A California panel in 2004 placed a “high priority” on promptly involving military aircraft in wildfires and other crises, but delays last week reveal a system still short on communication and planning, The Associated Press’ Michael R. Blood reports. FEMA chief David Paulison is scheduled to give a news briefing in California this afternoon, where he certainly will be asked about last week’s fake briefing, The New York Times’ Eric Lipton relates.

Feds: In a letter to Senate Dems, who’ve pressured him for a stance on detainee torture, AG nominee Michael Mukasey declared waterboarding “repugnant” but would not judge its legality, the Times’ Scott Shane tells. In Chicago, meantime, Gen. Michael Hayden was lauding CIA interrogation measures for being “as lawful as they are valuable,” AP’s Sophia Tareen adds. As urged by the 9/11 Commission — and mandated by Congress — the top spy yesterday disclosed total intel spending under his purview: $43.5 billion last year, The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus reports — while The New York Daily News’s James Meeks mutters: “Spooks blew $43 billion and didn’t even get Osama’s t-shirt.”

It’s Giuliani time: Ten months into his presidential bid, Rudy Giuliani continues to work part time at the security consultancy he promised to leave, the Post reports. Giuliani also predicts that Dems Hillary Clinton and John Edwards - who voted for the Iraq war resolution - will change their minds again and agree that it was the right decision, AP relates. “Giuliani is the Mideast’s worst nightmare,” Gulf News proclaims — while a Boston Globe columnist carps that last week's New York Times profile “of Giuliani's national security inner circle makes Rumsfeld and Cheney look like the wise men.”

Poly-ticks: New York's plan to create three types of driver's licenses, including one for illegal immigrants, has everyone talking - except the state's Dem senators, including especially wary prez wanna-be Hillary Clinton, The Albany Times Union tells. Whatever happens with the presidential bid by one-note, border-security-obsessed Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., he is giving up his House seat, The Rocky Mountain News reports. “The most expensive legislative race in Virginia history features some bizarre claims that put a hobgoblin mask on the truth,” AP recounts, citing stump-driven allegations of jihadist complicity and charges of torture.

State and local: A Senate bill would provide a protective security advisor for each of the 10 states that don't have one, The Boston Globe relays. Local law enforcement agencies across the nation have dramatically stepped up their checks on the immigration status of suspects this past year, The Wichita Eagle leads. Missouri emergency comm officials say the state's 911 coverage still lags behind surrounding states, The Lawrence Journal-World relates. Not wanting to be an entry point to get into other places in the U.S., a Pacific U.S. territory is battling congressional imposition of federal immigration law, The Washington Times relates.

Follow the money: Experts disagree over retrying the Holy Land Foundation terror financing case, with some saying the terrorist-charity link must be better charted in future cases, The Dallas Morning Newsnotes. “ The urge to draw sweeping lessons from that mistrial . . . is understandable but premature,” The National Review rebukes. Such “small actions” as freezing assets are “a crucial part of what may be one of the most successful parts of the struggle against terrorism: the effort to curtail its financiers,” The Christian Science Monitor surveys. The Palestinian Authority has tightened up money-laundering laws aimed at denying cash to Hamas rivals and boosting foreign confidence in its banks, Reuters reports.

Radioactive: With a final inspection of a secret nuclear missile base in the Urals, the U.S. expects to complete a program to improve the security of Russia’s nuclear rockets, The New York Times tells. In a break with NRC regulators, the EPA says the potential impact of terrorism should be considered in deciding whether to relicense New York’s Indian Point nuke complex, AP reports. The Foreign Office has cleared dozens of Iranians to enter British universities to study advanced nuclear physics and other WMD-relevant subjects, The Daily Telegraph tells — while NBC News has an ex-U.K. Customs investigator claiming “the West missed a golden opportunity to disrupt Tehran’s nuclear effort seven years ago.”

Papers and borders: Attribute the New York governor’s abrupt shift on driver’s licenses for illegals last weekend to DHS chief Mike Chertoff’s promise to publicly assail his plan, the Times suggests. A fence is no panacea, The Arizona Daily Star has a DHS border security official acknowledging at a Tucson conference — while, in a CFR Online Debate, James Jay Carafano and Mark Krikorian argue over the homeland security risks posed by immigrants.

Coming and going: “Just getting into the USA these days is far from easy . . . The controls annoy us, especially when we don't really see the point of some of the measures,” a Washington-bound Dutch member blogs for the European Parliament Socialist Group. A commuter jet was painted by a green laser upon its departure from Manchester’s airport, and the FBI is on the case, Aero-News Networknotes. “A new federal security protocol soon will be coming to the Twin Ports,” The Duluth News Tribune heralds - while CBC News sees the Canadian military eying a fleet of remote-controlled aircraft to patrol the Arctic.

Terror Tech: Screeners may soon boast a device that combines scattered X-ray signals with high-resolution 3D X-ray images to highlight any dangerous substances, The Engineer leads. As biometrics mature, the “critical challenge” is crafting complementary policies and IT infrastructure, Government Computer News quotes an expert. Using a biometric automated toolset, American forces can scan irises, facial features and fingerprints to quickly identify and track potential enemy personnel, The Bisbee (Ariz.) Daily Review spotlights. Brit boffins have developed battery-powered glow-in-the-dark yarns, a boon to first responders operating in blacked-out buildings or city streets, The Homeland Security Daily Wire suggests. The White House “remains keen on rushing to deploy a technology that doesn't work against a threat that doesn't exist,” a Globalist essay assails, in re: plans for a Europe-based defense against Iranian missiles.

Cyberia: An ex-U.S. Army intel officer says “the next generation of al Qaeda will be clever, net-savvy youngsters. And he fears it will take a crippling attack on the scale of 9/11 before world leaders act and realize what a sleeping beast the Web is,” Britain’s Sun tabloid leads. Palestinian militants in Gaza are using Google Earth to help aim their rockets at Israeli military and other targets, the Guardian learns. “It is next to impossible to shut down a terrorist Web site . . . If a site is knocked off the Web, it can easily reappear under another Web name or with another host — possibly one residing offshore,” a Washington Times op-ed objects.

Futurama: At last month’s Joint Urban Ops conference, attendees “talked about military technologies of a sort you've only seen in James Cameron's 2000-2002 television series, ‘Dark Angel,’” Asia Times’ Nick Turse spotlights. The Chemical Weapons Convention is under threat from attempts to turn anesthetic agents into “non-lethal” weapons for dealing humanely with hostage-takers or terrorists, New Scientist’s Michael Brooks cites a treaty watchdog. Having volunteered to experience first hand the Weinberger is let down to learn that the rain-attenuated device “could be a nice space Pentagon’s much-touted insurgent-dispersing “pain ray,” Danger Room’s Sharon heater in a pinch.” See, as well, Richard Lardner’s AP account of his own guinea piggery.

Courts and rights: The U.S. Appeals Court in Richmond is slated today to hear arguments about who can validly be held as an enemy combatant, The Christian Science Monitor spotlights. The Liberty City 7 were “at the most advanced stage of becoming Islamic terrorists on the path to jihad,” The Miami Herald has a government expert telling a jury yesterday. A Camden attorney tells the judge a campaign flier aimed at his wife — a General Assembly candidate - could jeopardize a fair trial for his client, one of the Fort Dix Six, The Burlington County Times tells. An ex-federal prosecutor wanted so badly to win convictions in the first major post-9/11 terror trial he broke the law himself, AP has a federal attorney summing up in Detroit yesterday — as The Detroit Newsquotes the defense saying Americans should thank Richard Covertino “for working hard to protect their freedoms, not put him on trial.”

Over there: U.S. Embassy officials visited a Yemeni convicted in the 2000 USS Cole bombing in his prison cell Monday, three days after he was seen greeting relatives in his house, The Washington Times, again, tells. Japan's PM yesterday rapped the justice minister over his assertion that a friend of a friend was a member of al Qaeda who regularly entered Japan, Bloomberg reports. Iran summoned a senior EU diplomat to protest a statement that Tehran backed elements suspected of spying and terrorism, Reuters reports. Spain is keenly awaiting the verdicts today on 28 men charged in the devastating 2004 Madrid train bombings, BBC News notes.

If you’d like to make a call, please hang up: “Just so you don’t chew up a lot of your gigaflops monitoring me, I want to warn you that I will soon be placing calls to night clubs and bars in Waziristan and asking to speak to Osama,” Satirium’s Bill Stockton writes in a mock friendly advisory to the NSA. “I’ll admit that the first episode of calls to Waziristan was somewhat hare-brained. But I had been drinking a lot after my wife left me for the FBI agent. All the guys at the Harry’s bet me I couldn’t get Osama on the phone and . . . well, you know the rest. But this time around it’s the real deal. I found this book publisher in New York City who said that if I could get an interview with Osama, he (the publisher) could almost guarantee that I would get a book contract out of it with a big, big advance. And, as you know from monitoring my phone calls, I could use the money.”