Tech Firms Work to Counter Appearance of Impropriety in Dragnet Surveillance

From USA Today:

Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter are engaged in a costly tech arms race, with their businesses and cultures at stake. Not against one another, mind you, but a common foe: the National Security Agency.

The tech juggernauts are investing in security technology, lobbying efforts and good old-fashioned PR to thwart U.S. government snooping of their data systems, often without their cooperation or knowledge.

For months, the narrative has focused on data breaches and spying as tech's biggest players quietly stewed over a sense of government betrayal, while assessing threats to their brands because of consumer outrage over invasion of their privacy.