WASHINGTON (AP) — Verizon Communications Inc. says it received between 1,000 and 1,999 government requests for customer information related to national security last year.

The largest U.S. cellphone carrier made the disclosure Wednesday in its first report on law-enforcement data requests. Verizon and No. 1 U.S. telecom company AT&T Inc. decided late last year to begin making the information public as debate intensified over the National Security Agency’s collection of hundreds of millions of Americans’ phone records under secret court order.