Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft are part of an alliance of technology companies and civil liberties groups demanding increased transparency around U.S. government surveillance efforts, reports “AllThingsD” (http://tinyurl.com/ncmfseu)

The article says that, in a letter to be published today, the alliance — whose members include 63 companies, investors, non-profits and trade organizations — will call upon President Obama and congressional leaders to allow Internet, telephone, and Web-based service providers to report national security-related requests for information with greater specificity. Specifically, they ask that they are allowed to regularly report:

• The number of government requests for information about their users
• The number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested
• The number of requests that sought communications content, basic subscriber information, and/or other information.