A spike in online jihadist threats against U.S. warships in the Middle East include “ambitious calls” for terror attacks specifically on the Navy and sailors, Navy Times’ Philip Ewing reports — while The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz sees al Qaeda in Yemen “seeking data on naval nuclear weapons and Navy personnel and their families,” and The Memri Blog has a Kuwaiti paper reporting al Qaeda’s receipt of sophisticated anti-ship weapons from Somali mujahedeen. “The sad fact is such threats can not be expected to come solely from external sources,” IPT News notes.

Feds: Presidential adviser John O. Brennan “has emerged as a key promoter of dumping much of George Bush’s tough war policies and embracing the White House’s legalistic approach to terrorism,” Rowan Scarborough leads in Human Events. GOPers generally approve of Obama’s post-bomb-attempt intel improvements, “but they suggest more should be done, and hearings will give them a chance to say so,” The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier leads. Poor congressional oversight contributed to intel failures related to the Christmas Day bomb try, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton has the 9/11 Commission vice chairman charging — while a New York Times editorial bewails the 88 subcommittees claiming oversight over DHS, and see NPR’s Andrea Seabrook.

Homies: Following the post-underwear bomber review, Janet Napolitano announced five DHS actions to enhance aviation security, Courthouse News Service’s Travis Sanford relates — among them a surge in federal air marshals, despite “questions about the efficacy of the decades-old program,” Agence France-Presse’s Sara Hussein adds. “Picking on [DHS] might make sense if the latest attempted attack was the department’s fault — but it wasn’t,” James Jay Carafano exculpates in The Washington Times in re: the abuse rained on Napolitano, while Politico has Dems “plotting to protect” her. A man was arrested last week after flashing fake Secret Service credentials to bluff his way past security at HHS headquarters, The Associated Press reports. “At best, the TSA is a troubled agency. At worst? I don’t even want to go there,” The Washington Post’s Christopher Elliott blogs — while The New York Times’s Nina Bernstein documents a federal coverup of 107 immigrant deaths in ICE detention facilities since 2003.

State and local: The 12/25 airliner attempt won’t make it easier for the White House to win approval to relocate Guantanamo detainees to a little-used Illinois prison, The Chicago Tribune quotes a lawmaker. “To reduce the risk of similar communications breakdowns . . . in Connecticut,” that state’s governor has directed her homeland agency to review the declassified report on bomb attempt prevention snafus, Connecticut Plus relays. The Columbia, S.C., director of homeland security is leaving for a job with a private law-enforcement consultancy, The State relates. In a bid to keep illegal aerial fireworks out of Hawaii, a Honolulu Star-Bulletin columnist suggests seeking DHS funding “to improve our port and airmail security.”

Bugs ‘n bombs: A spending plan approved last month by President Obama shifts $609 million in this fiscal year from the Project Bioshield Special Reserve Fund, Global Security Newswire notes. “Policymakers need to get right to work on [bioterror preparedness] fixes. . . [T]errorists won’t give us six months’ warning,” The Orlando Sentinel adjures. “As for the much-vaunted risk of a terrorist getting a nuclear weapon . . . the chance must be not one in a hundred but one in millions,” The Guardian relates in a review of “Atomic Obsession” (Oxford University). A double-dealing North Korea apparently started a uranium enrichment program soon after it agreed in a 1994 deal with the United States to dismantle its existing plutonium nuclear weapons program, AP reports. A Taiwanese company agreed to a request from a firm in China to procure sensitive components with nuclear uses, then shipped them to Iran, CBS News relays.

Close air support: Sending two F-15 fighters to escort a Hawaii-bound plane with an unruly passenger back to Portland was an unusual move that likely cost tens of thousands of dollars, an expert tells The Oregonian — as The Colorado Springs Gazette has NORAD scrambling two F-16s to escort a drunk-plagued flight on Friday. Three Englishmen who uttered an intoxicated threat are being held after Brit police stormed a plane at Heathrow on Friday night, The Sun says. The mystery man who breached security at Newark Liberty last weekend, slowing air traffic globally, was busted Friday night, the Star-Ledger relates.“Simple common sense. That, perhaps above anything else, is what is so acutely missing from airport security,” Salon comments. TSA denies, meantime, it is specifically targeting female passengers wearing hijabs, but The Progressive isn’t buying it.

Full-body scamming: TSA now plans to order a total of 450 body-scanning machines, despite widespread reservations, The Wall Street Journal relates. “Here’s the sad reality: If we insist on preserving what little remains of our privacy, we will remain at risk of a terrorist attack. And if we give it up? Ditto,” a Reason reporter reasons in regard to full body scanning — as The New Republic asserts that even pat-downs won’t protect against “a threat that sounds even more absurd than an underwear bomb and that is also more alarming: the butt bomb,” and Alan Dershowitz claims in FrontPage Magazine that “we must have air marshals on every flight.” “The only way you’re going to detect explosives unambiguously is to use some kind of chemical sensor,” a Brit expert tells The Engineer.

Coming and going: CBP has launched a $2 million marketing campaign to remind Americans planning to attend next month’s Vancouver Winter Olympics about ID options for border crossings, USA Today records. “I think we’re not doing enough [for security] on our ports, we’re not doing enough on our rail, we’re not doing enough on our mass transit,” Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., tells The Springfield State Journal-Register. Citing security issues, the Navy has terminated a free ferry service across San Diego Bay to North Island Naval Air Station, the Union-Tribune tells. Beijing police figures, meanwhile, show that from last January to August, about 25,530 dangerous objects were found during subway security checks, China Daily relates.

Captain Underpants: A federal judge in Detroit entered a not guilty plea on Friday on behalf of the Nigerian would-be underwear bomber, Reuters reports. Despite arguments for militarizing terror prosecutions, “a review of four recent criminal cases suggests that old-school law enforcement tools have succeeded in unlocking some terrorists’ secrets,” the Post surveys — although The Sunday Telegraph has the underwear bomber “singing like a canary” before he lawyered up. Britain and Yemen are beefing over in which country the perpetrator was radicalized and recruited by al Qaeda, The Times of London relates.

Courts and rights: A Queens cab driver pleaded not guilty on Friday to involvement in a thwarted plot to bomb Gotham last year, The New York Daily News notes — while The New York Times has the FBI seizing the passport of another suspect in NYC. The lawyer representing the Fort Hood shooter has added a close relative of the accused from out of state to the defense team, Texas Lawyer tells — which team “is racing to collect evidence that could show their client is insane before a psychiatric evaluation is completed,” The Wall Street Journal adds. In the GOP’s Saturday radio address, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., touted legislation to prevent the trial of 9/11 plotters in Manhattan, NY1 reports.

Qaeda Qorner: In the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt, some wonder if the al Qaeda branch in Yemen might be connected to the al Qaeda sympathizers in Somalia, The Christian Science Monitor spotlights. “If you’re wondering why we only fear terrorism at airports, it’s because al Qaeda is failing,” an American Prospect contributor contends. A Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon is often accused of harboring al Qaeda and other jihadi groups . . . [but] Palestinian ‘popular committees’ that prevent penetration by radical elements are for now keeping al Qaeda out, Asia Times assesses. The New Yorker, finally, spotlights “an excellent academic study of American strategic communication toward al Qaeda.”

Over there: The Jordanian doctor/suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan says in a posthumous video he sought to avenge the drone-death of a Pakistani Taliban chief, CNN notes. Nigeria’s foreign minister denies his country is listed by Washington as a terrorist state, though the Nigerian Senate has demanded removal from a new list of 14 countries whose citizens deserve special airport scrutiny, The Punch reports. Two Florida solons want Venezuela added to that list of nations that require monitoring, The Miami Herald mentions — and check Foreign Policy’s take.

Health and Homeland Services: “In what some in the White House are calling a ‘win/win’ solution to the nation’s airport security and health care problems, starting next month U.S. airports will begin conducting full body scans that will double as annual physical checkups,” The Borowitz Report reports. “President Obama announced the breakthrough solution, telling reporters, ‘With this all-purpose exam, we will be able to find everything from a hidden weapon to a spot on your lung,’” Andy Borowitz writes. “After scanning a passenger, Obama said, ‘We will either give you a clean bill of health or wrestle you to the ground.’ The president added that instituting the body scan/checkup could ward off some terrorists right from the start, ‘because a lot of them will balk at the $25 co-pay.’ But according to Davis Logsdon, who studies terrorism and health care reform at the University of Minnesota, the body scans may attract more terrorists than they deter: ‘If there’s one complaint that terrorists have about al Qaeda it’s that they have lousy benefits.’”