WASHINGTON (AP) — When Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants united in outrage last summer over the National Security Agency’s unfettered spying, telecommunications giants such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint —whose customers are also the targets of secret government spying— remained noticeably mum.

But now the phone companies are speaking up. In closed-door meetings with policymakers they are taking a less accommodating stance with government and rattling the historically tight bond between telecom and the surveillance community.