A coalition of Internet companies and civil liberties groups have signed on to an open letter to the Obama administration calling for increased transparency and sensible checks on the power of the American surveillance apparatus and its spy agencies. The signatories — including Happy Mutants, the company that owns Boing Boing — call on Congress to convene a committee like the Church Committee of the 1970s, to investigate the scope and legality of American surveillance. The entire letter — and its associated campaign — is at Stopwatching.us.

We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly:

1. Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;

2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;

3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.