A large consortium of companies, including tech heavy hitters Apple, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Reddit, Mozilla, LinkedIn, AOL Microsoft, Facebook and dozens of other companies, are preparing to release a letter calling on the NSA, and the U.S. government in particular, to disclose more information about NSA's PRISM activities. The letter is scheduled to release today, AllThingsD said, and calls on the government to reveal more data on when it asks for information from these firms and others.

Apple, Microsoft, Google and others have already published the number of requests received by the NSA for data, and all have denied that the government body has overarching free control over server data, but now it wants the government to release similar information. AllThingsD said that the consortium is asking for the U.S. government to detail when it asks for information on users, how many people and accounts it plans to access and how many requests were looking for account information or specific conversations between the user(s) in question.

The group argued in its statement that the government typically releases standard information that doesn't cause a problem with its ongoing investigations. It wants that same kind of transparency when it comes to NSA and PRISM activities. "This information about how and how often the government is using these legal authorities is important to the American people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of those authorities and their use," a part of the letter published by AllThingsD says.

The letter also asks that the U.S. government puts a renewed focus on being transparent and "respectful of civil liberties and human rights." The letter should be published today and we'll keep you up to date of any new happenings on the matter.