Huh? I'm not disputing that institutions carefully use the passive voice to clean their prose of negative connotations...but the two examples you mention are not "lies"

1. I've seen the "bags are subject to search" phrase many times, including the public library. I cannot remember the last time my bag was searched, even at the airport when the search is differentiated from the usual scan. So that phrase is definitely not a cover-up for "We will"

2. Again, not a lie. And I don't mean in the "not technically a lie". There are many cases where there is a shootout involving police and the cause of the suspect's death is ultimately determined as suicide. So the "A shooting involving..." phrase is perfectly acceptable in a breaking news update when no determination has yet been made.

> I'm not disputing that institutions carefully use the passive voice to clean their prose of negative connotations...but the two examples you mention are not "lies"

Clippy says: "Hey, it looks like you're trying to start a semantic argument! Can I help with that?"

> I've seen the "bags are subject to search" phrase many times, including the public library. I cannot remember the last time my bag was searched, even at the airport when the search is differentiated from the usual scan. So that phrase is definitely not a cover-up for "We will"

Congratulations on being middle class and white.

> There are many cases where there is a shootout involving police and the cause of the suspect's death is ultimately determined as suicide. So the "A shooting involving..." phrase is perfectly acceptable in a breaking news update when no determination has yet been made.

There are many cases where this isn't the case, too.

Actually, I'm Asian, FWIW.

By using the exonerative voice, a liar avoids committing to a particular narrative. They can easily back away from a statement by saying "I only said baggage is subject to being searched. I didn't say they were searched."

That said, I don't think the exonerated voice is a particularly skillful one. A careful listener can easily pick up on that.

Principle of Charity, my friend. I'm not really sure where you got a negative vibe from his comment. It was more of a comment on how effective word-choice is on someone's symamantic tree.

But those aren't lies, just a mixture of omission and clever wording to reframe the facts. They're used in unidirectional communication (a sign at the airport, a television broadcast), but don't hold up well when there are follow-up questions.