AT&T said today in its transparency report that it received over 300,000 requests from all levels of government for user data, with nearly 250,000 of that coming from subpoenas.
The largest phone company in the country said that it received 301,816 requests from the federal government and state and local governments. A total of 248,343 of these came from subpoenas, including 223,659 from criminal subpoenas. Court orders made up 36,788 of them and 16,685 were from search warrants.
According to The Washington Post, AT&T, which is based in Dallas, said that it refuses to give location and real-time calling information on its customers unless it receives a court order or search warrant.
The company also disclosed the number of National Security Letters it received. These are FBI requests for data without a judge’s stamp of approval. AT&T said it received between 2,000 to 3,000, far more than the 1,000 to 2,000 Verizon received.
Bloomberg also pointed out that AT&T said it received requests for information of over 35,000 user accounts in just the first half of last year under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Last month, Verizon released similar data, showing that it received 321,545 total requests in 2013. A spokesman said that the company will be releasing its FISA data soon.
image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
