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Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Yahoo! – and many, many others – have appealed to American politicians and g-men to rein in mass digital surveillance this May, and bring the intelligence community under some kind of effective oversight. "It has been nearly two years since the first news stories revealed the scope of the United States’ surveillance and bulk collection activities," the group wrote in an open letter to President Obama, congressional leaders, and the heads of the NSA and US Department of Justice. "Now is the time to take on meaningful legislative reforms to the nation’s surveillance programs that maintain national security while preserving privacy, transparency, and accountability." And, presumably, prevent future annoying headlines like this and this appearing on the web. The tech goliaths are members of the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, along with pro-privacy and civil-rights warriors. The group has been piling on the pressure over global spying, which they say hurts their business. In their latest open letter, the gang call for reform of the USA PATRIOT Act, which is up for renewal shortly. On May 31 this year, Section 215 of the act (or to give it its full and faintly ridiculous name, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) expires. Section 215 is the part of the anti-terror law that the NSA uses to justify snooping on everyone's phone metadata. The group is pressing that the section be allowed to expire on June 1 without being reauthorized. Section 214, which covers pen registers and trap and trace devices, will also expire on that date. The group says that if they are renewed, proper oversight is needed by an independent third party. With the sections of the Patriot Act coming up for renewal, there's an increasing amount of pressure to curb the blanket spying revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Earlier this week, a bipartisan bill was introduced into the US House of Representatives to abolish the PATRIOT Act altogether, but El Reg suspects Satan will go to work on a snowplow before it passes. Source