How to Fill Out the Verizon CALEA Form: Subpoenas, Warrants, and Fees

Law enforcement officers seeking records from Verizon submit their legal process through the Verizon Security Assistance Team (VSAT) Legal Intake portal at legalintake.verizon.com.¹ A Verizon law enforcement request produces records only when the legal instrument matches the data sought: a subpoena, a court order under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d), and a search warrant each unlock different categories under the Stored Communications Act, and asking for data above what your instrument authorizes is the most common reason Verizon declines to produce.

Where to Submit

Criminal subpoenas, court orders, search warrants, pen register and trap-and-trace orders, and wiretap orders all go through the VSAT Legal Intake portal. Upload the legal process along with account identifiers, and the system generates a tracking number you can use for status inquiries. Verizon’s goal for subpoenas and search warrants is a 14-day turnaround, though court-ordered compliance timeframes may shorten that window.² Pen register, trap-and-trace, and wiretap orders are typically activated the same day they are received.

Civil litigation subpoenas do not go through VSAT. Verizon’s registered agent for civil service of process is CT Corporation, and the nearest office can be located through the Wolters Kluwer CT Corporation service-of-process locator.¹ Serving a civil subpoena through the criminal intake portal will likely result in rejection or significant delay.

Match the Legal Instrument to the Data

The Stored Communications Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2703, creates a tiered system that ties the intrusiveness of the data to the level of legal authorization required.³

Subpoena

A federal or state administrative subpoena, or a grand jury subpoena, reaches six categories of non-content subscriber information: the customer’s name, address, telephone connection records (toll billing records), length and type of service, telephone or subscriber number, and payment method including any credit card or bank account number.³ In practice, that also covers account activation date, number of lines on the account, payment history, and Social Security number where one is on file, though SSNs are generally not available for prepaid accounts.² Text message detail (sender and recipient addresses, send and delivery timestamps, but no content) is also available at the subpoena level.

A subpoena will not produce message content, stored emails, cell-site location information, or precision GPS data.⁴ If you need incoming call data, request call detail records specifically rather than toll records; toll records log outgoing calls and non-restricted inbound numbers, while CDRs capture both directions.²

Court Order Under Section 2703(d)

A § 2703(d) order requires specific and articulable facts showing reasonable grounds to believe the records are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.³ That standard sits below probable cause but above what a subpoena requires. A 2703(d) order reaches transactional records, IP session logs (mobile IP address assigned to a device, connection start and end times, destination IPs, and upload and download byte counts), and other non-content data beyond the six subscriber categories.

Before 2018, a 2703(d) order was the standard tool for historical cell-site location information. That changed with Carpenter v. United States, in which the Supreme Court held that acquiring seven or more days of CSLI constitutes a Fourth Amendment search and that the 2703(d) standard “falls well short of the probable cause required for a warrant.”⁵

Search Warrant

A search warrant supported by probable cause, issued under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or an equivalent state procedure, is the only instrument that compels Verizon to produce the contents of stored communications: text message content, email content, voicemail recordings, and photos stored on Verizon’s servers.³ After Carpenter, historical CSLI also requires a warrant, as does precision GPS or mobile-locate data showing longitude and latitude with the associated cell site and sector.⁵

Pen Register, Trap-and-Trace, and Wiretap Orders

Pen register and trap-and-trace orders provide real-time access to dialing, routing, and signaling information rather than stored records. A pen register order gives you the numbers a customer dials and IP addresses visited; a trap-and-trace order gives you the numbers calling the customer. Neither authorizes content.⁶ The standard is that the information likely to be obtained is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.

Real-time content interception requires a wiretap order, which Verizon describes as the most difficult type of order for law enforcement to obtain. A judge must find probable cause that the target is committing one of certain specified offenses and that particular communications about that offense will be captured. Wiretap orders are valid only for a specified period.⁴

Identifiers to Include on Every Request

Verizon needs enough identifying information to locate the correct account without sweeping in unrelated customers. For wireless accounts, provide the Mobile Device Number (the ten-digit phone number) or the International Mobile Subscriber Identity tied to the SIM card. For internet-based records, include the target’s IP address with an exact date, time, and time zone. The time zone matters: Verizon assigns IP addresses dynamically, so the same address can belong to different customers hours apart.²

Also include names of all authorized points of contact, a mailing address, and a billing contact name and phone number for any fees. Specify a date range; broad or open-ended requests are a common reason for rejection. When a warrant or order covers multiple categories such as location data, call detail records, and subscriber information, list each category separately rather than asking for “all available records.”

Retention Windows

Retention limits what Verizon can actually produce regardless of your legal authority. These windows are approximate:

Subscriber information: several years, generally the longest-lived category.
Call detail records and toll records: typically multiple years.
Cell-site location information (tower data): approximately one rolling calendar year.
Text message content: often just a few days.
Store surveillance video: roughly 30 days at retail locations.
Service applications (account sign-up documents): approximately three to five years.

The short window for text message content catches investigators off guard most often. By the time a warrant issues, the content may already be gone. If preserving message content is essential, send a preservation letter as early as possible in the investigation.

Emergency Requests

When someone faces an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury, Verizon can voluntarily disclose non-content customer records without a court order under 18 U.S.C. § 2702(c)(4), which permits disclosure to a government entity when the provider believes in good faith that an emergency requires it without delay.⁷

Verizon handled 36,564 emergency requests in the second half of 2024.⁸ Requests still require written documentation of the exigency; you cannot simply call in verbally. Prepare a written statement explaining the threat and submit it through the VSAT portal or by contacting the Verizon Security Control Center at security.issues@verizon.com or by fax at 1-800-997-9981.⁹

Fees

Under 18 U.S.C. § 2706, Verizon is entitled to reimbursement for costs reasonably necessary and directly incurred in searching for, assembling, and reproducing records. The statute sets no fixed amounts; fees are determined by agreement between the agency and Verizon, or by the issuing court if no agreement exists. Standard telephone toll records are exempt from reimbursement unless the court finds the request is unusually voluminous or creates an undue burden.¹⁰ Routine subpoenas for basic subscriber information and toll records often come at no charge; complex data extractions involving location records, IP session data, or large date ranges may trigger a fee.

Customer Notification

Whether the account holder learns of your request depends on the type of process used. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c)(3), the government is not required to notify a subscriber when obtaining non-content records.³

For content obtained under a court order rather than a warrant, § 2703(b) generally requires notification, but 18 U.S.C. § 2705 lets you delay notice for up to 90 days by including a request in your application. The court must find reason to believe that notification would endanger someone’s life or physical safety, cause the target to flee, lead to evidence destruction or witness intimidation, or otherwise seriously jeopardize the investigation. Extensions of up to 90 days each may be granted, and once the delay expires you must serve or mail the subscriber a copy of the process and a notice describing the nature of the inquiry.¹¹

Why Requests Get Rejected

Verizon does not produce records for every demand. In the second half of 2024, the company declined roughly 10 percent of demands overall, about 9 percent of subpoenas and about 13 percent of warrants and court orders.⁸ The most frequent failure modes are a mismatch between the legal authority and the data requested (asking for content with a subpoena, or CSLI without a warrant), overly broad date ranges with no justification, missing or incorrect account identifiers, and serving civil process through the criminal intake portal. Matching the instrument to the data tier and double-checking the MDN, IMSI, or IP-and-timestamp combination before uploading prevents most rejections.

1
Verizon. Verizon Security Assistance Team (VSAT)
2
Public Intelligence. Verizon Law Enforcement Resource Team
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2703 – Required Disclosure of Customer Communications or Records
4
Verizon. Transparency Report
5
Supreme Court of the United States. Carpenter v. United States
6
Verizon. United States Transparency Report 1H 2023
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2702 – Voluntary Disclosure of Customer Communications or Records
8
Verizon. United States Transparency Report 2H 2024
9
Verizon. Verizon Security Control Center
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2706 – Cost Reimbursement
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2705 – Delayed Notice