In Today’s Times:
- The disclosure that the National Security Agency has long been gathering information on foreigners outside the United States from the largest Internet companies, and coming on the heels of another revelation about the classified sweep of telephone calls inside the United States, offered a look at the growth of government surveillance â€" actions officials defend as lawful and necessary, but which critics called alarming, Charlie Savage, Edward Wyatt and Peter Baker report.
- With the Supreme Court on the verge of issuing decisions in two high-profile same-sex marriage cases, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll found that a majority of Americans oppose a broad national right to same-sex marriage, saying the power to legalize such unions should rest with the states. Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Dalia Sussman report on the results of the wide-ranging survey.
- Bound by strict rules dictating the discussion of classified information, two senators have long tried to draw attention to the broad collection of communication information by the government in the name of national security, expressing their concerns about privacy, Jonathan Weisman reports.
- The nation’s largest military contractors are looking to ways to secure the Mexican border should immigration legislation pass, hoping to win billions of dollars in contracts as two wars wind down and federal budget cuts take hold, Eric Lipton reports.
Washington Happenings:
- President Obama will meet with President Xi Jinping of China at an estate in Southern California on Friday. Earlier in the day he will talk about his administration’s health care law in San Jose, and then speak at a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser in Santa Monica.
- The Labor Department will announce jobs numbers for May at 8:30 a.m.
