because then you are making a barred communication.
First off, you're using the word in the definition. You can't use "transmit" to define "transmit". A transmission is the noun variation of transmit (verb).
Second off, a transmission is *active*
Think about radio. If I am constantly producing a 440kHz signal then I'm transmitting a signal. If I'm not producing the signal, I'm not transmitting.
You are not considered to be transmitting unless you are holding down the button to send the signal.
That's how a canary works. You're constantly transmitting a signal (the canary is constantly singing) and then all of a sudden it goes quiet. You have stopped transmission.
Does this communicate? Yes. But what it communicates is ambiguous. Maybe the canary just went to sleep. Maybe it starved to death instead of getting carbon dioxide poisoning. It does not provide an unambiguous truth.
That reasonable deniability is the reason a canary works. You can claim it was taken down for other reasons, such as an accident. Those reasons have to be believable and justifiable. Mind you, a warrant canary can work like going down in one commit and up in the next, happening over a small period of time. A canary does not need to work by continuous existence or continuous absence.
Canaries also frequently work by having expirations (which is closer to how you're thinking, but still follow the same abstraction discussed above). It has to be manually updated or modified. For example I could add the canary "godelski hasn't been raided by the FBI: signed 31 oct 2025 expires 7 Nov 2025". Were that message to still exist exactly on Nov 7th (and it will because I can't edit comments outside a time window) then you can conclude that my canary expired. You can't conclude I was raided by the FBI. You should be suspicious, but you can't be positive. Maybe I just can't update comments...
This isn't to be conflated with the way we transmit information is through variation, such as high and low in binary. Technically while you're talking you make pauses and "stop talking" several times while saying a single word. But we say you're talking until you stop "transmitting" or complete. If this pause wasn't included then the dead would still speak and your annoying uncle would never shut up
What happens if in the gag order they explicitly forbid the target from removing warrant canaries, and give examples of existing ones?
I’ve always wondered. It seems just as easy for authorities to forbid removing canaries as it is to forbid telling someone something.
EDIT: ah, this is explained downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45763032
Yeah there's lots of ways to implement them but expiration is very common.
I guess you can technically be compelled to update your canary. But the main idea is to make it hard to compel the action that results in the canary existing. But don't ask me, like most HN users IANAL
This reads like something a non-lawyer who watched too many bad detective movies would dream up. Theres absolutely no way this would pass legal muster —- even warrant canaries are mostly untested, but this is clearly like 5x ‘worse’ for the reasons you point out.
From the article:
> Several experts described the mechanism as a “clever” workaround that could comply with the letter of the law but not its spirit.
It's not clear to me how it could comply with the letter of the law, but evidently at least some legal experts think it can? That uncertainty is probably how it made it past the legal teams in the first place.
Warrant canary depends on agreed upon inaction, which shields it somewhat. You cannot exactly compel speech by a gag order.
This, being an active process, if found out, is violating a gag order by direct action.
Warrant canaries depend on action, the removal or altering of the canary document. It’s too clever but no more clever than what Israel is requiring here.
the canary notification method is a lack of updates, not a specific update.
you update your canary to say that nothing has changed, at a known cadence.
if you ever dont make the update, readers know that the canary has expired, and so you have been served a gag order warrant.
changing or removing the canary in response to a warrant is illegal. not changing it is legal.
for an equivalent cloudwatch setup, its checking the flag for "alarm when there's no points"
Yes, the equivalent of a warning canary would be that Google pays the Israeli government a set of payment every month such as 3100 shekels (for +31, NL) and then suddenly November 2025 they stop issuing it. That would mean there's a legal investigation targeting Google by the Dutch prosecutor (OM) involving Israeli data.
I suspect they didn't go for this route as it is too slow.
I would think to stopping doing something is equally an action as to do something, in regards to warrant canaries and gag orders. You had to take make some change to your process, or if automated take an actual action to disable. In either case, there was a cognizant choice that was made
The legal theory is that in the US the first amendment prevents the government from forcing you to make a false update. I don’t know if it’s ever been tested.
As I understand, this theory wouldn’t even hold up in other countries where you could be compelled to make such a false update.
Yes but the theory, at least in the US, is that the government cannot compel you to say something. That is, they can't make you put up a notice.
More specifically, the theory is that cannot compel you to lie, there are all kinds of cases where businesses are compelled to share specific messages.
Ah, that was confusing to me. Thank you.
yea, I get that, but my gut tells me this doesn't pass the sniff test
It's a choice you make and action you take either way, be it not updating a canary or sending a covert financial transaction
That it has not been tested in court is why it's still a "theory" (hypothesis?)
My hope is that a jury of our peers would stay closer to the spirit than the letter of the law
Inaction is not action.
The choice to cease perform an act, when you have been consistently doing it, is itself an action
No, making a choice to do nothing is not considered action by any legal definition.
And this would be why warrant canaries aren't seen as a proven legal shield yet.
>Warrant canaries depend on action, the removal or altering of the canary document.
No, they can simply not publish a warrant canary in the future, which will tip people off if they've been publishing it regularly in the past.
Right - the whole premise is that the government cannot compel speech (in the US). So if you publish something every week that says, “we’ve never been subpoenaed as of this week” and then receive a subpoena, the government can’t force you to lie and publish the same note afterwards. The lack of it being published is the canary here.
Whether you can be compelled to lie under these circumstances or not is not a resolved question of law. Although it seems fairly likely that compelling speech in this way is unconstitutional, if it has been tested in court, the proceedings are not public.
Good thing no one is doing anything unconstitutional right now?
Ah, I think I get it. Violating the spirit of a law can be, often is, enough to get you convicted of a crime. Arguably more often than violating the letter of the law but not it's spirit.
However, if a judge dodesn't want to find someone guilty, "not violating the letter of the law" can provide a fig leaf for the friendly judge.
When those experts are not named one could wonder if they even exist. Why would a journalist not reveal the name of an expert who is consulting on a matter of law?
Not to get super conspiratorial, but I think this is almost certainly a weasel statement simply to avoid directly accusing Israel/google/amazon of breaking the law.
I can't imagine any "legal expert" dumb enough to say you can violate a gag order if you use numbers instead of words.
In all likelihood there's just language like "to the extent permitted by law", which The Guardian isn't telling us about. Even if they didn't write that explicitly, it's implied anyway - Israel knows any US court would void any provision requiring Google/Amazon to commit criminal acts (illegality doctrine). It's also not really possible for Israel to be break laws of foreign states, since it's not bound by them in the first place.
This only works for Israel because members of the Israeli government expect to be above the law. They need to offer only the flimsiest pretext to get away with anything. Look what happened with Tom Alexandrovich.
Just jumping in to point out that thus had 6 points before the hasbada bots swooped in and now it's at 1.
From reading the Wiki, it seems like the state cops (who were somehow in charge of the case) forgot to take his passport when they arrested him, and then he just fled after he paid bail?
Is there any evidence he was helped in his escape by anyone? Genuinely asking (and genuinely seeking hard facts and data).
He was interviewed by the feds after his arrest and mentioned his upcoming flight in the interview transcript but still was allowed to leave the country.
Right, because his passport wasn't confiscated. I still err on this being stupidity by the Clark County cops in the lack of further information.
Agree that there's something fishy/missing in this story. Never say never, but I find it extremely unlikely that Google/Amazon lawyers, based in the US, would agree to such a blatantly mafia-like scheme.
First day on this planet?
Wouldn't the lawyers be based in Israel - under some Israel-based shell/subsidiary of Google/Amazon, that owns the data centers, and complies with local law?
There is no way a US company would enter this sort of deal with Israel where they promise to circumvent a gag order. The money isn't worth going to jail for and the execs signing the deal would go to jail and they have little to benefit from. Story has no sources and makes no sense. Either the Guardian is reporting some rumor or they're just making stuff up.
Is it really that difficult to believe it could be accurate? If we take at face value what has been written about other big tech companies (mainly thinking of Facebook) as they grew their relationship in countries such as the People’s Republic of China, we also see they had to sweeten the deal by giving the government more power over how they could use the services.
I do think it’s kind of a different situation though because apparently the employees of Facebook could have gotten into legal trouble in those other countries they were trying to expand into.
Nobody is going to jail for this, and they know it.
Larry Ellison, biggest private donor to the IDF, enters the chat.
I don't know about Google but Amazon works with lawyers and other roles to routinely operate illegal union-busting strategies. It is blatantly illegal behavior that they use all their might to get away with. I don't know why you would find it so unbelievably surprising that they would do illegal mafia-like things.
It's certainly very interesting and difficult to explain...
> a blatantly mafia-like scheme.
Yeap...they would never do it ....
"Tech, crypto, tobacco, other companies fund Trump’s White House ballroom" - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/23/trump-ballroom-dono...
> I find it extremely unlikely that Google/Amazon lawyers, based in the US, would agree to such a blatantly mafia-like scheme.
I trust The Guardian. So I agree It was unlikely. I find it very sad
Very sad
It's a "cute" mechanism. The lawyers and the companies they work for found this to be an acceptable thing to put in a contract, when doing so could be interpreted as conspiring to evade the law. Did they get any assurances that they wouldn't get in trouble for doing this?
I don't think evade the law is the right term, at least if we stick with tax analogs. Clearly the goal was to 'avoid' the law. Doing something that avoids legal obligations is legal, doing something that evades them is illegal.
It's evasion. And it is arguably a conspiracy, since the other party in the contract is complicit in crafting language that gets around an anti-terrorism law. It's serious and wrong.
It's evasion based on what? To say that with any degree of certainty you'd need to have immense knowledge in the esoteric of the balance of US laws, international treaties, and more. Even that is probably not enough as the exact bounds and constraints of laws can be somewhat ambiguous especially when they start interacting with other laws. And then on top of all of this need to start factoring in sovereign immunity, the interplay with Israel Laws and Google, and countless other things.
And while 'anti-terrorism' is the pretext for these secret courts, secret orders, and other nonsense - in reality I expect they've done extremely little to actually stop terrorists. Yet it's certainly created a system where even a defacto Western/allied bloc government is worried that their data is going to be secretly seized. It's quite dystopic, all done in the name of errorism.
The law can be bad at the same time as contracts like this are the embodiment of a conspiracy to break that law.
And how would you contrast that against intentionally structuring your income, in collaboration with foreign institutions and carefully designed/funded shell entities where do you things like [defacto] license your own tech to yourself, all in a effort to avoid tax obligations? Would you not call that a 'conspiracy to avoid taxes'? And it's 100% legal, because everything is legal if not explicitly outlawed.
You have difficulty distinguishing between civil and criminal matters. Criminal justice has judges and juries for a reason. You can't be cute about what amounts to espionage.
Tax evasion is a serious criminal felony, not a civil matter. It's actually how they've brought down many illegal empires that couldn't otherwise be cracked, most famously Al Capone.
If you're working with the people Amazon works with, the risk assessment isn't "Will we get in trouble for this?" it's "When we get in trouble for this, can we defend it on legal grounds?" Given that even the American spooks cited in this article are defending this blatantly immoral and obscene trespass, obviously Amazon's lawyers have reason to believe they can.
The key with a canary is that the thing you're trying to signal ensures the positive or negative signal itself, like "I will check in every 24 hours as long as everything is good, because if I'm not good I won't be able to check in.". THis is just a very thin, very simple code translation. It's like saying "if you get a request for our info, blink 3 times!"
This feels like an "intentional self-stereotyping / Self-Mocking" technique to employ.
Yeah.
I mean, why pay the money? Why not just skip the payment and email a contact "1,000"? Or perhaps "Interesting article about in the Times about the USA, wink wink"?
This method is deliberately communicating information in a way that (I assume) is prohibited. It doesn't seem like it would take a judge much time to come to the conclusion that the gag order prohibits communication.
Creating a secret code is still communication, whether that's converting letters A=1, B=2, sending a video of someone communicating it in sign language, a painting of the country, writing an ethereum contract, everyday sending a voicemail with a list of all the countries in the world from A to Z, but omitting the one(s) that have the gag / warrant...
If you ever dealt with the laws around exporting technology to specific jurisidictions, this would be like saying "We can convert the algorithm code to Python and THEN export it to North Korea!"
One of the earliest example would be "we can print PGP as a book and then..."
I think the point here is to ensure they are legally compelled to make the payment. They can't admit to the gag order, but the existence of the gag order compels them to pay the 1,000 shekels, does the gag order compel them to not pay what they owe??