The government making a request like this to an employee of a tech company, with a gag order that doesnt let him share that information with the company he is working for is a blatant abuse of power. An employee has no resources to fight something like this if he cant tell the company he works for what he is doing, meaning that any company is vulnerable to this way of operating.
Companies like Google ought to have internal audits to detect rogue employees. (These audits are usually put in place after the first time a curious employee snoops on a famous person.) If the employee refuses to justify his actions, he's fired.
