Tech giants ask Congress to move quickly on NSA transparency bills

A group of 72 tech companies and advocacy groups are asking Congress to move quickly on surveillance reform bills that would let companies tell their users how often they hand over user data to the government.

The group — including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Twitter and Yahoo — sent a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, voicing support for two bills that would give companies “the right to publish basic statistics about the government demands for user data that they receive.” The two bills — The Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, authored by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act, from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — would allow companies to publish the number of requests they receive under national security and foreign intelligence laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.