It's going through the appeals process. The DOJ, I believe, ought to just follow it through. Hewlett-Packard is a big customer of Microsoft's. IBM is a huge customer. He also slammed the current rules that make it a crime to distribute encryption products in unapproved ways.
Encryption is all about helping honest people protect their information from bad people.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a district judge should not have given an interview to a Boston Herald reporter about an ongoing case involving the school district. That was enough to prompt Microsoft attorney John Warden to send a note bringing that ruling to the attention of the appeals court hearing the Microsoft case. The Boston judge didn't go nearly as far. This is a more complex case. But a service called Inmate Classified allows correspondents to send e-mail to inmates, which the company then prints out and forwards via U.S. mail.