I've complied with a number of US federal requests made to a corporation that sells internet access and hosting. The requests started out as federal subpoenas detailing exact information to retrieve. Then they started to slide to unofficial requests for "everything you have" on the target and finally settled on, "please observe this account and search for anything we can use to get a subpoena." That was 10 years ago. What exactly is the victory here?
When you "observe this account and search for anything we can use to get a subpoena", have you not made yourself an agent of the government? You are now looking at client information on request of the government. I'd think that triggers the "unreasonable search and seizure" and could (I hope) result in a mistrial.
