More big tech names join the fight for transparency

The big players stepped up early on because they were expected to. Now, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook will be joined by Foursquare, Twilio, and Automattic in the fight against secret data requests from the government.

Today or tomorrow, the U.S. Justice Department is expected to file a brief with the FISA Court opposing motions from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn requesting the right to publish more information about data requests made by the government. To pre-empt that, the Center for Democracy and Technology has sent a letter to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, requesting them to step up the pace on their own work to create more transparency.