Denver, Colorado—one of the cities in the country to legalize marijuana use—has passed a new “odor ordinance” with a potential $2,000 fine for anyone found guilty of polluting the atmosphere with high concentrations of cannabis. And the police department‘s plan for enforcement is a strange-looking device called an olfactometer, or more collquially, the „nose telescope.“

Although the Cabinet Office has been under fire for stalling the progress of the four-year Iraq Inquiry by Sir John Chilcot, senior diplomatic sources in the US and Whitehall indicated that it is officials in the White House and the US Department of State who have refused to sanction any declassification of critical pre- and post-war communications between George W Bush and Tony Blair.

Hoping to cast some light on the issue, a group of Lower Manhattan residents is preparing to sue the New York Police Department over its security plan for the World Trade Center, saying that the plan will leave the center in “fortresslike isolation” and the area around it “as impervious to traffic as the Berlin Wall.” … The Police Department plans to close the streets in and around the trade center to normal through traffic. Vehicles would be screened before entering this zone, or “campus,” as the police call it. Some would be searched. Only those having demonstrable business at the trade center, or those previously certified as trustworthy, would be allowed in.

The Seattle Police Department just announced that it has begun the process of deactivating its wireless mesh network, a powerful tool for sending vast amounts of data that also has powerful surveillance potential. In theory, the network (built by a California-based company called Aruba Networks) could track and indefinitely log the movements of any wireless device with a MAC address (phones, laptops, tablets) that moves through its coverage area.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must disclose its plans for a so-called Internet “kill switch,” a federal court ruled on Tuesday.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the agency’s arguments that its protocols surrounding an Internet kill switch were exempt from public disclosure and ordered the agency to release the records in 30 days. However, the court left the door open for the agency to appeal the ruling.

„When defense budgets are being cut and in general when governments are under so much pressure from taxpayers to save money, it looks terribly extravagant,“ Daniel Keohane, head of strategic affairs at the FRIDE think tank in Brussels, told Reuters.

The timing of construction of the eight-floor structure, which contains enough blast-proof glass to cover 10 football fields, was „unfortunate,“ Keohane said.

Some have questioned whether an organization founded to counter the Soviet threat has a role in today‘s world but Lungescu said the fact that members agreed to build the alliance a new home is „a vote of confidence for the future of NATO.“

The disruption at the Hay-
Adams in May involved Ignacio Zamora Jr., a senior supervisor who oversaw about two dozen agents in the Secret Service’s most elite assignment — the president’s security detail. Zamora was allegedly discovered attempting to reenter a woman’s room after accidentally leaving behind a bullet from his service weapon.