US govt pays AT and T to let cops search Americans' phone records – 'usually' without a warrant

Phone records are the property of the operating company. It's a business record. Every operating company has a compliance manager who works to provide legal access to the company's business records. Of course, the effort to do that costs money for the company. But, for a company to allow access to its business records without a legal subpoena, means that the operating company is not run worth shit.