Al Qaeda can be defeated if the United States relies less on force and more on intel and policing to find its leaders, BBC News cites a RAND Corp. report. One of the two candidates’ “most overarching, if seemingly subtle, differences comes in setting the priority that should be given to what the current president calls the war on terrorism,” The San Diego Union-Tribune’s George E. Condon Jr. suggests.

Feds: A recent report from DHS’s IG fingers the department’s still inadequate precautions to protect sensitive information, Network World’s Richard Stiennon blogs — while IDG News Service’s Grant Gross has a GAO report showing that only 30 percent of sensitive information stored on federal laptops and mobile devices as of last fall was encrypted. CIA officers recently confronted Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt relate.

Obama-rama: “Rather than allowing himself to be painted as too weak to stand up to terrorism, Obama is redefining the terms of debate,” The National Interest’s Jacob Heilbrunn contends. “Lest we forget, it was the Taliban . . . who offered training and support to the 9/11 hijackers,” a Dem House candidate in Tennessee tells The Greeneville Sun, echoing Obama’s Afghanistan first focus. “Afghanistan threatens to become Obama’s Vietnam,” Monthly Reviewquotes Germany’s Left Party. “To pursue the battle against al Qaeda by military means is to awaken powerful tribal and Muslim resentments,” Patrick Seale warns in Gulf Newsof Obama’s strategy.

Poly-ticks: Mulling a putative Obama cabinet “dream team,” The Toronto Star taps Clinton-era FEMA chief James Lee Witt to return and “liberate the neglected agency from the bureaucratic morass of Homeland Security.” In 2004, the “terror/Iraq/homeland-security brew” motivated defecting “white middle-mass” Dem voters; for the GOP this year, Obama’s race means “silence and some immigrant bashing” could be even more effective, The Huffington Post predicts. Andrew Rice, a Dem vying unsuccessfully in yesterday’s Oklahoma primary to run against Sen. Jim Inhofe, lost his older brother, David, in the 9/11 attack on New York City, The Enid News and Eagle notes.

State and local: “Federal, state and local officials say Colorado’s DHS is no longer a disaster, but the real test will come during the Democratic National Convention,” Denver’s KUSA-TV 9 notes — and see The Rocky Mountain News.“Even as 16 New Hampshire National Guardsmen were honored for their service in Afghanistan,” plans to send more local Guards to two war zones are in the works, The Manchester Union-Leader relates — while The Charleston Daily Mail relays word that West Virginia Air Guards are off to Baghdad as MPs. “It’s gotta be better than Kentucky,” a laid-off welder attending a Border Patrol job fair tells the Louisville Courier-Journal, while The Tennessean has the patrol “continuing its press to dramatically increase its ranks by the end of the year — a presidential mandate — with another recruiting stop in Nashville.”

Follow the money: “Terrorist groups are increasingly in need of new sources of funds. The drug business fills this need perfectly,” a DEA official discusses in a WINEP PolicyWatch report. Dallas lawyers for a Muslim charity want to delay a new terror finance trial, saying they aren’t paid enough to present a good defense, The Fort Worth Star-Telegramrelates. U.K. Hindu groups want a probe into reports about British charities suspected of sending funds to terrorist groups in Pakistan sponsoring attacks in India, The Economic Times tells — while the Times of India probes linkages between recent bombings and jihadi cells circulating counterfeit currency. “With the Provisional IRA’s killing machine dismantled, the focus has switched to turning off the republican movement’s money machine,” The Times of London surveys. A Muslim charity has canceled a fundraising appeal for Palestinians linking it to an aid group banned in Australia for alleged terror ties, The Australian informs.

Bugs ‘n bombs: Vets and responders met in Topeka last weekend “to learn more about victims often overlooked in disasters — pets and other animals,” the Capitol-Journal recounts. “How many more women have to blow themselves up before we get the message? Female suicide bombing is a logical extension of suicide bombing,” Slate insists. “Embedded chips were used as a timer to trigger all the synchronized explosions in Bangalore last weekend,” The Hindu relates. A U.S. missile strike on a Pakistani madrassa Monday likely targeted an al Qaeda biochemical weapons expert, Reuters learns — though The Counterterrorism Blog had this same Abu Khabab al-Masri being killed by a U.S. missile strike in January 2006.

Terror tech: Even as surveillance cameras spread, “most research studies have found little proof of their effectiveness in combating crime,” The Buffalo News leads. The MQ-9 Reaper, successor to the famed Predator drone, is helping the Air Force maintain 24 separate around-the-clock drone orbits over “war on terror” battlefronts, Danger Room spotlights. China was accused of sponsoring cyberterrorism at a U.K. Home Office-convened conference, vnunet.comrecounts. As the Internet’s global grip tightens, “the military is considering how to better handle threats posed by attacks through it,” The St. Claire County Journal reports from an Illinois conference. Indian authorities have decided to believe an American living in Mumbai, from whose computer was sent warning of last weekend’s deadly bombings, when he says his machine must have been hacked, Daily News & Analysis notes. A toy design studio that makes rockets powered by burning hydrogen obtained by electrolyzing water is being funded by the U.S. army to fire bullets instead, New Scientist notes.

Strange Science: Fueled with $50 million each for convention security, the two parties’ securicrats are assembling an armamentarium of “science fiction-like” crowd control devices, including sonic-ray and goo guns, Raw Story cites a CNN piece — which account The Rocky Mountain News has Denver officials denying. “Despite longstanding reports and rumors, the FBI was not involved in searching Nikola Tesla’s effects . . . which were thought to include plans for . . . a ‘death ray’,” Threat Level quotes the bureau. “Nuclear weapons could be used to stop earth-bound asteroids, but in most instances, they are not the best option,” Wired Science helpfully quotes Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart. Another ex-NASA flyboy, meanwhile, claims that alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades, Defense Tech tells. “Skepticism about UFO’s may render us vulnerable to terrorists or espionage against the United States,” a New York Times contributor, relatedly, comments.

Coming and going: Imagine the security concerns that might one day be fanned by the just-floated Martin Jetpack, spotlighted on MSNBC. TSA denies to Austin’s KXAN News that checkpoint “behavioral detection” involves profiling, saying the BDO’s are also instructed in cultural sensitivity. Nashville airport has consolidated its concourse screening areas into one central checkpoint to boost processing times, Nashville Business News notes. TSA is having a tough time convincing passengers to test-run a new shoes-on shoe-scanner, The Press of Atlantic City reports. Despite a weak dollar, foreign visits to the United States remain down, “with reasons ranging from perceptions of close scrutiny at airports to the residual impact of a poor U.S. image abroad,” The Christian Science Monitormentions.

Border wars: Nearly two weeks after ICE arrested dozens of suspected illegals who clean Rhode Island’s courthouses, lawyers are still not sure where all of them are being held, The Providence Journal reports — while The Columbus Dispatch has Ohio’s DMV tightening its identification requirements to register vehicles. Thanks to immigration arrests, the Beaufort County jail is setting records for the most prisoners it has ever held, The Columbia (S.C.) State says. “More questions are being raised about Canada’s border security as additional details surface about a drug trafficking ring that gives new meaning to free trade,” The Montreal Gazette leads.

Courts and rights: A federal judge in Virginia plans to review the grand jury record that led to criminal contempt charges of a Palestinian Arab activist Sami Al-Arian, The New York Sun says. Osama bin Laden wanted to introduce himself to America in an ABC News interview months before al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa, Reuters has a witness saying at his driver’s Guantanamo tribunal. A German court has denied early release to a former left-wing terrorist serving life for killing a U.S. soldier and a civilian employee in a 1985 base bombing, Deutsche Welle records — while The Press Associationhas Britain’s High Court rejecting three Tunisians’ appeal against extradition to Italy for fear of possible torture there, and Agence France Presse sees a Sudanese court sentencing eight Darfur rebels to death on terror charges.

Over there: French judicial officials say 12 suspected members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party have been ordered to stand trial in France, The International Herald Tribune relays. Ten alleged militants arrested this month planned to assassinate an American teacher in Indonesia and avenge the upcoming executions of the Bali nightclub bombers, AP reports. A Web video from an al Qaeda commander who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan urges Muslims to kill the Saudi king for leading an interfaith conference, Reuters reports. Sunday’s bomb attack in Istanbul that killed 17 comes at a particularly fractious time for that determinedly secular Muslim nation, The Christian Science Monitor surveys.

Simmering debate: “The National Intelligence Council recently addressed Congress to discuss the security threats that need to be considered in the face of global warming. What risks are expected to be aggravated by global warming?” an Onion Infographic asks, listing the following considerations: “Military protection fails when sun-drenched artillery far too hot to handle with bare hands; Invasion might catch America off guard while it’s cooling down in a movie theater; Glaciers embittered by the rising temperatures may stage revenge ‘suicide meltings’ on innocent civilians; Frozen Mongol warriors may be defrosted and angry; Too muggy to tell if terrorists have attacked; Heatstroke affecting thousands of security officials, allowing millions of 3-ounce gels to enter aircraft unnoticed; Increased precipitation will allow terrorists to conduct activity more surreptitiously under large umbrellas; and Natural disaster could occur on 9/11, dividing nation’s patriotic sentiment.”