Comment by TheOtherHobbes

It adds up to how the average piece of legal code works in practice.

Law is political. It's persuasive, not deterministic. It often comes down to a judgment based on the relative political power of the entities in question.

Even if you find a statute that says very clearly that X is unlawful, there will be situations where a lawyer will argue that it isn't.

Sometimes they'll make that case successfully - for various possible reasons, not all of which will be lawful themselves.

This is one reason why statute law is expanded by case law. And good luck trying to automate case law.