If you go to https://example.com/some/directory?param=something, the firewall will only see a request to https://example.com. Everything else is encrypted. In this case, with SSL, a government agency not doing a MITM will only see https://www.niemanlab.org, and http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/01/how-easy-is-it-to-securely-... if they were doing a MITM.