&gt; Their statement says<p>&gt; In this case, there was a thorough review by a legal team separate from the investigating team and strong evidence of a criminal act that met a standard comparable to that required to obtain a legal order to search other sites.<p>&gt;I don&#x27;t think that supports your claim that they would only ask a lawyer in the future.<p>From the link I included in my comment, Microsoft deputy general counsel John Frank is quoted:
&quot;As a new and additional step, we will then submit this evidence to an outside attorney who is a former federal judge. We will conduct such a search only if this former judge similarly concludes that there is evidence sufficient for a court order.&quot;<p>This lawyer (his past employment as a judge has no bearing here) would have been paid by Microsoft.<p>Could you explain how that does not fit with my earlier comment?<p>And to preempt the inevitable, yes, as I said in the original comment they eventually backtracked on this and said they&#x27;d report such future crimes to the police. You know, what they should have done in the beginning, and would have done if they had the respect for privacy-on-principle that they are now trying to shower themselves in.