Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and many more companies are asking President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress for greater transparency on PRISM, NSA surveillance of Americans, and government requests for data about their customers.

And, they’ve started a WhiteHouse.gov petition to require more accountability from the NSA on its spying programs. Yahoo has also posted to its corporate blog, saying that democracy demands accountability, and accountability requires transparency.

“We are proud to join dozens of our partners across the tech industry, civil society organizations, and trade associations to urge greater transparency by the U.S. government regarding national security demands for our users’ information,” Yahoo’s general counsel Ron Bell wrote.

News broke about the coming letter, which is addressed to Obama and 15 other leading legislators, last night. In the letter, Silicon Valley is essentially asking Washington to be more open. The companies are not asking for all surveillance to go away — they’re too realistic for that — but they do ask for the right to be able to tell their customers how many times the government is asking for information on them.

Here’s the complete letter:

We the undersigned are writing to urge greater transparency around national security-related requests by the U.S. government to Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers for information about their users and subscribers. First, the U.S. government should ensure that those companies who are entrusted with the privacy and security of their users’ data are allowed to regularly report statistics reflecting: The number of government requests for information about their users made under specific legal authorities such as Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the various National Security Letter (NSL) statutes, and others;

The number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested under each authority; and

The number of requests under each authority that sought communications content, basic subscriber information, and/or other information.Second, the government should also augment the annual reporting that is already required by statute by issuing its own regular “transparency report” providing the same information: the total number of requests under specific authorities for specific types of data, and the number of individuals affected by each.