“The potential lethality of anthrax in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct [U.S. bio-arsenal],” weapons inspector Richard Spertzel writes in a Wall Street Journal piece terming Bruce Ivins an unlikely culprit in the 2001 mailings — and check Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on House intel panel big Rush Holt’s suspicions. “There could be another Bruce Ivins lurking in a biodefense laboratory anywhere in America,” The Associated Press’ Larry Margasak and David Dishneau alert — while Danger Room’s Noah Schachtman suggests the proliferation of biodefense labs means “an accident or a malicious insider is more likely to cause serious damage than nearly any bioterrorist.”

Feds: Police found a map of Camp David marked with a presidential motorcade route in the Maryland home of a detained teen at the center of a bomb-making probe, The Washington Post’s Dan Morse reports. Tuesday was the inaugural day of a new ICE program urging fugitive illegal immigrants to turn themselves in, The Charlotte Observer’s Franco Ordonez spotlights. DHS’s Mike Chertoff was in Alameda, Calif., on Monday to help commission the Coast Guard’s first national security cutter, The San Jose Mercury News notes. FEMA still struggles vainly to secure its info-tech systems, Federal Computer Week’s Alice Lipowicz has an internal audit showing. The Pentagon is closing a controversial intel office that sparked concerns about post-9/11 domestic spying by the military, Reuters’ Randall Mikkelsen reports.

Third parties: “The list of differences between Obama and Batman is long,” Paul Ibrahim hazards for North Star Writers Group, noting, e.g., that “Batman did not mind using physical pain to get life-saving information out of criminals.” On the issues central to a Middle East peace, Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama, “if they are elected, will just have to duke it out before Congress,” Ted Belman predicts for Global Politician. What “with global terrorism” and all, Condoleezza Rice’s “afternoon of words and music” at the Aspen Institute only “helped Obama,” Brad Hirschfield bristles on Beliefnet. In their discussions of various security issues, “Obama and Rice have come to have a certain respect for each other,” Time Magazine’s Massimo Calabresi reveals — and then gauges unhappy reactions to this intelligence from both Dems and Reps.

Jarack McBama: “Would Obama’s administration continue to build a fence along hundreds of miles of Texas’ border with Mexico?” The Houston Chroniclequeries. “Obama’s brain trust wants to form a commission on torture and call Bush officials as witnesses, but put off prosecutions — if any — til a second term,” Salon spotlights. The Pentagon-contracted report calling for less terror war and more law enforcement “pulls the rug from under John McCain,” The People’s Voice screeches — while a Los Angeles Times blog has a Pew poll showing McCain’s advantage on terrorism as a bit smaller than a month back. “He’ll talk about the Iraq War, gas prices and terrorism. But don’t look to John McCain to weigh in on the Brett Favre saga,” AP leads.

State and local: “We need people to be vigilant and to look for things that don’t seem right,” the FBI’s new top dog in Denver, ground zero for the Dem convention, tells CBS 4 — while the Twin Cities’ WCCO has St. Paul police recruiting 3,500 officers statewide for the GOP gathering. Ohio’s Butler County boasts the only Midwestern police agency participating in a program training local officers to enforce federal immigration law, The Dayton Daily News notes. The Border Patrol’s new station near Scobey, Mont. is an improvement over the one-room shack it replaced, The Billings Gazette spotlights — while The Missouliancharts a Montana remote-sensing start-up’s frustration that it “can’t get the attention of DHS.” Cities and townships across east Kansas are investing in terrorism insurance, The Lawrence Journal-World relates.

Follow the money: “We are seeing less cash leaving airports but more bulk cash smuggling throughout the borders,” a Treasury agent tells moneylaundering.com — while the International Analyst Network expatiates on “a global ideological and political movement supported by a parallel ‘Islamic’ financial system to exploit and undermine Western economies.” Ex-“public diplomat” Karen Hughes funneled millions “to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases,” Newsmax cites from House testimony. India plans to “send its tax sleuths to the United States for training on how to choke the financial arteries of jihadis,” The Times of Indiainforms. An IRA victim group is furious that Libya will compensate U.S. terror victims under a new immunity deal but not in other jurisdictions — like, say, Ireland, The Belfast Telegraph tells. President Bush signed legislation Monday allowing State to settle all remaining lawsuits against Libya by U.S. terror victims, FOX News relays.

Bugs ‘n bombs: The Raleigh City Council adopted a measure yesterday opposing locating a DHS bio-lab in North Carolina, the News & Observer notes. Suburban fire departments are “often too small to safely fight a house fire on their own, yet compelled to maintain expensive equipment they rarely need,” The Cincinnati Enquirer surveys. One of New York’s Finest “lies partially paralyzed after nearly drowning while on a Joint Terrorist Task Force,” The New York Daily News profiles. “Every day that goes by allows Iran to increase the threat it poses, and the viability of the military option steadily declines,” John Bolton asserts in The Wall Street Journal — as New Scientist reviews five disasters with a human cause, focusing “on sudden, short-term events rather than protracted environmental catastrophes.”

Cyberia: With terrorists announcing strike plans via Internet, Indian police “are seriously planning to formulate rules and regulations for cyber cafes,” The Times of India tells — while the Terrorism Research Centerhas New Delhi’s counterterrorists failing to attribute e-mail messages warning of the July 28 Ahmedabad blasts. Once a foe “jammed your radio transmissions. Now he hacks into your computer network,” The Providence Journal surveys. Cyber-evildoers are adopting new automation techniques allowing them to exploit vulnerabilities much faster than ever, Homeland Security Daily Wire relays. President Bush’s National Cyber Security Center remains shrouded in secrecy, with no word about its budget, mission or contractor involvement, CNet News spotlights. A futurist predicts “an act of cyberterrorism in the next 10 years [that] will prompt the U.S. government to clamp down on Internet freedoms in an online parallel to the Patriot Act,” Techland tells.

At the bar: A potential mistrial was avoided in the first terror tribunal yesterday when the judge ruled it too late for the prosecution to challenge his war crimes instructions to the military jury, Reuters reports — while The Miami Herald has the accused getting to phone his wife and kids in their native Yemen. Shifting focus from the wider terror fight, Guantanamo interrogators now mostly ask detainees about activity inside the prison, AP learns. In hopes of encouraging better behavior among detainees, parts of Gitmo will be gradually transformed to allow some to eat, visit, and exercise together, the L.A. Times spotlights. A Pakistani scientist was charged Monday with trying to kill American soldiers and FBI agents in a police station in Afghanistan last month, The New York Times tells — while Reuters has Pakistan demanding consular access to the woman. An accused Spanish arms dealer seeks release from American custody, arguing that his capture by on Spanish soil violated international law, The New York Sun says.

Rights and wrongs: “The enduring legacy of Nuremberg was an international movement to outlaw crimes against humanity . . . What will the legacy of [the terror] war-crimes trials be?” a Times contributor wonders. “Don’t believe the critics who say justice isn’t being done,” a Wall Street Journalop-ed adjures — as The Jurist frets that “familiar features” of procedure risk “are lulling a public far removed from the courtroom into a false sense of vindicating justice.” An experienced anti-terrorism prosecutor was unhired in 2006 — and a tyro installed instead — because his wife happened to be a Democrat, The Houston Chronicle recounts from the IG report on Justice Department politicization. “Neither the laws of war nor ordinary criminal laws are suited for the struggle against al Qaeda . . . America needs a new, hybrid set of rules,” The Economist summarizes in a review of “Law and the Long War” (Brookings).

Over there: U.S. objectives in Afghanistan have become increasingly uncertain in a conflict where Taliban leaders feel no need to control territory, the Times surveys — as The Daily Telegraph rues that “in Afghanistan, even our successes are failures.” Not addressing the Pakistani frontier, “and continuing to allow a sanctuary for terrorists to exist, may one day result in the loss of American lives,” a bipartisan brace of Housemembers comment in The Houston Chronicle. “Terrorism has the potential to destroy Kenya completely,” an op-ed in Nairobi’s Daily Nationflatly insists. Funds supposedly given to an alleged Muslim terror cell may have been nothing more than a payment for an international phone card, The Australian has a massive Sydney terror trial being told. China yesterday guaranteed a safe Olympics, while announcing that Islamic militants were trying to wage a holy war against the games, Agence France-Presse reports.

Black helicopter time: “After presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama gave a ‘victory’ speech to 200,000 cheering and adoring Germans last week, several members of the United Nations’ European delegation are threatening economic sanctions against the United States this November if voters do not elect Obama president,” CAP News notes. “’This is your last chance America,’ declared German diplomat Horst Wollenweber. ‘We put up with your movie stars, your cowboys, now you are threatening us with your old G.I. Joe guy. We’re sick of it. Besides, we really, really like this Obama character.’ While Obama smugly dismissed the German infatuation with him as he softly hummed ‘99 Luft Balloons,’ Republican presumptive nominee John McCain blamed media bias for the foreign love affair with his opponent. ‘Where were they when I was giving a speech to 200,000 people in Germany?’ he asked.” See also, on Ridiculopathy: “Obama’s Popularity Leads to Inevitable Hitler Comparisons.”