How do you really know? How do you know that it won't be processing sound without the trigger when they get served with some government request? Is this in the terms and conditions? Is this in the privacy policy?

Yes the original post is making an assumption, but you are as well.

I think you misunderstood skorgu's post. I think you're both in agreement. He was saying Echo won't act on anything without first hearing "Alexa," (as in, perform the action you're asking it to) but that we don't know if it will be transmitting the voice data.