But they could, as iCloud Photos is not e2e (Apple can read all of it) and they turn over the user data on over 30,000 users per year to the USG without even a warrant.
They haven’t announced this, but they invest a lot in encryption and privacy, and have stated that user privacy is a value of theirs. They have also expressed that they don’t want access to be able to be forced by law enforcement.
Apple stores user iCloud backups and their encryption keys on Chinese government-controlled servers in China, and gives the Chinese government full access to those servers. And routinely grants the US government warrantless access to those same backups in the US.
So what actions are you referring to that show they won't do any of those scary things?
Apple's own transparency report, under FISA orders. Presumably it includes all subscriber data they can access for the specified accounts, so likely contacts, photos, and device backups (full iMessage chat history, or sync keys to decrypt same).
FISA orders are not warrants and do not require probable cause; the FISA Amendments Act Section 702 spying that goes on (aka PRISM internally to the IC) pulls data directly from cloud provider systems without a search warrant and was cited by Ed Snowden as one of the main reasons he came forward.
Client side scanning is a prerequsite to making it e2e if you also want countermeasures against CSAM.