A number of major tech and online companies are lobbying to curb US NSA surveillance powers, along with more transparency on data requests from the authorities.

Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Apple have formed the Reform Government Surveillance coalition and lobbied a bill through the Senate before the end of 2014, which would inhibit mass collection of information from emails and online metadata.

The coalition wrote an open letter to the Senate, urging it to pass the bipartisan USA Freedom Act, which is claimed to both protect national security and reaffirm the commitment of the USA to the freedoms guaranteed by Constitution.

It should also be noted that the bill in question would allow tech companies to disclose the number and types of data requests from the authorities, making the process more transparent. The political observers point out that if the bill doesn’t pass through the Senate before the end of 2014, the whole process will have to restart in 2015, but then it will be scrutinized by a new Congress controlled by a Republican party, which tends to favor government surveillance. The bill was passed through the House of Representatives six months ago with bipartisan support and is currently set for a vote in the Senate.

Various privacy advocates and tech groups initially supported the bill, but many of them changed their mind after compromises expanded the definition of what information the government is able to gather.

In the meantime, the representatives of the electronics industry worldwide point out that the US tech companies have been hurt by reaction to the revelation of NSA surveillance. Some of them have already lost contracts with foreign governments worth millions of dollars. In addition, the chances are that some governments may limit the free flow of data across borders, thus damaging the functionality of the Internet.

Such tech giants as Apple and Google retaliated to the NSA revelations by offering their customers end-to-end encryption and improving security on mobile devices. Thanks to other tech firms, including Microsoft and Facebook, a limited transparency deal was struck with the government in February. They point out that the USA Freedom Act will enhance the deal by allowing firms greater freedom to disclose security demands for user data.