Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, Facebook and 5 other large American companies have formed a powerful group, which again asks the American government not to renew the law called the Patriot Act, which allows federal agencies to request confidential user data, citing the danger of national security. The law is set to expire on June 1, 2015 if Congress does not renew it, and AOL, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo! I ask that it be modified before being confirmed by Congress in order not to give federal agencies the opportunity to abuse the power that is offered to them.
The group formed by the 10 companies sent an open letter to the US President Barack Obama and the director of the NSA, separately from other important government entities, asking them to give up the mass collection of most of the information that is sent through internet servers in the US and beyond. The companies argue that the government does not have the right to spy on its own citizens who do not pose a danger to national security, demanding an end to the mass monitoring of all Americans by first passing a law that would impose limits and transparency regarding the interception of information.
It has been nearly two years since the first news stories revealed the scope of the United States' surveillance and bulk collection activities. 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. We strongly encourage both the White House and Members of Congress to support the above reforms and oppose any efforts to enact any legislation that does not address them.
The same companies support a legislation that should prohibit the mass interception of information about American citizens, but for now it has not had the support of the members of the US Congress, so it has minimal chances of being promulgated in the next period. The Patriot Act has been the basis of numerous abuses committed in the US and outside the US, so its repeal would be extremely good news for the whole world, but it is unlikely that this will happen.
