US phone companies never once challenged NSA data requests

None of the phone companies that handed over communications metadata in bulk to the National Security Agency ever challenged the agency on its data requests, a newly declassified government document shows. In a formerly secret memo published by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — the judicial body responsible for approving the NSA's surveillance — Judge Claire Eagen reveals that "to date, no holder of records who has received an Order to produce bulk telephony metadata has challenged the legality of such an Order ... despite the explicit statutory mechanism for doing so." Section 215 of the Patriot Act has been interpreted by the NSA to authorize the blanket seizure of millions of US phone records. The law allows court orders issued under Section 215 to be contested if the recipient can prove that the data request is unreasonably broad. Telecommunications company acquiescence to the bulk phone records collection orders also contrasts with the protestations of some Internet companies regarding their relationship with the NSA.