There's always an alternative to the government demanding something: lawyer up and take it to the courts.
There are very real pragmatic problems regarding the expense and distraction to an organization that may be struggling on the margin of survival anyway, and additional principle-agent problems when this organization is not personally hurt by complying with the FBI's request but is instead acting on a customer's behalf, who will probably never know that the request was made in the first place. But those are the problems that the article is proposing to solve, probably through an organization that serves as a clearinghouse of information and legal assistance to small companies that need to handle customer data but don't necessarily have the resources to fight such a battle themselves.
Even if you take it to court, the statute that authorizes judicial review of NSLs restricts the authority of the judicial branch to engage in judicial review. Instead of being able to strike down NSLs for any reason that a court may determine is unlawful, under the statute courts may only overturn gag orders if the court finds “that there is no reason to believe that disclosure may endanger national security of the United States, interfere with a criminal counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interfere with diplomatic relations, or endanger the life or physical safety of any person.
So no you cannot always just take it to court. In many cases it may be illegal to do so.
I'm don't think that's an accurate interpretation. Congress can't just add a line to every statute to exempt it from judicial review. Even if they tried, the courts would just ignore it as they have done before.
There are very real pragmatic problems regarding the expense and distraction to an organization that may be struggling on the margin of survival anyway, and additional principle-agent problems when this organization is not personally hurt by complying with the FBI's request but is instead acting on a customer's behalf, who will probably never know that the request was made in the first place. But those are the problems that the article is proposing to solve, probably through an organization that serves as a clearinghouse of information and legal assistance to small companies that need to handle customer data but don't necessarily have the resources to fight such a battle themselves.