> 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.