Microsoft, Google, and Other Tech Giants Join To Ask Obama for NSA Transparency

Just days after Microsoft denied extensively working with the National Security Agency and personally called on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to allow for more disclosure and transparency, a large swatch of the technology industry has sent a letter to President Obama asking him for more transparency from the United States, when it comes to the NSA's surveillance program, Prism.

The letter was made public on Thursday, and was signed by Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, AOL, Digg, Reddit, and Twitter, as well as tech trade associations, lobbyists, and nonprofits worried about privacy and free speech, such as the ACLU and the American Library Association. The letter asked the government to allow tech and phone companies to publish national security requests, including requests pertinent to the National Security Agency's large surveillance program.

The open letter begins, "We the undersigned are writing to urge greater transparency around national security-related requests by the US government to Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers for information about their users and subscribers."

These companies are asking the U.S. government to allow those companies to regularly report statistics on the number of individuals, accounts, or device, that are affected under the federal government's programs. Additionally, the letter specifically mentions wanting to publish the number of government requests for information, made under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Amendments act. Those two sections are what sanction the NSA's telephone records collection and the PRISM program.

Additionally, the letter calls for a regular "transparency report" from the government, providing information such as the total number of requests under specific authorities for specific types of data, and the total number of individuals that are being affected by the requests:

"We further urge Congress to pass legislation requiring comprehensive transparency reporting by the federal government and clearly allowing for transparency reporting without requiring companies to first seek permission from the government or the FISA court," said the letter, which was addressed to President Obama, Director of National Intelligence Clapper, NSA Director Gen. Alexander, Attorney General Eric Holder, and members of the Congressional leadership.

This letter comes after Microsoft made a similar plea on its Public Policy blog Tuesday, pressing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to give the company permission to publish more information about its involvement in the NSA's PRISM program. Glenn Greenwald, journalist at The Guardian who broke the NSA surveillance story, published another story last week accusing Microsoft of going to great lengths to help the NSA spy on its customers, including helping the agency break its own encryption on Outloook.com web chats. Microsoft denied those allegations, which Greenwald says are backed up by top secret NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden.

Microsoft, however, is just one case of technology and communications companies reeling - and trying to patch up their images - after the NSA story broke and it was revealed that most major internet technology and communications companies, like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and AOL have complied with NSA requests for access to data on their customers.

While many of these technology companies have been able to disclose some data about national security requests, tech companies have complained about disclosure restrictions placed on them and have constantly pressed to be more transparent. As the apparent size and scope of NSA surveillance (and subsequently, the NSA news story) continues to expand, perhaps so will the amount of sunlight expand, revealing how deeply involved and compliant tech companies really were.