>No one's ever tested this approach in court, and I can't say whether a judge would be able to distinguish between "not revealing a secret order" and "failing to note the absence of a secret order", but in US jurisprudence, compelling someone to speak a lie is generally more fraught with constitutional issues than compelled silence about the truth.

This is the worrying part. The dead man's switch conforms to a sort of twisted logic that should stand up, but I can't see a judge agreeing with you.

Anyway, if it ever worked one time, I'm sure a law would be promptly implemented that prevented you from saying when the FBI/NSA hasn't been there.

I'd be worried it would play out something like this:

"We're not saying you have to lie, just that you can't tell anyone about this. Whatever dead man's switch you've set up for yourself is none of our concern. If you've arranged yourself such that you have to lie to keep this a secret then you've compelled yourself to lie, not us."

It hinges on "You have the right to remain silent.", if that's no longer true all is lost.

You only have that right when you are being charged criminally, AIUI (same reason you can't "plead the fifth" in a civil suit).

I'm sure NSA would use such twisted logic against companies to scare them into obedience (they've done it plenty of times so far - like with that t-shirt censorship), but I doubt it would work with larger ones, or in Court. So if you do it, and they tell you that, just say no, and let them take you to Court, or sue them yourself.

The author is describing, essentially, "warrant canary[0] as a service".

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

The great thing about being the government is that even when the law is not on the government's side, all they have to do is investigate and prosecute you to death. They don't need a conviction to screw your life over for some years of a drawn out prosecution.