Nearly seven years after 9/11, al Qaeda remains the biggest terrorist threat to the United States and its allies, Reuters’ Paul Eckert quotes from State’s annual “Country Reports on Terrorism” release. The same publication identifies Iran as still the world’s “most active” state sponsor of terrorism as it tries to build regional influence and drive the United States from the Middle East, Agence France-Presse’s Lachlan Carmichael adds. The Joint Chiefs chairman, meanwhile, tells The Washington Post’s Ann Scott Tyson that the transition to a new American president will mark a “time of vulnerability.”

Feds: “False identifications based on a terrorist no-fly list have for years prevented some federal air marshals from boarding flights they are assigned to protect,” The Washington Times’ Audrey Hudson reveals. Wiretaps approved by a secret U.S. foreign intelligence court rose last year, even as Congress was debating an FBI request for more surveillance authority, Reuters’ Randall Mikkelsen reports. Congress is bracing for what is expected to be a grueling summerlong debate over this surveillance measure, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball survey. Formerly detained immigrants filed suit yesterday against Mike Chertoff demanding that DHS impose legally enforceable regulations at ICE detention centers, The New York Times’ Nina Bernstein notes.

Poly-ticks: Hillary Clinton’s vow of support for Israel’s claim on an “undivided Jerusalem,” if enacted, “would mark a major — and problematic — break with longstanding U.S. policy,” The Arab American News relays. The National Press Club rejects Errol Louis’ allegation in The New York Daily News that the woman who facilitated the firebrand Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Monday event did so to hurt Barack Obama’s chances, FOX News’ Judson Berger reports. How would John McCain’s proposed “League of Democracies fight terrorism while excluding countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Singapore?” Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria chides. McCain last week said he agreed with a questioner who said the high price of gas is a kind of “terrorism,” FOX News’ Mosheh Oinounou blogs, quoting his response: “You’re right, terrorism of gas prices.”

War by other means: “If you get your news from Sean Hannity at ABC Radio and Fox News, you might [think] that Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers are all members of a terror sleeper cell operating out of Chicago’s prosperous Hyde Park,” Mark Harris tweaks for OpEdNews. “Liberals who blast allusions to terrorism as scaredy-cat politics really are . . . not helping Obama’s prospects should he become the Democratic nominee. Bin Laden and friends remain on the loose, and the public has a right to fear them,” Froma Harrop harrumphs in The Houston Chronicle. “The politicization of homeland security shouldn’t have surprised anybody. America’s historical experience with civil defense raises basic questions about whether homeland security can ever be bipartisan, unifying and effective,” Matthew Dallek suggests in Politico.

State and local: Regular Border Patrol checks on the citizenship of passengers on Washington state ferries — still relatively new in the Northwest — have come as a shock to some riders, NPR reports — and see The Journal of the San Juans for a lawmaker’s quizzical letter to the Border Patrol. Under the campaign slogan “Ready or Not? Have a Plan,” the Texas homeland shop is encouraging residents to be ready when disaster strikes, Austin’s News 8 notes. A national commission investigating ICE’s controversial December 2006 raids at Swift meatpacking plants held a hearing in Des Moines on Tuesday, Radio Iowa reports. “Numerous agencies took part in a disaster exercise at Cuba Middle/Senior High School. Two scenarios were involved: an active shooter and an armed person with hostages,” The Canton (Ill.) Daily Ledger relates.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: “International students are going to need to jump through more hoops in order to maintain their visas to study here, and [DHS] came to NYU to clear some things up,” Washington Square News leads. A just-completed inventory of the University of Cincinnati’s chemical inventory showed the school in compliance with DHS regs and with no reportable quantities of targeted substances, The News Record notes. When ex-A.G. John Ashcroft came to Denison University on Monday — invited by the campus Republicans — he was greeted with signs assailing the Bush administration’s tactics in the war on terrorism, The Newark (Ohio) Advocateinforms. “A senior Muslim leader has warned of the dangers of the radicalization of Muslim university students, saying these students should be critical of everything they are told by secretive Islamic groups,” The Australian leads.

Bugs ‘n bombs: A man accused of failing to report that his cousin was making ricin pleaded not guilty to a federal charge yesterday, The Salt Lake Tribunetells.The FBI says a Jamaican arrested April 2 at Orlando’s airport with pipe bomb components may have been plotting revenge for the murder of his mother, AP reports. Streets around Seattle’s Federal Building were closed for almost two hours Tuesday due to a duffel bag left at the entrance, the Post-Intelligencer reports — while the Post has a Maryland county police complex evacuated by a bomb threat. Elsewhere in Maryland, opponents seek a safety review of the planned expansion of biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, The Frederick News Post notes — while ResearchResearch has Brit officials denying a since-removed Evening Standard story alleging MI5 warnings that a planned Central London biolab studying “the world’s most dangerous and contagious diseases” would be vulnerable to terror attack.

Coming and going: The new State Department terror report says Venezuela has failed to screen passengers arriving in Caracas on its weekly flight from Tehran and Damascus, The Miami Herald mentions.“DHS is going another step further in its efforts to condition travelers to accept more invasive screening techniques, but it is trying to soften the blow” with calmness, cheerful colors and soft music, the (John) Birch Blog broods. The security checkpoint lines are getting shorter at Albuquerque’s airport, thanks to a new type of x-ray scanner, KOAT 7 recounts. DHS’s new strategy for small-vessel security is highly tech-reliant for data reporting, analysis and sharing; boat tracking and detection; radiation detection; and surveillance, Washington Technology tells.

Courts and rights: After two mistrials on terror charges, the Liberty City Six will face their third date in court next January, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. Despite being labeled by federal prosecutors as a man with the means to fund terrorism, a Toledo defendant never gave a nickel to jihadist training, the Blade quotes his defense. A new charge and a possible change of plea came in Utah’s federal court Monday for the brother of a man suspected of al Qaeda ties, The Deseret News notes — while AP finds non-cooperative terror finance witness Sami al-Arian lifting his hunger strike.

Guantanamo Bay Watch: Osama bin Laden’s former driver can ask senior al Qaeda suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo for help in his war-crimes tribunal, AP has a military judge ruling — while the Post has that defendant following through on Tuesday’s boycott threat and sleeping in yesterday morning. While Justice assured the Supreme Court last December that terror prisoners had complete access to the federal appeals process, “now, it’s not so clear,” AP assesses. A Pentagon legal adviser accused of manipulating justice dictated which Gitmo cases would be tried based on how likely they were to pique U.S. public interest, Reuters has a prosecutor testifying Tuesday.

Dar al-harb: “On Sept. 10, 2001, nobody in America seemed to know anything about Islam. On Sept. 12, 2001, everybody seemed to know everything about Islam [and] the arcane particulars of an alien civilization now trip off every tongue,” a Times contributor comments. The toppling of a Muslim school principal in Brooklyn last August spoke to post-9/11 anxieties, but “was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life,” the Times also explores. The Boulder Weekly profiles college Republicans’ current favorite speaker, a self-described ex-terrorist who “lectures passionately about Israel’s right to exist while likening Islam to a Satanic cult.” A Brit citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told to “stop being a crusader,” The Times of London tells. A 23-year-old Toronto man wants everyone to “Support Our Troops,” but he’s not talking about the Canadian Forces in Kandahar — rather he has been posting messages on the Internet calling Osama bin Laden a “hero,” The National Post profiles.

Holy Wars: The Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against novelist Salman Rushdie “introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, Khomeini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech,” a City Journal essay asserts. “In one of the most visible assaults on political Islam from within the British Muslim community,” a network of ex-radicals has launched a movement to fight the same ideology that they once worked to spread, The Christian Science Monitor profiles. The top White House terror expert tells the Posthe believes gains are being made in the worldwide public relations battle against al Qaeda, via efforts to show that Osama bin Laden’s network is killing Muslim civilians. “Our most plausible hope of deterring suicide bombings [is] not some high-tech gizmo, but the real-world costs of sheer moral intolerance,” a Slate columnist relatedly contends — while another Slate item cites an unpublished study suggesting that the Hajj pilgrimage “may be helpful in curbing the spread of extremism in the Islamic world.”

Herd on the Street: “An 84-year-old former Army engineer was arrested for passing on defense secrets to Israel, including documents about nuclear weapons, between 1979 and 1985. What do you think?” The Onion’s peripatetic photographer asks of your fellow citizens. “Are they sure he passed on those secrets deliberately? I know some pretty loud Israelis,” glazer Josh Austin responds. “You mean someone was actually interested in our secrets? I find that flattering,” English teacher Lou McDonald exclaims. “Imagine the horrifying scenario that could have played out where Israel used our secrets to build their own weapons rather than buying them directly from us,” watch repair person Jessie Trank invites. Check also, on Onion Radio News:“Congress Calls For Removal Of Land Mines From Congress.”