DHS’s new “Manhattan Project” to bolster federal cybersecurity is so secretive, Senate homeland overseers have been reduced to writing a letter to beg for answers to the most basic questions, Threat Level’s Ryan Singel relates. America’s spy agencies for the first time would be tasked with gathering intel on threats to the nation’s computer networks under a policy that could be detailed by the White House as early as this week, The Washington Post’s Brian Krebs relatedly recounts.

Feds: The Lebanese immigrant who scammed her way into key CIA and FBI jobs worked on several counterterror probes, including the 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing, The Detroit Free Press’ David A. Shenfelter has her lawyer disclosing — while the Post’s Craig Whitlock suggests the unsatisfying Cole follow-up “offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government’s failure to bring al Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets.” If Congress does not approve an overhaul of the foreign intel act by Memorial Day, intelligence community officials will have to prepare dozens of individual surveillance warrants, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reminds. “There’s a move afoot on Capitol Hill to rein in some of the vast powers conferred upon government investigators by the Patriot Act,” Brian Beutler leads in Mother Jones — as The New York Times’ Nina Bernstein focuses the difficulty of getting information about the fate of people detained by ICE on immigration charges, even when they die.

War by other means: “Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain may protest that he hates war, but no American leader has promoted it more avidly,” Matthew Yglesias accuses in The American Prospect. “When that phone rings at 3 a.m. at the White House, what does a true red-blooded Madam President do? She calls her generals and orders them to ‘obliterate’ Iran. In other words: she orders the killing of 70 million people,” Pepe Escobar slams at a bellicose Hillary Clinton in Asia Times. Barack Obama, meanwhile, yesterday denounced “bluster and saber-rattling,” comparing Clinton’s tack on Iran to President Bush’s, The Associated Press’ Liz Sidoti adds, while his opponent stuck to her words. Clinton’s proposal to extend U.S. nuclear protection to friendly Arab nations against Iran’s atomic ambitions, driven by her bid to out-hawk Obama, draws mixed reviews from experts, the Post’s Glenn Kessler surveys.

Poly-ticks: In further endorsing Clinton’s bid, a columnist for the ultra-con Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which hounded her husband mercilessly for eight years, seriously urges that if successful, she form a “national unity Cabinet” to include gossip-monger Matt Drudge as DHS chief and CNN nag Lou Dobbs as Treasury secretary. Despite DHS’s promise to finish the border fence by the end of 2008, “its construction will more than likely extend into a new presidential administration, meaning that either Obama, Clinton or McCain will inherit the project,” TheCoastal Post suggests. Groups planning protests at the Dem convention filed suit Friday charging “the Secret Service and the City of Denver are threatening free speech — not because of tight security rules, but by the very lack of them,” The New York Times recounts. “The biggest threat that faces America is not found in Tehran or Baghdad,” but in Washington, D.C., Constitution Party prez candidate Chuck Baldwin tells WorldNetDaily, singling out, among other issues, a Patriot Act that “in essence eviscerated the Fourth Amendment.”

State and local: Experts say whether states can carve out penalties for immigration violations remains a murky point and even a DHS spokeswoman declined to enumerate what state governments can do, The Greenville (S.C.) News leads.Nearly seven years after 9/11, the largest charity established to help Pentagon-related victims and their families is closing, becoming the last major Sept. 11-related charity to shut down, the Post reports. Hawaiian state lawmakers last week failed to override Gov. Linda Lingle’s veto of a bill that would have restricted her powers to declare emergencies, The Honolulu Advertiser advises. A “suspicious vehicle” in the Fort Lewis Visitors’ Center parking lot prompted closing of the main gate and partial evacuation Friday, Seattle’s KOMO-TV 4 relates. “If a bomb goes off at a polling place and Grand Island (Neb.) police respond to find one dead, several injured, anthrax on one of the injured and a car containing more bomb-making materials, they’ll be prepared,” KOLN 1011 leads in re: a Thursday homeland exercise.

Water World: “All Wisconsin boaters may be required to carry photo identification as federal officials consider tighter security of the nation’s more than 17 million small vessels,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel alerts. “The role of recreational boaters in fighting terrorism is still evolving, but it deserves more serious consideration than Jay Leno’s joke about millions of fishermen with rifles,” Newsday insists — while a Seattle Times columnist counsels: “Make all the cracks you want, but don’t forget the U.S.S. Cole.”

Coming and going: California’s homeland security shop has handed $9 million dollars for “safety and security enhancements” to Metrolink, the southern California commuter network, The Los Angeles Daily News notes. A Mexican woman “has sneaked across the Mexican border at least 128 times in the past eight years. And each time, the Border Patrol has been nice enough to give her a lift home,” AP leads. In DHS’s “push to complete a 670-mile fence along the Mexican border, the agency’s bullying and intrusiveness are making us a bad neighbor,” The Miami Herald maintains — while The Dallas Morning News counters in grudging defense of the barrier: “The right choices are rarely the easiest ones to make.” The Brownsville Herald, meantime, finds the Cameron County (Texas) Commissioners voting tomorrow on joining an anti-fence lawsuit against DHS.

Air Wars: A former employee caused a security scare at Orlando’s airport when he was able to get into a secure baggage room, Sentinel says. DHS has extended the final compliance date for its Transportation Worker Identification Credential program by seven months, to next April 15th, UPI reports. TSA’s chief says that half of the cargo on U.S. passenger aircraft will be screened by February 2009, with more checks being made away from airports to increase efficiency, The Toronto Star relays. Speaking in the wake of a security scare that closed down Perth airport overnight, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister says he is satisfied with the current monitoring of airport security, denying any need for a review, The Australian recounts.

Bugs ‘n bombs: A suspected pipe bomb explosion damaged a door and blew out a window at the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego yesterday morning, the Union-Tribune tells. Despite directives about the perils of a terrorist getting hold of a chemical tanker truck, Phoenix’s 5 Investigates finds the warnings going unheeded by truck drivers. As labs conducting research on lethal pathogens, often suitable for biological warfare, spring up all over, citizens groups and pols are backing legislation to see that the work is carried out safely, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer informs — while The Boston Globe has an expert panel urging a deeper federal look at the security of Boston University’s own planned biolab. U.S. officials blame the Belarusian government for cyberattacks on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s broadcasting station in Minsk, United Press International informs.

Courts and rights: Rejecting the argument that a Canadian detainee was a child soldier when captured in Afghanistan and should be rehabilitated rather than prosecuted, a U.S. military judge has pushed his war crimes trial forward, The Toronto Star tells. The Bush administration could announce plans by the end of its term in January to close Guantanamo, for which an upcoming Supreme Court ruling might be the impetus, Reuters predicts. The Pakistan-born Muslim man who shot six at a Jewish center in 2006 “was not only uncomfortable with himself, but also with his family’s background,” The Seattle Times finds his brother testifying Friday. Open-court terror prosecutions have led to the “judicialization” of what has traditionally been considered covert info and to “some interesting and important debates on a range of legal issues,” The Ottawa Citizen quotes Canada’s spymaster.

Over there: High-ranking Shiite and Sunni leaders are preparing to issue a religious decree condemning suicide bombings and other forms of violence, USA Today tells. A U.S. sociologist warns Britain’s Sky News that radical Islamist movements are using the same brainwashing techniques often used by other religious cults to control the minds of their followers. Pro-Taliban groups and al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan are increasingly recognized as one of the main drivers of Islamist extremism in the European Union, Thaindian News cites from a new report. A motorcycle bomb killed at least 18 worshippers outside a Shiite mosque in rebellious northern Yemen, AP says — while the Iranian-backed Lebanon-based Hezbollah group said Friday it prides itself on appearing on the U.S. terrorist list, Deutsche Presse Agentur relates.

Their Favorite Martians: “In an astonishing announcement, NASA has revealed that the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity have discovered irrefutable evidence of life past and present on the red planet,” The Spoof spoofs. “The proof of past life is a black fountain of bubbling crude oil that welled up from beneath the ground within five feet of Spirit on Tuesday. Subsequent surveillance by the Mars Global Surveyor has indicated a deep, rich pocket of oil beneath Spirit’s location in the Columbian Hills,” Gene Mason writes. “More unfortunately, NASA officials revealed, the Mars Rover Opportunity has simultaneously uncovered proof of present Martian life: the Meridiani Planum hideout of a democracy-hating tyrant and a band of evil terrorists with a stockpile of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. ‘That pretty much settles it," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates at an emergency press conference at the Pentagon. ‘If we don’t fight them up there, we’ll have to fight them here.’”