Criminal trials carefully lay out how the state believes the actions of the accused meet each required element of the crime. They don’t get to say “Foo definitely killed Bar. The law intends for people to not kill each other, and Foo meant to, therefore Foo is guilty of 1st degree murder.” Rather, they have to prove Foo’s actions met all required elements of the charge.
If you rear-end me while I’m stopped at a light, your intent doesn’t matter, only your actions. If you fail to stop for a school bus displaying red stop lights, your intent doesn’t matter.
I think the IRS step doctrine is relatively rare in legal interpretations, but at a minimum, it’s not “every other law is interpreted that way”.
I don’t take a position on Microsoft’s actions here, other than “if it can be shown to be plainly compliant with the law as written, I’m uncomfortable with the law being changed during interpretation such that it’s deemed to be non-compliant.”
