LAPD Chief William J. Bratton believes Osama bin Laden might try to influence the pending election through an attack or some less dramatic tactic, the Los Angeles Times’ Joel Rubin reports — while CQ’s Rob Margetta hears the well-regarded Bratton eschewing interest in running DHS. Small surprise, a Washington Post story on an al Qaeda-linked Web site’s expressed preference for John McCain over Barack Obama has elicited “a lot of pushback” from the GOP bunker, The Chicago Tribune’s Frank James blogs. “So who would an Islamic radical vote for? Fortunately, there is no reason to care,” the Tribune’s Steve Chapman adds.

McBama Ocain: “It doesn’t really matter who is going to go in the White House next year. If there’s no intelligence on where [bin Laden is] located, then you can have Mickey Mouse in the White House,” a Delta Force Osama hunter tells Time Magazine’s Bobby Ghosh. While differing on the armed forces’ global role, both candidates advocate a bigger, more agile military that can tackle insurgencies and thwart terrorism, McClatchy Newspapers’ Nancy A. Youssef weighs. McCain “promises to create a more agile human spying service,” while Obama wants “more and better spies and an international security program targeting terrorists,” The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz similarly surveys. “Obama’s superior policy proposals together with his support for Israel make for a clear-cut argument in support of an Obama presidency,” Chaim Landau endorses in Yedioth Ahronoth.

Feds: Presidential succession was considered a settled issue before 9/11 demonstrated the potential disablement of both the legislative and executive branches, a new CRS Report leads. DHS has dedicated a massive biodefense lab in Maryland, “despite questions raised about the risks of deadly pathogens to be studied there,” the Post’s Nelson Hernandez notes — as The New York Times adjures on such labs: “The government clearly has a lot more work to do to ensure that dangerous materials cannot fall into terrorists’ hands.” An interim report from intelligence agency inspectors general on President Bush’s warrantless-surveillance program is classified, and the House intel panel chief doesn’t like it, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball lead. “Congress is asking: Should the United States have its own domestic intelligence agency?” CNN reports.

Chasing the dime: U.S. companies are up in arms over an arcane data-related CPB rule they say could cost $20 billion annually and force many out of business, The Hill reports. Muslims should take advantage of the slump to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles, Agence France-Presse quotes an influential Sunni cleric. Noting that imam’s endorsement of “jihad with money,” meantime, Family Security Matters urges that we “reject the insidious, seditious financial system known as sharia-compliant finance.” Designed to keep undocumented workers from getting jobs under government contracts, DHS’s E-Verify likely will soon be used by all companies inking state and federal contracts, The Deseret News notes — and see The Associated Press on Mike Chertoff’s renewed bid to surmount a judge’s barrier to E-Verifying all employers.

Bugs ‘n bombs: A U.S. Treasury office in Jersey City handled a “suspicious white powder” envelope Wednesday, The Jersey Journal relates. HHS officials early this month moved to shield public and private officials from lawsuits filed by anthrax vaccine recipients, Government Executive relates. The threat of nuclear terrorism “lies more in the realms of Hollywood dramas and terrorist dreams than in reality,” a RAND expert tells National Journal — but see a Heritage Backgrounder on electro-magnetic pulse attacks. Novel nuclear reactor designs could decrease the risk of nuclear fuel being diverted to nuclear weapons, Technology Review reviews — as an Energy official tells AP how enough processed uranium for six nuclear weapons was secretly transported from a research reactor in Budapest to a more secure facility in Russia.

Air turbulence: Talking Points Memo tells of a Muslim woman who surrendered her iPhone to a scamming Kennedy screener for “further inspection” only to have it walk out of her life forever. Also at JFK, JetBlue’s new digs are “one of the first airline terminals to be completely designed and built post-Sept.11, [making for] more efficient passenger and bag screening,” Cheapflights reviews. A joint terrorism task force will get dedicated space at Logan airport under a first-ever agreement inked with the FBI, The Boston Herald relates. The European Parliament yesterday renounced plans to allow privates-revealing full-body scanning at E.U. airports, Deutsche Welle records. Transport Canada has begun replacing all pilot’s licenses after an internal report termed the existing system at “high risk” for fraud and abuse, The Canadian Press reports.

Coming and going: More than 100 elected officials and EMS planners hit Bayonne, N.J. yesterday to endorse the state’s new port security plan, Bayonne Now notes — while The Cunningham Report has an Oakland tech summit urging a “comprehensive approach” to port security, and Washington Technology sees the Battelle Memorial Institute developing underwater imaging tech to scan the hulls of ships for weapons, mines and other threatening contraband. CBP is installing RFID technology at New York State border crossings, so expect travel delays, The Tonawanda News alerts. The murder retrial of an Arizona Border Patroller “also will put on trial the nation’s border security strategy,” The Tucson Citizen says. CBP recruiters, meanwhile, will be hitting El Paso and Albuquerque tomorrow for job fairs, The El Paso Times tells.

Courts and rights: A Utahan who knew his cousin was carrying ricin was handed two years probation and levied a $500 fine, The Deseret News notes. Supporters of a terror-accused American student want Justice to lift rules consigning him to pre-trial solitary confinement under restrictions reserved for the most dangerous criminals, AP reports. The next U.S. president will likely shut down Guantanamo but may decide to keep some prisoners indefinitely, Reuters quotes an unhappy U.N. rights envoy. At least six “petrol bombs” and five gas canisters were among the items recovered from the Jeep used in last year’s Glasgow airport attack, The Daily Record has a Brit court being told.

Over there: Suspected U.S. missiles struck a militant-linked religious school in Pakistan’s northwest and killed seven people Thursday, The Independent informs. Reacting to constant pressure from Washington, Pakistan’s leaders insist their own response to the terrorist threat has stepped up a notch, Time Magazine, relatedly, updates. Counterterrorists arrested five suspected jihadists for plotting to blow up Indonesia’s largest fuel depot, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer relays. Iran’s “most appropriate” deterrent against an attack on its nuclear facilities, besides “a retaliatory operation in the [Gulf] region, is to take action against London,” Memri quotes a Tehran securicrat — while Spiegel has a most wanted German terror suspect resurfacing in a video from Afghanistan. Canada’s conservative daily National Post wandered into a paranoid “9/11 truth” morass when an article on terror attack conspiracy theories in that country’s election campaigns was delayed by space limitations.

Kulture Kanyon: “Convicted killer Michael Stone stormed the Irish Parliament with enough homemade bombs to kill dozens in a rain of fire and nails. But it was all in the name of art, he says,” FOX News Allison Barrie leads. “Terrorism may be a much more alien phenomenon now [than in the 1960s-70s], but that hasn’t stopped fashion designers from experimenting with urban guerrilla wear,” The Times of London’s Bryan Appleyard essays. Tom Avitabile’s “The Eighth Day” (Borders) concerns a series of terror strikes: assassination of a senator, derailment of an 80-car train and obliteration of a Westchester tech firm, The Journal News’ Heather Salerno spotlights. Popular Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat on Tuesday urged Muslims to speak out against terrorism, Sindh Today tells. Artists Patrik and Frank Riklin recently transformed a Swiss nuclear shelter in the town of Sevelen into the world’s first “zero star” hotel, The Daily Mail’s Allan Hall hails.

Screen shots: It’s no accident that Cormac McCarthy conceived his post-apocalyptic novel, “The Road” (Knopf), “amid widespread terrorism, an energy crisis, extreme weather, and other threats,” the film version’s producers tell The Boston Globe. In “Cabaret,” an Egyptian film, “a terrorist group dispatches a suicide bomber to blow the club up. He gets drunk and is disoriented by the dazzling belly dancers. When it’s time to push the suicide belt button, the bomb fails to go off,” Bloomberg describes. Omar Bakri, the firebrand radical imam who left Britain for Beirut in 2005, sparked a terror alert at ITV studios by claiming that “The X Factor” is “anti Muslim” for releasing a charity single for British troops wounded in Afghanistan, The Daily Telegraph tells. “Body of Lies” (Warner Bros.) has “certainly a more nuanced view than most recent terrorism flicks. Absent are the stultifying chidings of ‘Lions for Lambs’ and gung-ho patriotism of ‘The Kingdom’ in favor of more slippery points of view,” The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot’s Wayne Melton muses.

Don’t cry for me, New Orleans: “After a three-year absence spent wallowing in guilt for killing several hundred Louisiana residents and leaving the city in shambles, Hurricane Katrina returned to New Orleans on Tuesday to beg the Crescent City for forgiveness, destroying everything in its path and killing hundreds,” The Onion reports. “’I’ve had a long time to think about what I’ve done to you all, and I realize now that it was wrong,’ Hurricane Katrina reportedly told residents. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have been coming in so fast, but I guess I didn’t know my own strength. A lot of people have blamed the levees, but if I’m truly honest, I knew they wouldn’t hold. It was stupid of me, and for that, I apologize.’ According to witnesses, the extremely remorseful 120-mile-wide storm was initially sighted off the Louisiana coast nervously rotating in circles and emitting long sighs that reached 115 mph. After several abandoned attempts to head inland, Hurricane Katrina reportedly gained enough strength and confidence to journey to the center of New Orleans to deliver a statement acknowledging its shame.”