“I just can’t believe they’re going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to [govern] after a significant terrorist attack,” The Oregonian’s Jeff Kosseff quotes Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., declaring upon being denied access to White House continuity of government docs. A GOP lawmaker proposes an amendment to defund enforcement of the prison sentences levied against two Border Patrol agents convicted of lying about shooting a fleeing suspect in the back, The Washington Times’ Jerry Seper says. A provision to shield U.S. citizens from being sued for reporting possible terror-related activity was rejected in a Senate vote late Thursday night, The Grand Junction (Colo.) Daily Sentinel’s Kylene Kiang recounts.

Detentionally: President Bush on Friday set broad legal boundaries for CIA grilling of terror suspects, resuming an effort suspended last year amidst charges it violated U.S. and international law, The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung records. Officials say the newly permitted techniques do not include some of the most controversial past techniques — “waterboarding,” say — but do allow measures more harsh than those used at Guantanamo Bay, The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti adds — while Agence France-Presse’ Jitendra Joshi finds the top spy asserting yesterday that the threat of torture has saved “countless lives,” but eschewing the act. On Friday, too, a federal appeals court ordered Justice to turn over virtually all its info on Gitmo detainees challenging their imprisonment, rejecting its effort to limit disclosures, Reuters reports.

FEMA-faddle: As a Hill to-do over formaldehyde problems with FEMA’s Katrina trailers unfolds, members can’t help but wonder why GSA is auctioning those mobile homes to dealers and individuals across the country, the Los Angeles Times’ Claudia Lauer recounts. “FEMA could have turned a new page following the ouster of the bungling Michael Brown . . . but the new FEMA, under R. David Paulison, appears to be worse than incompetent,” The New York Times, relatedly, chides. Contractors hired to clean up after Katrina are fuming over delays in getting paid by FEMA, feeding fears the red tape will discourage bids on the big New Orleans rebuilding projects supposedly lying ahead, AP’s Becky Bohrer reports.

Feds: Having posted in June a list of public companies doing business in countries listed as terror sponsors, the SEC removed the site Friday following lawmaker and company complaints about fairness and errors, the Times’ Floyd Norris also notes. New Jersey’s Fort Monmouth cannot be closed until its comm facilities are replicated at a Maryland facility, lest the terror fight “be compromised,” The Asbury Park Press’ Bill Bowman and Keith Brown quote an Army memo. The nation’s top intellicrat must investigate whether disgruntled CIA agents really divulged to a Euro-investigator info about secret terror prisons, AP’s Harry Dunphy quotes a House GOP intel overseer. “The current passport mess is rare among government foul-ups: A top federal official has publicly taken the blame and expressed regret,” AP’s Michael J. Sniffen leads.

Poly-ticks: Saying he still believes that the United States is safer than on Sept. 11, GOP front-runner Rudy Giuliani criticizes the Bush administration’s fitful pursuit of al Qaeda to the Times. Stumping South Carolina, he also sought to bond with firefighters, linking last month’s deadly furniture store blaze to the 9/11 attacks, AP adds. As the CIA resumes grilling terror suspects, ever-rightward-hewing GOPer Mitt Romney applauded “enhanced” interrogation techniques, AP also relates. “Hilary Clinton has rejected as “offensive and totally inappropriate” a Pentagon official’s imputation that her questions on Iraq withdrawal aid “enemy propaganda,” the Times tells. Stepping in, Defense chief Robert Gates said Saturday he hadn’t seen Clinton’s original letter, but that he welcomes congressional input, the Post adds. The one thing the Iraqis agree on is they want us to leave,” AP, again, quotes from Dem candidate Bill Richardson’s latest ad.

Uncle Sugar: Credit DHS with basing this year’s grants “on some sort of risk analysis, rather than on which state’s senator sits on which influential committee,” The Houston Chronicle applauds. “Michael Chertoff’s shortchanging of America’s cities . . . is okay with me. The sooner we get back to letting the FBI and local police guard our well-being, the better I’ll like it,” an OpEdNewscontributor commends. The DHS boss insisted in Los Angeles Friday that despite complaints, “the region has received a healthy chunk of [DHS monies] over the past several years,” Xinhua says. Securing “the region most identified with the U.S. government and our country warrants a greater investment than the amount recently approved,” the chief of D.C.-area terror planning chides in Sunday’s Post. Train what DHS money there is available on health crisis planning, the Post also urges.

New York State of mind: “An explosion wracked midtown Manhattan, spewing asbestos, claiming one life, panicking the city. Who needs al Qaeda when you have 83-year-old underground pipes?” a TomPaine.com commentary leads. Two 9/11 victims have been IDed from bones found on a vacant skyscraper’s roof and underneath a service road at Ground Zero, AP says. 9/11 first-responders will read victims’ names at the sixth anniversary ceremony, shifted to a small park because of intensive construction at Ground Zero, amNewYork relays.

Air turbulence: “At security checkpoints, I’ve seen screeners literally in a tug-of-war with toddlers over their ‘blankies,’ with the kids crying,” a source says in a Times piece on the perils of flying with children. TSA will allow flyers without infants along to carry more breast milk on planes starting next month, The Chicago Tribune briefs. “Several people walked into Albany International Airport in late June, carry-on bags stuffed full of bomb parts. . . . TSA screeners seized every bottle of water from all of them,” Homeland Stupidity rehashes. The lack of video surveillance technology common elsewhere may have contributed to the Oakland airport’s three apparent security breaches this year, the Tribune tells. “Is this Ben Gurion or hell?” a Palestinian-American poet writes in Dissident Voice of his recent Israeli airport security ordeal.

Coming and going: Washington state driver’s licenses to be issued next year need better security to protect against unauthorized tracking of individuals, The Seattle Times quotes technical experts. The nation’s governors “ought to do themselves and their states a service by serving a definitive notice on Washington that the Real ID Act is not just unworkable but unacceptable,” The Detroit Free Press exhorts. DHS’s Chertoff hit Los Angeles Friday to unveil a new strategy for rapidly resuming trade after a terror attack at a major port, the LA Times tells. “Amid a heated national debate over illegal immigration, and growing concerns about terrorism and border security, federalagents are adopting ever-harsher interdiction methods at sea,” The Wall Street Journal focuses.

Border wars: “So far, the high-tech fiasco is not working and Arizona residents are organizing a lawsuit to halt government spying on U.S. citizens,” CounterPunch recounts of the “virtual fence” pilot project. Border forces are being boosted to stem the tide of U.S. firearms smuggled into Mexico, “but the huge scale of the problem dwarfs the response,” The Christian Science Monitor surveys. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, pledged last week to fight any fence-building effort denied community input, The Houston Chronicle conveys. Mexico’s ambassador now concedes his government made a “dumb mistake” by issuing comic books to aid illegal border crossers, The Washington Times tells. Immigrants could end up paying thousands of dollars more to enter and stay here when application fees soar on July 30, Telemundo tells.

Courts and rights: A Muslim convert who admitted training with terrorists in Somalia was handed 10 years on Friday, The Houston Chronicle conveys. FBI wiretaps central to the prosecution in the Jose Padilla trial also lift opposing counsels’ hopes of persuading jurors that the defendants were not jihadists, APremarks of the defense case opening today. The Philadelphia Inquirer profiles the much-covered ex-judge who trolls the Internet for unwary terror talkers — including the Scranton man convicted July 13 of plotting to bomb pipelines. Undergoing forced feedings, some two dozen Guantanamoites remain on hunger strike, in a test of wills that shows no sign of ending, AP spotlights. One of Britain’s most reviled terrorists is back in his cell following secret treatment for severe scalding injuries inflicted by fellow prisoners, The Guardian relays.

Over there: There is a chance “events in Pakistan in recent weeks have at last presented the opportunity for a serious campaign against Islamic radicals in Pakistan, if it’s not already too late,” the Timessuggests — while Reuters has that nation’s foreign minister lashing out yesterday against criticism of its terror efforts. Italian security services announced Saturday having arrested three allegedly al Qaeda-linked Moroccans suspected of plotting mayhem, Agence France-Presse reports. The United Nations has not kept an up-to-date list of al Qaeda and Taliban leaders targeted by international sanctions, AP has an official admonishing. A new counter-terrorism treaty between Switzerland and the United States is expected to come into force this autumn, Xinhua says.

On my honor I will do my best: “In a move Democrats decry as an attempt to win favor with his conservative base, President Bush today mobilized the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts to patrol the borders and stem the flow of illegal immigrants,” The Spoof spoofs. “With the National Guard stretched to its limits in Iraq, Bush informed the public that he was calling up the youth of America to serve and protect. ‘We’ll leave no child behind,’ he declared, extolling the virtues of young eyes seeking out those trying to slip across the border and settle in the United States without going through proper immigration channels. Terming Bush’s call up a ‘wise and studied decision,’ a homeland official noted that the Scouts “have uniforms and knives — and an organization that can sell millions of cookies.’ Confirms the president: ‘Damn good cookies for damned good Americans.’” See, as well, in the Onion: “Pentagon To Surround Self With Pentagon Decoys.”