If a CA is compelled to issue a false certificate by court order, this destroys their credibility completely. If I ran a CA, I'd rather face the consequences, and let the court ask another listed CA, rather than destroy my entire business model.
CAs must be audited and have a certification to be accepted in the major browsers (something like WebTrust). If anyone did this, they would lose that certification immediately and then they'd be out of business because their root CA would be revoked from Windows/Firefox/Mac OS.
The question is how WebTrust would treat this type of theoretical issue.
Especially with Americans new found willingness to accept overreaching law enforcement measures. So long as one of the right trigger words (terrorism, children) is used, the average purchaser of certificates won't blink at the idea that law enforcement completely subverted the chain of trust that enables their customers to believe they are dealing with who it says on the certificate.
Yes. Courts can also order you to destroy property, breach (most types of) confidences, alienate people from money in their accounts, etc etc, and lie about doing all of the above.
