But none of the phone companies have ever challenged the orders in court, according to an August 29 opinion (.pdf) by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was declassified today.

“To this date, no holder of records who has received an Order to produce bulk telephony metadata has challenged the legality of such an Order,” reads the ruling. “Indeed, no recipient of any Section 215 Order has challenged the legality of such an Order, despite the explicit statutory mechanism for doing so.”

The FISC orders cited Section 215 of the Patriot Act to require phone companies like Verizon and AT&T to hand over the phone numbers of both parties involved in all calls, the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number for mobile callers, calling card numbers used in the call, and the time and duration of the calls.