> The tone of the comments is probably due to the fact that this letter is being written after it was out in the open what these companies were doing.

I could be wrong, but I believe Google has been pushing the government to be able to make this public since well before the PRISM story broke.

> It's a drop in the bucket compared to what they were legally compelled to do before.

Actually, we don't know if there is a bucket or not, which is precisely what Google and others are trying to remedy here. We simply have no data on the scope of what information the government is receiving.