You're very naive to believe that.

The gov't somehow manages to compel people to lie despite the absence of some "Federal Pants on Fire Act"

1. Place a Warrant Canary.

2. Receive NSL.

Even those who've conceived of the Warrant Canary know that it depends upon the notion that the gov't will not coerce the NSL recipient to leave the Canary unmodified.

We don't have to use the Warrant Canary hypothetical to see that the US gov't has in the past used force to compel individuals to lie in the furtherance of its goals. Police forced Rachel Hoffman to arrange a drugs buy and wear a surveillance device to the proposed exchange. This is a common police practice carried out by government agents at every level of government. If the government will use such tactics for drugs, they will most certainly use them for national security.

I don't follow any of this. I don't know what warrant canaries have to do with the fictitious belief that NSLs compel companies to lie.

Well, if you place a warrant canary, and then receive an NSL, the warrant canary must be modified, as that is its sole purpose. If you leave the warrant canary in tact, then you've lied. The act of changing the warrant canary will by definition violate the (secrecy) terms of the NSL and possibly invoke gov't reprisal. Even without the warrant canary the terms of an NSL may compel an individual to lie through coercion, depending upon circumstance.

I didn't say that the NSL compels each recipient to lie, in every case. I said the gov't can and does compel individuals to lie. That's not a "fictitious belief" it's a fact. Then I offered a concrete example of widespread gov't conduct supporting that claim.

If you keep waiting to see it spelled out in black and white, "Be it ordered on this day the NSA under the authorization of Congress and President Obama (with all their signatures) that you shall go on the Today Show and Charlie Rose's show and tell everyone that we can't read everyone's email and that we're all a great bunch of guys." you're likely to have to wait a while. You're being obtuse and I think you know that. It probably works well in other areas of your life, but it makes you ill-suited to make judgments about non-trivial issues because it is rare that all relevant facts become obvious as an atomic operation.