Google Officially Closes Waze Deal; Will Keep It Independent  —  Google this morning said it had acquired mapping startup Waze, as we had expected it would.  —  Brian McClendon, who is the company's vice president of geo, paid tribute to the Waze community multiple times in a blog post.

Waze Joins Google!  —  I am excited to announce today that we have accepted an offer to join Google.  I'd like to share some information about what this means for Waze.  —  Larry Page, Brian McClendon and the Google Maps teams have been following our progress closely and are excited about what we've accomplished.

86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying  —  Today, a bipartisan coalition of 86 civil liberties organizations and Internet companies - including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reddit, Mozilla, FreedomWorks, and the American Civil Liberties Union …

How Edward J. Snowden Orchestrated a Blockbuster Story  —  WASHINGTON — The source had instructed his media contacts to come to Hong Kong, visit a particular out-of-the-way corner of a certain hotel, and ask — loudly — for directions to another part of the hotel.

Asking the U.S. government to allow Google to publish more national security request data  —  This morning we sent the following letter to the offices of the Attorney General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Read the full text below.  -Ed.  —  Dear Attorney General Holder and Director Mueller