I think Microsoft is liable for all the damage they did, (which could be in the 10s of millions of dollars), but There was nothing secret about this - the process server handed over everything, nobody was bound by law to not talk about this. This is nothing like the NSLs.
>Microsoft’s court maneuvering had played out in secret. Durrer’s company didn’t have the chance to argue its case in court. By the time Durrer was served with court papers on that June day, Microsoft had seized control of the company’s services and ejected the hackers using them, while also locking out all the legitimate users. Durrer eventually regained control of his company, but only after it had been offline for days.
The owner of a legitimate company was notified of the confiscation by MS of his business as and after it happened...
EDIT: Actually, read the entire paragraph under ‘As the hours creeped by, more and more people were falling offline.’ header.
I understand what happened in the Microsoft case - but it's important not to confuse this with an NSL. In the case of a search warrant, and Microsoft's court maneuvering's everything is done in secret, until it's executed (otherwise the parties could simply take action to avoid the warrant)- at which point everything comes out into the open.
In the case of an NSL, when it is served - the person who it's served upon is bound by law not to discuss it, and must keep it secret.
