“Al Qaeda increasingly faces sharp criticism from once-loyal sympathizers who openly question its ideology and tactics, including attacks that kill innocent Muslims,” the Los Angeles Times’ Josh Meyer surveys. As its 20th birthday nears, al Qaeda “is having an increasingly hard time maintaining the luster of what has become a globally recognized brand,” Reuters’ Bernd Debusmann reviews. “The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language,” telling officials not to describe Islamic extremists as islamists, mujahedeen or Islamo-fascists, The Associated Press’ Matthew Lee relates.

Feds: The Washington Post’s Al Kamen details the recent culture disconnect when DHS’s Mike Chertoff was in Canada few weeks back arguing that fingerprints — which he wants to collect from all foreign fliers — “are like footprints. They’re not particularly private.” DHS’s push on this front is “a reasonable way of keeping tabs on visitors who overstay their welcome and others who travel to this country with more malign intentions,” Nathan A. Sales asserts in The National Review. The department, meanwhile, yesterday opened a path to temporary legal status for illegal immigrants whose spouses or parents died on 9/11, The New York Times’ Julia Preston reports. Defying a veto threat, the House yesterday approved a bill making the Coast Guard enforce counterterrorist security zones around liquefied natural gas terminals and tankers, Navy Times’ Philip Ewing relates.

Poly-ticks: “We already have a president who plays the politics of fear, and we don’t need another,” a Barack Obama spokesman tells Agence France-Presse in re: Hillary Clinton’s Osama ad. “The Democratic left [that] is calling ‘foul’ on the ad . . . is fond of criticizing the Bush administration for not killing or capturing bin Laden. Why, then, is it out-of-bounds to include his image?” Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff wonders. “Obama would be a disaster, but how much worse could he do on terrorism than [ex-President Bill Clinton]? Is this really what the Clinton campaign wanted to remind Pennsylvanians about?” The National Review’s Andrew McCarthy muses. After eschewing the black-suited sleeve-talkers, John McCain accepted Secret Service protection this week, ABC News’ John Hendren reports. In hurricane-harried New Orleans yesterday, McCain declared “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled,” the Times-Picayune’s David Hammer reports.

Stump memes: “Although terrorism has largely been ignored as a campaign issue thus far, bin Laden and al Qaeda may deliberately raise its visibility once again,” a Foreign Affairs review suggests. “The water issue is much more important than, well, the war on terrorism. In fact, the flu is a bigger threat to Americans than terrorism is, but it is easier to manipulate voters with fear of terrorism,” The Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader ruminates. “Clinton’s threat to ‘obliterate’ Iran if it attacks Israel with nuclear weapons has catapulted the Iran issue into this year’s hot presidential contest,” Jewish Week assesses. “What we have to do is seek out the people who mean to kill us, track them down, and destroy them,” The Philadelphia Inquirerquotes a New Jersey GOP Senate hopeful.

State and local: “NYPD officers armed with submachine guns and bomb-sniffing dogs will now patrol the city subways, part of a stepped-up counterterrorism effort in high profile areas,” WNBC 4 relates. DHS monies will underwrite a first round of a dozen surveillance cameras for the mean streets of Omaha, KPTM FOX 42 tells — while more than 100 cameras are headed toward high-crime areas and “locations deemed important to homeland security,” The Buffalo News notes. “Driver’s license applicants who leave the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division clutching a piece of paper bearing a black-and-white temporary license may wonder who’s going to believe them,” The Santa Fe New Mexican spotlights. Arizona’s governor is again pleading for an extension of National Guard deployments that have watched the border since June 2006, The Arizona Republic reports.

Bugs ‘n bombs: South Carolina law allows any dealer to refuse to sell restricted fertilizers, The Florence Morning News reminds in re: a teen’s Internet order of ammonium nitrate pellets. Constant vigilance is needed to keep U.S. food safe, Dow Jones has an FBI big telling an International Symposium on Agroterrorism in Kansas City. “Traditional security measures, such as guards and fences, aren’t guaranteed to prevent a deadly chemical release,” says a Rocky Mountain News blogger, urging substitution of “safer chemicals.” The Army plans to leave in place depleted uranium discovered in 2005 at a Hawaii firing range from a Cold War weapon that could fire a nuclear warhead, The Honolulu Advertiser advises. Multi-drug resistant “super bugs” are one of the major challenges for public health in Europe, AFP has the E.U.’s health chief saying.

Coming and going: “There are some hopeful changes for travelers this summer . . . [Most] significantly, the TSA is sending all of its screeners to 12 hours of retraining this year,” South Bend’s WSBT TV surveys — while the Tribune-Review sees the “self-select lanes” that have eased travelers through several U.S. airports since early March reaching Pittsburgh. “Would it only be used against terrorists? How about unruly passengers or those that get a little drunk and loud?” Digital Journal asks of passenger-subduing shock bracelets now being marketed — to much derision. A Port of Los Angeles exercise this week simulated fending off terrorists using small watercraft, Xinhua relays. For a new Salt Lake City commuter rail service, the Utah Transit Authority is bumping up its security force by 60 percent, KUTV 2 News notes.

Courts and rights: In the Toledo terror case yesterday, what prosecutors had painted as a terror recruitment trip to Jordan was recast by the defense as a free vacation to visit family, the Blade reports. A Justice attorney Wednesday resisted a San Francisco federal judge’s attempts to get him to say whether Congress can limit the president’s wiretap authority in terror cases, The San Francisco Chronicle recounts. A former Florida professor acquitted on terror finance charges is now in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, on a hunger strike and suicide watch, The Virginian-Pilot reports — as The St. Petersburg Timesurges Justice to deport the man already. Five Brits who had their assets frozen over their alleged terror involvement won a legal challenge yesterday, The Daily Mail relates.

Over there: “In some European countries, terror-threat levels have been elevated, with both British and Dutch leaders announcing in recent weeks that the potential for terror activity appeared to be increasing,” The Christian Science Monitor leads — as al Qaeda’s No. 2 hints it may attack Japan as punishment for sending troops to Iraq, according to Bloomberg. The chief of a powerful Taliban group linked to al Qaeda has ordered an end to attacks as part of deal with Pakistan government, the Post reports. North Korea is expected to remain on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list when the annual report emerges next week, Reuters has State saying — while The Washington Times hears intellecrats telling Congress yesterday that a Syrian nuclear facility built with North Korean help was nearly complete when Israel bombed it in September.

The Silver Scream: Illegal immigration will be “explored on the big screen with increasing frequency, [but] if two fictionalizedmovies currently playing are any indication, we may be in for a lot of manipulation,” The Washington Times’ Jenny Mayo surveys. In the “cheerless landscape” of post-9/11 documentary and allegorical films, “Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” (New Line) “creates its own category: the stoner protest film,” The New York Times’ Dennis Lim reviews — as Politico’s Jeffrey Ressner suggests that “the end is nigh for Hollywood’s ponderous, heavy-handed treatment of the war on terror. That’s because most new movies about the subject this season are lowbrow and cringe-inducing comedies.” Its producers refer to “USA vs. Al-Arian” (NOK) about jailed Palestinian computer prof Sami Al-Arian, “as a ‘documentary.’ That is just as much of a fable as the way the terrorist’s family has been portrayed in the film,” Joe Kaufman jabs for FrontPage.

Kulture Kanyon: “Until we, in the West, understand why Osama bin Laden loves ‘Star Wars,’ we cannot effectively fight a ‘war on terror.’ In a nutshell: bin Laden thinks . . . we are the evil Darth Vaderian types, and he is the good Master Luke trying to restore balance to the force,” Scott Ott thumb-sucks for Townhall. Remnants of the World Trade Center’s broadcast antenna “encourages one to reflect deeply on totalitarianism, Islamofascism, and terrorism,” even though it has “nothing to do with journalism,” John Podhoretz writes in a Commentary look at the Newseum. After Aussie cameraman Paul Moran was suicide-bombed in Iraq, his widow has put samples of his work in a gallery online for viewing and purchase, ABC News’ Simon Royal and Gary Rivett relate. A judge this week dismissed terror-linked charges against a Buffalo college professor accused of illegally obtaining biological materials for an art exhibit, AP reports. “A small but growing number of American vets are using their experiences in Iraq to explore the interrelation of art and political resistance,” The Boston Globe’s Nan Levinson spotlights.

Movie-Plot Plot: “The buzz has been nonstop since The Smoking Gun Web site leaked a script currently being developed through the White House press office,” Unconfirmed Sources confirms. “ ‘George & Dick Go to Jordan’ is a comedy that chronicles the adventures of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who start out on a trip to ‘the almost first success’ in the War On Terror, Iraq,” Ed E. Druckman writes. “The film, based on this month’s release ‘Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay,’ involves the two boarding Air Force One on a trip to Iraq. But due to fog over the Atlantic, they accidentally end up in Jordan, where they are amazed at how the Iraqi people have built up the county. They then decide to do a bit of exploring and cultural diffusion as they try to bring a love of baseball, fast food and outsourcing to people who are generally confused because both Bush and Cheney keep calling them Iraqis.”