The President Barack Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to reject a challenge to the National Security Agency's once-secret telephone metadata spying program.

The filing — the first government briefing on the topic to reach the Supreme Court — was in response to the Electronic Privacy Information Center's petition asking the justices to halt the program that was disclosed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Among other defenses, the administration said Friday that only the phone companies can challenge the secret orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to hand over metadata of every call made to and from the United States.