U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of Oakland, California, ruled in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit which supports civil liberties and internet freedom, that the federal government is not required to disclose which phone companies cooperate with NSA spying programs.

Rogers argued that confirming these details would pose a national security risk, but in March a Chicago law professor who serves on the NSA review panel commented that "companies like Sprint, Verizon and AT&T are required to turn over (records) to the NSA" and that trio appears to be confirmed by the NSA's own mention of "three different providers" cooperating with the domestic surveillance agency.

"It's troubling to see courts sign off on government secrecy arguments when the general public knows the truth," said Michael Rumold, an EFF lawyer.