Six of the biggest tech firms call on Congress to reform NSA mass surveillance

Six of the biggest US technology firms are urging Congress to rein in the National Security Agency by providing more transparency about surveillance and improve privacy protection.

In a letter to a Senate committee, the tech giants applauded the introduction of the USA Freedom Act aimed at ending bulk collection of phone records and improve privacy protection in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"Recent disclosures regarding surveillance activity raise important concerns both in the United States and abroad," said the letter signed by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and AOL.

The companies, which have failed to win efforts to disclose details of their cooperation with US surveillance programs, said more transparency would "help to counter erroneous reports that we permit intelligence agencies 'direct access' to our companies' servers or that we are participants in a bulk Internet records collection program."

"Transparency is a critical first step to an informed public debate, but it is clear that more needs to be done. Our companies believe that government surveillance practices should also be reformed to include substantial enhancements to privacy protections and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms for those programs."

The letter dated Thursday and addressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee came days after a news report said the NSA has tapped into key communications links from Yahoo and Google data centers around the world.

The Washington Post, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials, said the program can collect data at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, including from Americans.

The report said the program dubbed MUSCULAR, operated jointly with NSA's British counterpart GCHQ, indicated that the agencies can intercept data flows from the fiber-optic cables used by the US Internet giants.

The NSA disputes key details of the report.

The bill proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy and Representatives James Sensenbrenner and John Conyers, with other co-sponsors, has been lauded by other digital rights activists.

The Center for Democracy and Technology said this week the bill "would restore balance to intelligence surveillance authority by raising the standard for collection of information" under current law.