This is nothing new. The NSA has backdoors with all major providers. Simply OWNING a smart phone of any kind with GPS built in allows the NSA to find out exactly where that phone is, and where that phone has been for a minimum of 3 months, but the data is likely kept for years. The NSA (and not just the NSA by the way, also employees of the ISP that might be subjectable to a bribe....) can tell you exactly where your phone was at 3:12 PM on November 4th. Of course it doesn't legally prove that YOU, the human that claims ownership of the phone, was at that location so in court it is considered circumstantial evidence. But still: Your information, your location, your activities, your internet browsing.... EVERYTHING is known by the NSA, and NONE of it requires a warrant to access, courtesy of the Patriot Act.
The warrant is ONLY needed if you plan to present it as evidence in a court room, in order to convict someone. If it becomes part of a criminal case. The police needs such warrants. The NSA.... does not. And yes, I have it on good authority that sysadmins from ISP's can access all of this data at will. They carry a huge responsibility, but as we have seen with Snowden and other leakers.... no one is immune, and every man has his price.
Do I care? No, all I do with my phone is make business calls, text my wife and friends, go on facebook, and use it to play pandora in the car and use Waze to get around.... nothing on my phone could be of any interest to anyone. But it is good to know that your data is not safe. Not on AT&T. Not on Verizon. Not on land line or cable ISP's. If you think YOUR ISP is immune because it is small and ran by IT techies, you are a special kind of stupid.
If you want privacy, you'll have to use a VPN with an endpoint outside of this country.