> whose number should also be independently verifiable

This is not a legal requirement. If you fail to comply with a legitimate request because you couldn’t verify the number, you go to jail.

Can you point us to an incident where this has ever happened, namely, where a service provider didn't to respond to a demand immediately while they verified its authenticity and someone went to jail for it? Or even got a finger wagged at them by a judge? Third-party records production is almost never time-sensitive to the degree that, say, a warrant to search for drugs or contraband is, and there's little risk of spoliation of evidence.

As the article points out, nobody actually verifies these requests.

So no, I can’t point you to such an incident. Have people been held in contempt for failing to comply fast enough? for sure.

You cannot conclude that because someone has been held in contempt for intentionally failing to respond to a records production request because they simply didn’t want to do it, that someone would also be held in contempt for delaying production for a few hours while they make a good-faith attempt to verify the authenticity of a request. Judges take all the facts and circumstances into account—including intent—when making these kinds of decisions, especially those that involve depriving someone of their liberty.

> delaying production for a few hours

Ah yeah, I think you are totally right. Our disagreement stems from the fact that I don’t believe that few hours is sufficient at all.