Techmeme: In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. (Eric Lichtblau/New York Times)

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July 7, 2013, 7:35 PM

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Eric Lichtblau / New York Times:

In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. — WASHINGTON — In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects …

More: Digital Trends, Network World and Boing Boing

Tweets: @ggreenwald, @dhh, @thijsniks, @mattblaze, @dhh, @richardson_mich and @csoghoian

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Did you know John Roberts is also chief justice of the NSA's surveillance state? — Chief justice of the United States is a pretty big job. You lead the Supreme Court conferences where cases are discussed and voted on. You preside over oral arguments. When in the majority, you decide who writes the opinion.

Tweets: @benparr and @csoghoian

Washington Post:

Agreements with private companies protect U.S. access to cables' data for surveillance — The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the fiber-optic cables traversing the world's oceans, carrying torrents of data at the speed of light.

More: Wonkblog. Tweets: @peternotail and @zerocinemacom

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Microsoft Quietly Shuts Down MSN TV, Once Known as WebTV — Microsoft said that its MSN TV service will be closing down at the end of September, in a post on its Web site and in an email to users. — MSN TV, of course, was born of WebTV, which was thought up by well-known entrepreneur Steve Perlman.

More: The Verge, VentureBeat, Engadget, GeekWire, TechSpot and T3 News. Tweets: @zseward

Quentin Hardy / NYT Bits:

Technology Workers Are Young (Really Young) — It's well known that technology is a young man's game. Still, it is surprising to see just how young (and how male). — PayScale, a company based in Seattle, has determined that the median age of workers at many of the most successful companies …

More: ZDNet and Silicon Valley Watcher

Sarah Young / Reuters:

App developer Shazam gets $40 mln backing from tycoon Carlos Slim — (Reuters) - Smartphone app developer Shazam has found an unlikely ally in the form of Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men, who is investing $40 million to back the development of the start-up best known for helping music fans identify catchy songs.

More: AllThingsD, CNET, TechCrunch, Sky News and Financial Times

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple testing Android-like local voice dictation for iOS — Apple is testing a local, offline version of Dictation voice input for iOS devices, according to strings of code found inside of the iOS 7 beta. The code, which was discovered by Hamza Sood, is located inside of both iOS 7 betas, but it is not present in iOS 6.

More: Business Insider, iDigitalTimes, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, iPhone Hacks, MacNN, iClarified, WebProNews and ifoAppleStore. Thanks:@madfruitstand

Eric Pfanner / New York Times:

Samsung Cuts Its Forecast as Sales Growth Slows for Its Costliest Smartphones — Samsung Electronics may be having the same problem Apple has: nearly everyone in the world who can afford an expensive smartphone has one already. — Samsung, the largest maker of consumer electronics …

More: CNBC, BGR, Forbes, PC Magazine, Guardian, Fortune, iDownloadBlog.com, Forbes, TechCrunch, Forbes, Computerworld, 9to5Google, The Register and The Verge

Emily Chung / CBC News:

Ultrafast internet service launched by Vancouver start-up — OneGigabit to offer Google Fiber-like internet speeds for $45 to $65 a month — A new Vancouver-based internet provider says it will be offering fibre internet at a speed of one gigabit per second — 60 times faster than the Canadian average …

More: VentureBeat, FierceCable, 9.blog, DSLreports and The Verge

Chris O'Brien / Los Angeles Times:

Bitcoin community reacts to Winklevoss public offering plans — Tyler Winkelvoss, left, and his twin, Cameron Winklevoss, want to give investors a piece of the Bitcoin virtual currency. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times / February 9, 2010) — The Winklevoss twins earlier this week confirmed plans …

Andy / TorrentFreak:

RIAA Hits 25 Million Google Takedowns, Web Blocking Making Things Worse — Back in May the RIAA reached a historic milestone in its quest to remove copyright-infringing links from the Internet. — The music industry group asked Google to remove the 20 millionth URL from its indexes …

More: PC Magazine, Gizmodo, I4U News and Softpedia News

Jonathan Watts / Guardian:

Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia offer asylum to Edward Snowden — President Maduro offers to protect NSA whistleblower ‘from persecution by the empire’ and rejects US extradition request — Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua have offered asylum to Edward Snowden, the US whistleblower …

More: CNN, BBC, USA Today, The Big Story, Reuters, ABC News, The Independent, The Seattle Times, Associated Press, WL Central, RT and World News

Tweets: @ggreenwald, @dhh and @wikileaks

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