Reporting about the late alleged 2001 anthrax mailings perpetrator’s instability is based on a complaint filed by a recently graduated social worker whose own history raises credibility questions, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald cautions. Since 9/11, the feds have spent more than $57 billion to shoring up bioterror defenses, while reaping “only modest gains,” The Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu reports — as The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman IDs this threat as “one of the top concerns of security officials.”

Feds: DHS seeks to bypass a congressional mandate that fed-funded port security equipment be purchased from American companies, The Baltimore Sun’s Bradley Olson and Michael Dresser reveal. “Seven years after 9/11, and three years after Katrina, DHS releases the U.S. first strategic plan aimed at improving emergency response communications,” Homeland Security Daily Wire leads. As Border Patrol “funds have been diverted to terrorism fighting, missions have changed — or must,” Rekha Basu asserts in The Burlington Free Press. Justice’s National Security Division says it has “has dramatically broadened the scope” of its civil liberties oversight in homeland cases, Secrecy News’ Steven Aftergood spotlights. The United States could possess hundreds or thousands of hours of secret taped conversations between detainees and representatives from nearly three dozen countries, the Post’s Josh White reveals.

McBama: Arab “skeptics see both John McCain and Barack Obama as ardent supporters of Israel . . . and as committed to U.S. success in Afghanistan regardless of the costs,” Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara handicaps. Obama “would be the terrorists’ best friends, would water down the Patriot Act, and would make it impossible to fight the war on terrorism,” The Philadelphia Bulletin’s Herb Denenberg blasts. “McCain needs to make voters afraid of Obama . . . by hitting him on the two fronts where it would really hurt — the economy and national security,” ex-Dem consultant Dick Morris urges on FOX News. “Before the November election there will be an October Surprise: a serious act of terrorism on American soil, the bombing of Iran, or an Israel-Iran war,” a Huffington Post’s Black Fleetwood predicts.

Stump logistics: McCain could offer a team of tested leaders for tough times by choosing maiden DHS secretary Tom Ridge as veep, The Houston Chronicle surveys. Should Ridge be tapped, The New York Sun adds, Dems would likely pick on his DHS record and Bush ties, rather than his Pennsylvania governorship. “The so-called culture wars have shifted away from social issues to war, terrorism and national security,” an Asia Times analysis suggests. Protesters and police expect the opening day of next month’s four-day GOP convention in St. Paul “to be the biggest — with a huge anti-war march,” AP reports. The Detroit Free Press, meantime, urges the renomination of Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick because “she is well-positioned to secure federal support for transit and Homeland Security projects in the region.”

State and local: Thirteen nonprofits across New Jersey — including a rabbinical college — are getting state “target hardening” funds, The Parsippany Daily Record records. Three Rhode Island cities have spent port security and urban area grants on purchasing identical 34-foot fire boats, The Providence Journal relates — while CNN sees FEMA defending its handling of millions in hurricane supplies in 2005 but pledging to check with states before any future giveaways. A new helicopter and Homeland Security have moved Alabama’s state troopers into the search and rescue business, The Birmingham News notes. Caring for those suffering from 9/11-related sicknesses is a national responsibility, Newsday has New York’s mayor testifying last week.

Bid-ness: The late government biodefense scientist linked to the 2001 anthrax mailings stood to gain as co-inventor of a vaccine, the Los Angeles Times reveals.With military budgets stagnating or falling, defense contractors are refocusing on a rapidly expanding security arena, Financial Times tells.“Anyone who thinks Blackwater is in serious trouble is dead wrong. Business has never been better,” a Nation contributor counters. The Government Training Institute — specializing in training for anti-terrorism, terror counter-measures and such — is relocating from Idaho to South Carolina, The Orangeburg Times and Democrat tells. Asking lawmakers to not seize upon cargo security for political advantage, shippers say the cost of TSA compliance “may break the bank,” Logistics Management relates. “Iraq’s government is beginning to promote tourism. It will be a tough sell. Even if officials can grab some attention, tourism facilities are shabby,” The Associated Press — rather obviously — reports.

Bugs ‘n bombs: A man hospitalized in Las Vegas earlier this year after being poisoned by ricin pleaded guilty Monday to possessing the deadly toxin, Agence France-Presse reports. A three-hour exercise Saturday helped 300 Baltimore responders prepare for a terror attack involving a simulated nuclear weapon, The Baltimore Sun says — while New York’s WNBC 4 has the Jersey City bomb squad called out to inspect a suspicious truck headed towards Ellis Island. A woman was arrested for claiming there was a bomb in her car at a California DMV office, The San Diego Union-Tribune tells — while Xinhua has a Chinese shopaholic behind bars for bomb hoaxing a department store because he was unable to pay his credit card bill. Recent events have reignited the debate whether the boom in biodefense research has made the country less secure by increasing access to dangerous germs, the Post surveys.

Coming and going: The pilot in a July 28 plane crash that injured three in East Texas had no flying license, renewing questions about oversight of pilot certification, AP reports. The Tyler Morning Telegraph, relatedly, has lawmakers “demanding answers from several federal agencies regarding general aviation in America.” Planes departing Ireland’s Shannon Airport for the United States may be scanned for nuclear devices, as part of the pre-clearance of private aircraft transiting through to America, The Cork Post reports. “If I were a tourist, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to come here and go through that,” a poster on The Road writes of his reception from CBP upon re-entering from Canada.

Border wars: CBP officers are on the alert for individuals with U.S. or E.U. ties who possibly attended Islamic religious schools in Pakistan, The Houston Chronicle recounts — as AHN notes that border agents at Toronto’s airport will be trained to exhibit more sensitivity towards Middle Eastern and Islamic passengers. Civil libertarians warn Rhode Island’s judiciary against encouraging companies that clean the state’s courthouses to screen current workers through DHS’s E-Verify database, The Providence Journal reports. A Northern Virginia think-tank is suspected of being a pivotal cog in the Muslim Brotherhood’s high command in America, IPT News has newly released federal law enforcement records indicating.

Talking terror: The United States “should not grant special treatment to those hostile to our values. In facing the challenge of jihadist terrorism, we need to be able to name and discuss the enemy’s ideology,” IPT News’ Jeffrey Imm essays. “The ‘War on Terror’ is merely the War on Communism by another name,” William Bowles blasts in The Pacific Free Press. “Seven years after 9/11, many American people still . . . have not learned the lessons that the war in Iraq teaches. In the nonconventional, asymmetrical war against international terrorism, our strongest weapon is international cooperation,” Tony Correlli comments in OpEdNews. “Don’t be too alarmed by the apparent high level of support for Osama bin Laden in the Muslim world. Such support is soft, and can be made softer still with the right policies,” Kenneth Ballen adjures in The Washington Monthly.

Winning-losing: “As the Bush administration slips into history, it is clear that what began on Sept. 11, 2001, as a battle for America’s security became, and continues to be, a battle for the country’s soul,” Jane Mayer maintains in The New York Review of Books. “In fairness, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare that followed, who could not have imagined the worst and contemplated extraordinary efforts to prevent it?” Alan Brinkley concedes in a New York Times review. “We are winning the war on terror, in fact we’ve almost won the war on terror,” the Heritage Foundation’s James Jay Carafano assures The Christian Science Monitor’s Alexandra Marks. “With the Iraq war now winding down, two questions need re-asking. What is the goal of the war on terror? How will we know if we’ve won?” a USA Today editorial inquires.

Bar chat: “Changing lug nuts and oil filters” were hardly war crimes, Reuters quotes Osama bin Laden’s ex-driver’s defense in closing arguments at Guantanamo yesterday — while AP has prosecutors saying the defendant offered “aid and protection that helped make the Sept. 11 attacks possible.” The case is now before the jury, the Post adds. As yet unannounced is how Salim Hamdan — if convicted — can be incarcerated separately from his fellow prisoners while avoiding “potentially decades of extreme isolation,” Reuters spotlights — even as AP hears Guantanamo’s commander saying Hamdan could be held indefinitely regardless of the verdict. Daily online transcripts of testimony in next month’s Fort Dix terror trial will be provided, but defense lawyers can’t challenge details in a classified affidavit, The Philadelphia Daily News notes. Kenya has charged three for aiding the escape of an al Qaeda operative wanted in the 1998 U.S. embassy attacks, Reuters reports.

Homeland ‘time horizon’: “A defiant President Bush vowed today not to negotiate with Congress about setting a date for withdrawing his administration from the White House,’” Unconfirmed Sources confirms. “’Now, some [Dem lawmakers] believe that by demanding that I leave the White House, they can force our commanders in Iraq to withdraw,’ Bush said. ‘That’s not going to happen. If Congress forces me from the White House after the election, the American people will know who to hold responsible. Here’s the bottom line. Setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal from the White House will only embolden the Democrats. And I have made it clear for weeks I’m not leaving.’” Listen also, on Onion Radio News, to: “McCain Vows To Withdraw All Troops From The U.S.,” and on the plain old Onion: “FBI Seizes Massive Anthrax Stockpile.”