Trusted Armament's Posterior

“An al Qaeda terrorist who has been set free onto the streets of New York said he still supports killing Americans overseas, including civilians,” NBC New York’s Jonathan Dienst leads — as ABC News’ Richard Esposito adds that Justice last year filed for an “appropriate reduction” in Mohammed Babar’s sentence for his testimony in terror probes, even though sentencing guidelines indicated a term of 30-70 years.

Counterterror-fying: “There is a problem with domestic Islamist terrorism in the United States. To deny that would be absurdly over-sensitive and patronizing to Muslims,” The Daily Telegraph’s Alex Spillius suggests, in re: today’s hot-button House homeland hearing — as The Associated Press’ Eileen Sullivan reveals that prepared testimony, at least, doesn’t indiscriminately label Muslims as terrorists. “FBI case agents who’ve investigated Muslim Brotherhood-controlled mosques, charities and other fronts . . . say that virtually every major terror case points back to the Egypt-based Brotherhood,” Paul Sperry asserts in The New York Post. New legislation would protect Americans who tip off law enforcement to terror threats from lawsuits if they ID the wrong person, FOX News notes. Uprisings in the Islamic world have upended relationships that U.S. counterterrorists spent the past decade building, The Washington Post’s Greg Miller surveys.

Feds: A controversy over tactics used to break up a Mexican gunrunning ring has prompted re-evaluation of an aggressive ATF strategy to stop cross-border firearms trafficking, the Post’s James V. Grimaldi reports — while CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson hears Janet Napolitano testifying that she knew nothing of DHS ties to an ATF op called “Fast and Furious,” and The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan quotes her assuring senators that Border Patrollers are authorized to use lethal force. TSA’s hiring procedures are coming under fire, less than a week after a Buffalo screener was caught up in a drug trafficking bust, WIVB 4 News’ George Richert reports. “In an unexpected twist,” two House panels face a jurisdiction fight over dueling bills to reauthorize DHS’s chemical security regs, Greenwire’s Jeremy P. Jacobs leads.

State and local: Arizona’s House has OKed a $5 million appropriation to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu for border security gear, which critics view as a favor to the politically influential lawman, The Arizona Republic reports. “Georgia lawmakers were just getting started last week when the House approved major legislation targeting illegal immigrants and the people who hire them,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution leads. Like dozens of other states, Illinois dodged a bullet last week when DHS again deferred full implementation of the REAL ID mandates, The Springfield State Journal-Register reviews. South Carolina coast inhabitants are being mailed a research survey on their disaster evacuation plans, The Beaufort Gazette relates.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: The College Republicans club at Central Washington University held an “ICE ICE Baby” party to celebrate an ICE raid that netted 30 arrests, The Ellensberg (Wash.) Daily Record records. Five high school juniors from Alamo College’s Information Technology and Security Academy are headed to Washington for a national cybersecurity competition, The San Antonio Express-News notes. Hinds Community College is co-developing a $2.9 million Anti-Terrorism Tactical Training Center for law enforcers in Jackson, Miss., Earth Techling tells. The fate of hundreds of Indian students not implicated in an investigation of visa fraud at a sham U.S. university is under “active discussion” at State and DHS, IANS informs. In 1949, Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb spent six months as a grad student at what is now the University of Northern Colorado, the Los Angeles Times traces.

Bugs ‘n bombs: State officials worry that an ethics charge facing the Kansas Bioscience Authority’s chief might threaten their claim to host DHS’s $650 billion National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, BioPrepWatch reports. “Do you think really that if al Qaeda had smallpox they wouldn’t use it because it would be deemed by Western lawyers as a crime against humanity?” a biosecurity expert demands in, again, the Post. An annual intel report to Congress has dropped language stating that Iran retains the option to build nuclear weapons, The Washington Times tells — while The Tehran Times hears Iran’s foreign ministry charging that the U.N. nuke watchdog’s statements questioning whether the country’s atoms are for peace were “made under political pressure.” The Obama administration, meanwhile, has reminded Zimbabwe of the penalties it courts by mining uranium for Tehran, AP reports.

Close air support: Some research claims TSA’s much-debated nude scanners might not detect explosives or even guns taped to the body, Threat Level relates, finishing a three-part series on full-body scanning. Spinning off from checkpoint bin ads, “one reader suggested that [TSA screeners] wear jumpsuits festooned with big corporate logos, in the style of NASCAR drivers,” a CNN columnist cracks — and check The Consumerist on “10 Ways To Make The TSA Crotch Grabbers Profitable.” Taking a leaf from a New Hampshire counterpart, a GOP Texas state solon has introed a bill mandating criminal penalties for screeners “who get a little too touchy with passengers,” The Raw Story says. U.S.-bound Canadian flyers “unlucky enough to change planes in Canada will end up being screened twice by airport security for no apparent reason — truly a waste of effort, time and money for everyone,” The Calgary Sun complains.

Coming and going: Remind anyone decrying as “an unnecessary nuisance” random bag checks on Metro vehicles that terrorist attacks on trains, buses, subways and such have killed nearly 700 people since 2003, a Post editorial inveighs. A DHS Coast Guard petty officer is on trial in San Diego for a collision with a pleasure boat that killed an 8-year-old boy on San Diego Harbor, the Union-Tribune tells. “Yo-ho-ho and a vat of anthrax! Checking cargo ships for WMD and contraband isn’t exactly swashbuckling. In fact, as a NATO video game makes clear, it’s actually a lot of dreary, methodical work,” Danger Room engagingly leads.

Courts and rights: Alleged Tucson congresswoman shooter Jared Lee Loughner pleaded not guilty yesterday to dozens of new federal charges that accuse him of killing six and wounding 13 others, The Arizona Daily Star relates. President Obama’s order to restart military tribunals at Guantanamo “stoked new questions about how to deal with alleged [9/11] plotters,” The Wall Street Journal analyzes. A pretrial hearing in Brooklyn is “providing fresh insights into one of the most frightening terror plots against the city since [9/11],” Najibullah Zazi’s plan to bomb the NYC subway, AP reports. Despite an impassioned plea for leniency, a “principal architect” of the Toronto 18 terror plot was sentenced to life in prison Friday, Postmedia News notes.

Over there: Although Delhi promised that the trial and punishment of the sole surviving Mumbai assault perpetrator “would be put on the fast track, it has been going on for two and a half years and there appears to be no sign of an end,” Frontline frowns. Games host nations inevitably worry about terrorism, but “the 2014 Winter Olympics, to be held at a Russian Black Sea resort, seem to be facing security concerns unlike any Games in recent memory,” The New York Times spotlights. Violence is escalating in Thailand’s insurgency-hit deep south, Agence France-Presse hears Bangkok contending following a string of bomb and gun attacks in the Muslim-majority region.

Over here: “Cops and federal agents agree with Rep. Pete King that they don’t get a lot of tipsters from the Muslim community — but they say that’s true of many other communities, The New York Daily News leads. “Concerns about . . . questionable tactics used to investigate the possible terrorist recruitment of Somalis living in the United States are prompting some Muslim leaders in St. Louis and elsewhere to limit their cooperation with the FBI,” the Post-Dispatch reports. Lebanon-born Brigitte Gabriel “has dire warnings about Muslims in the United States. But some in counterterrorism say she does a disservice,” the Times profiles. “The IRS and Congress allow [nonprofit organizations] and a host of other Islamic-based extremist fronts to advocate physical ‘jihad’ against innocent Christians, Jews, and Muslims who do not adhere to Sharia law,” Family Security Matters mutters.

Holy Wars: In a speech to Muslims last weekend, a senior White House adviser showed willingness to minimize the jihadi threat “by pretending that all religions contain terrorists,” a Chicago Now poster protests. “Shariah 4 America, a new fringe American Islamist group, advocates converting the White House into the White Mosque and changing the Statue of Liberty to a giant minaret,” IPT News leads. The U.S. military is “slaughtering innocents” and is worse than al Qaeda, FOX News quotes the attorney who successfully defended the right of her father’s Westboro Baptist Church to picket outside a Marine’s funeral. “The killing of white supremacist leader David Lynch in California raises questions about the competition among members of hate groups . . . and the ways in which they finance their operations,” The Christian Science Monitor spotlights.

Speak softly and . . . : “President Obama delivered a 10-minute-long inaudible and untelevised speech on gun control Thursday, addressing the politically volatile topic from behind the closed doors of the Oval Office, where nobody could see or hear him,” The Onion reports. “’The Second Amendment doesn’t . . . ’ said Obama, who trailed off and gently whispered a number of strong, definitive statements that were muffled by the hand in front of his face. ‘While I understand this is an important issue to many Americans, I also believe that in the aftermath of the tragedy in Arizona, certain kinds of guns are [incoherent mumble], and that we should seriously look at [incoherent mumble]. It’s the right thing to do.’ White House sources confirmed that it was Obama’s finest speech since his one-hour silent monologue last Friday, when he outlined the growing threat of climate change and ordered the oil and automobile industries to develop renewable energy sources while cutting carbon emissions completely by 2018.”