This is Mac OSKIN.

Big Tack once transparency. Mac OSKIN. Big Tech wants transparency from Big Brother, a boatload of smartphone and iPhone stuff today,

and the return of the Clockwork Cat, it's Thursday, July 18th, 2013. I'm Ken Ray and this is news from

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It would be wrong to say that an enemy is uniting Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft this week.

It would probably be more accurate to say Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are being united this

week by a common cause.

All things D says the four companies have joined a broad alliance of technology companies and

Civil Liberties groups asking the U.S. government for significantly increased transparency around

surveillance.

In a letter set to be published today, the group will ask President Obama and leaders in Congress

to let internet, phone, and web-based service providers report national security-related requests for

information with greater specificity. They'd like to let the general public

know on a regular basis the number of requests for information about users, the number of people, accounts, or

devices for which such requests were made, and the number of requests that sought communications

content, basic subscriber information and or other information.

Additionally, the group is calling upon the government

to issue similar transparency reports of its own,

...