[liberationtech] Naive Question

[A.Cammozzo]

On 09/09/2013 11:09 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
> On 09/09/2013 03:40 PM, Case Black wrote:
>> There's a more subtle variant to this idea...
>>
>> Regularly state ("put up a sign") that you HAVE in fact received an
>> NSL...with the public understanding that it must be a lie (there's no
>> law against falsely making such a claim...yet!).
>>
>> When actually served with an NSL, you would now be bound by law to
>> remove any such notification...thereby signaling the event.
>
> Then the company served with an NSL would simply be told _not_ to
> take down their current notice or they would be prosecuted.
>
> Sure, the company could argue that this means they're being forced
> to break the law, but they'd be forced to argue it in secret, against
> the gov't who can convince the company it's less work trusting
> their prosecutorial discretion than it would be to take it to court.

Removing the sign, any sign whatever its content is, would be a signal
with the conventional meaning "we received an order".
Thus, from a semiotic perspective, keeping the sign in place would be
the only way to abide by the law, even if the signal contains a text
that says the opposite.
A semantic lie may but a pragmatic truth.

[...]

best regards,

Alberto
--
Alberto Cammozzo
http://tagmenot.info