DHS may have issued its final chemical plant security rule, but “regulators and the about-to-be regulated . . . have different views of what comes next,” The Associated Press’ Beverley Lumpkin surveys. DHS is warning U.S. chemical plants and bomb squads to guard against a new form of terrorism: chlorine truck bombs, USA Today’s Mimi Hall tells. “We are basically ignoring these threats,” Sen. Joe Biden inveighs in The Tampa Tribune. “The last terrorist to use cyanide as a weapon . . . killed seven Chicago-area victims in 1982 by lacing Tylenol capsules in stores,” EMS Responder.com notes in re: the Cyanide Poisoning Treatment Coalition. See, also, an NDU Working Paperon “Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents Since 1900.”

Feds: A terror conflict synonym — “the long war” — coined by then-Central Command chief Gen. John P. Abizaid has been quietly retired by his successor, The New York Times’ Michael Gordon relates. A U.S. delegation to Africa “had to calm a whole list of fears — and dash a hope or two” when explaining its plans for a new terror-attuned military command for the continent, AP’s Pauline Jelinek reports. The White House has tapped a new senior director of preparedness policy for the Homeland Security Council, United Press International informs. Thanks to 9/11, “there was little tolerance for critical scrutiny from journalists” in the Iraq invasion run-up, The Washington Post’s Judith S. Gillies has Bill Moyersarguing in a PBS doc airing at 9:00 (EDT) this evening.

Intelligencia: The Pentagon’s new intel chief will dismantle an antiterror database that civil libertarians have criticized for gathering info about domestic groups, the Times’ Mark Mazzetti mentions. The FBI has made strides in hiring counterterror analysts but is still 400 jobs shy of authorized staffing levels, AP’s Lara Jakes Jordan quotes from a Justice IG report. In defending counterterror “renditioning,” outspoken ex-CIAer Michael Scheuer seems determined to deflect barbs away from the agency and towards the White House bigs and CIA lawyers, who “approve every snatch,” CQ Homeland Security’s Jeff Stein suggests. “A White House obsession with secrecy should not be confused with a commitment to good security,” Secrecy News’s Steven Aftergood observes, posting a letter to ex-chief of staff Andrew Card from the inquisitorial Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

State and local: Largely as a result of DHS largesse, local law enforcers now “employ a number of unusual and technologically advanced pieces of equipment in their fight against crime,” The Shreveport Times surveys. Private watchmen, ranging from security guards at malls to those at a future casino, will soon have to begin registering with the Bethlehem (Pa.) police, The Allentown Morning Call recounts. The Arizona House has given final approval to a bill that would create a homeland security militia reporting directly to the governor, The Arizona Republic reports. At least one Dem lawmaker wonders what kind of volunteer this Homeland Security Force would attract, KTAR News 92.3 adds.

Coming and going: TSA behavioral observation is headed to Denver’s airport this year, “subjecting passengers to small talk from agents looking for signs of deception,” Boulder’s Daily Camera recounts. A new sensor technology promises to give security screeners a peek through clothing without revealing the naked details, National Geographic News notes. “Increased post-Sept. 11 security at . . . airports and ports has helped push the bulk of the drug trade over land, through Mexico,” McClatchy Newspapers notes. U.S. law officers and illegal border-crossers are under increased attack, as beefed-up patrols cut into smugglers’ illicit trade, The Christian Science Monitor adds. DHS’s Michael Chertoff, in fact, yesterday described the struggle to control the nation’s borders as a war, National Journal notes.

Bugs ‘n bombs: The logjam blocking a House homeland committee bill to limit the sale of explosive fertilizers appears to have been broken, Newsday notes. (An ammonia leak at an Illinois agricultural plant forced the evacuation of three small towns Tuesday, USA Today relatedly relays.) A man sparked a terror scare when the Web-ordered Winnie the Pooh phone he was picking up at a Missouri PO was “distinctly ticking,” AP reports. “Security experts have discovered a way to inject false messages — some amusing and others potentially frightening — into car satellite navigation systems,” The IDG News Service warns.

Know nukes: New nuclear reactors need not be designed to withstand suicide attacks by big airplanes, the Times has the NRC ruling Tuesday, although their builders may be ordered to factor in the possibilities. “It isn’t often that a single Senate subcommittee hearing puts on the table a half-dozen nightmarish scenarios that hardly anyone in Washington is worrying about,” Time leads of Sam Nunn’s little-noted recent testimony on terror-era nuclear perils. Iran will not halt its atomic activities under any circumstances, its president tells Reuters — while AP has the U.S. military chief in South Korea saying that the North could become a “moderate nuclear power” by 2010 if current disarmament negotiations fail.

Search for solutions: “Let’s recognize that the deep, dark and complex workings of our minds and souls have more to do with such events than any particular technology does,” Siva Vaidhyanathan essays in Newsweekon supposed techno-solutions to school shootings. Predicting incidents of mass killings is like looking for a needle in a haystack, human-behavior experts tell The Georgia Straight’s Carlito Pablo. An “intelligent” video surveillance system being tested in the U.K. uses software to spot anybody loitering in a distinctive way and then tracks them, The Times of London tells. “As with so many other pressing issues — from terrorism to oil dependency — the White House is turning to the military industrial complex for a solution” to border insecurity, Frida Berrigan frowns for CounterPunch.

Terror tech: “Updating Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics, a new set of laws has been proposed to govern operations by killer robots,” The Register’s Lewis Page reports. With background screens being done by everyone from prospective employers to college-admissions officers, newservices claim to help pre-emptively check your own personal data, The Wall Street Journal’s M.P. McQueen surveys — and visit ReputationDefender’s Website. South Korea will replace some of its soldiers with electronic sensors at the Demilitarized Zone next year, UPI relays — and see Technology Innovator’s “Technology Tames the ‘Scariest Place on Earth.’”Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger spotlights a patent application for “a multi-component device capable of delivering a non-lethal, high-voltage electric shock which can incapacitate a person or animal that is worn as an ordinary article of apparel.”

Maneuvers: “The Air Force’s top general has ordered a wide-ranging review of the vulnerabilities of U.S. military satellites . . . because of continuing alarm over a successful Chinese missile test,” the Los Angeles Times tells. It turns out that U.S. intel had pre-knowledge of that January anti-satellite launch, but “missed an opportunity to discourage the Chinese from crossing a new military threshold,” The New York Times adds. Forget that gels and liquids biz, Danger Room’s David Hambling fills us in on “Astrolite, an unusual explosive developed during the Vietnam War as an air-scatterable liquid landmine.” Danger Room, yet again, is kind enough to post a very funny mock Air Force PowerPoint briefing on “Directed Energy Sea Mammals.”

Courts and rights: Four men pleaded not guilty in Toledo Tuesday to charges of plotting to recruit and train terrorists to attack U.S. forces overseas, The Toledo Bladetells. Pentagon prosecutors filed renewed murder charges yesterday against a Canadian who was 15 when captured in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo five years ago, The Toronto Globe and Mailmentions. British police yesterday swooped up six in pre-dawn anti-terror raids, including a radical Muslim known for calling Western leaders “terrorists” and heckling the Home Secretary, Agence France-Presse reports.

Qaeda Qorner: Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq is planning the first “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and elsewhere with the help of supporters in Iran, The Times of Londonlearns from a “leaked” intel report. Three U.K.-based men with close ties to al-Qaeda-in-Iraq kept car bomb-making manuals and suicide vest-wiring videos for their jihad promotion campaign, Reutershas Brit prosecutors accusing Tuesday. An al Qaeda-linked group posted a statement yesterday claiming Monday’s truck bombing — nine paratroopers dead and 20 — the worst attack on U.S. ground forces in Iraq in over a year, AP reports.

Over there: Visiting Cuba Monday, Iran’s foreign minister accused the U.S. of supporting terrorism, excoriating last week’s release of an ex-CIA operative convicted in the 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner, AFP reports. A video circulating in Pakistan records the beheading of an alleged “American spy” by an apparent 12-year-old with a carving knife, Fox News relays. A gang of suspected Turkish Islamists likely face trial for the torture and murder of three Christians at a Bible publishers, The Daily Telegraph tells. Security guards assigned to the 2008 Olympic Games will be trained in “self-defense, first aid, emergency procedures, protocol and languages,” Xinhua“learns” from a company source.

Meine Ehre heisst Treu: “The strain on the country’s psyche from a floundering war and domestic scandals is causing a drain on America’s greatest national resource: loyalty,” Ridiculopathyheavy-handedly parodizes. “We have all learned since 9/11, that that which plagues this administration is also a threat to America,” Phil Boisenbottom writes. “But President Bush has the situation well in hand.... Beginning later this month, the purges initiated late last year will extend beyond the original program for U.S. attorneys, encompassing a whole range of occupations. So, whether you’re a school teacher, a journalist or mid-level political appointee, being a loyal “Bushie” might just be the key to keeping your job and even your citizenship. ‘Loyalty is freedom, everything we have,’ said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man charged with overseeing the purges. ‘As long as people are free to agree with the President’s policies and support his decisions, America will remain the greatest country on earth.’”