By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

In a deal with Clear Channel Outdoor, the FBI is to use a nationwide network of digital billboards to flash messages about crimes in progress and “high security” alerts about homeland security, The Guardian’s Mark Sweney mentions. The FBI is making a new stab at identifying D.B. Cooper, the mysterious skyjacker who bailed out of an airliner in 1971 and vanished with $200,000, The Columbian recounts. In a New York Times op-ed yesterday, the 9/11 commission chairs accuse the CIA of obstruction for failing to pony up since destroyed terror interrogation tapes, Agence France-Presserelates.

Feds: As to which Justice yesterday opened a full investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing associated with that incident, the Los Angeles Times’s Richard B. Schmitt reports — while The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Lattman blogs about the let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may rep cultivated by the outside prosecutor assigned the case. Two Washington-basedunions have recently established chapters in Atlanta — and Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico - to represent TSA screeners in their bid for collective bargaining rights, the Journal-Constitution’s Jim Tharpe recounts. Afederal appeals court Friday set aside a landmark $156 million judgment against Muslim fundraisers awarded to the family of an American teenager killed in a 1996 West Bank terrorist attack, The Chicago Tribune tells.

Year in Review: “By any measure, 2007 was not the best year for homeland security in Congress,” James Jay Carafano judges in a Heritage WebMemo offering “five New Year’s resolutions” for improvement. Developments in the Muslim world and in the affairs of al Qaeda and its allies suggest it has been a mixed year for the group, but it depends on how one looks at the data, ex-CIAer Michael Scheuer assesses in Terrorism Focus. “ Terrorism analysts universally regarded 2006 as a disaster; 2007 has been a far better year,” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Kyle Dabruzzi survey for The National Review — and see Homeland Security Watch for Jonah Czerwinski’s “2008 wish list.” It was “a big year for border security,” The Associated Press’ Arthur H. Rotstein — rather needlessly — reports.

Poly-ticks: For Dems, oddly, “attacking the Bush doctrine is proving somewhat treacherous territory,” while their GOP counterparts “have tried to sound more hawkish than the man for whom the doctrine is named,” The New York Times’ David E. Sanger analyzes. The leitmotif of the Republican campaigns is to “proclaim concern over porous borders and accuse opponents of insufficient vigilance,” The Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman spotlights. “Permanent bases [in the Arab world] just mean that we have expanded the opportunity for the terrorists to come here,” GOP libertarian Ron Paul tells The Lang Report. “Most Americans know the forces of terrorism will not rest until a mushroom cloud hangs over one of our cities,” WorldNetDaily quotes GOP “Law and Order” candidate Fred Thompson. Dem John Edwards, meantime, advocates a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal from Iraq than his principal rivals, the Times’ Michael R. Gordon learns in an interview.

It’s Giuliani Time: Among other measures, a four-point war plan unveiled by flagging GOPer Rudy Giuliani yesterday calls for “a new war on al Qaeda's intricate network of Web sites,” The New York Sun says. The ex-NYC mayor’s “incessant recollections” of 9/11 and ads “promoting the valor of rescue workers (and by extension, his own) seem as outdated as a Gore pitch about Medicare,” an Indianapolis Star op-ed objects. “A Giuliani administration would put the ‘war on terror’ front and center and keep it there. His domestic priorities are much harder to decipher,” The Poughkeepsie Journal opines. Given “Giuliani’s tendency to conflate all terrorist groups—whether Islamist or not and whether they attack the United States or just allies like Israel . . . sending him and his team to the White House might actually ignite World War IV,” The American Conservative comments — and see City Journal for Giuliani’s “The Resilient Society: A blueprint for homeland security.”

State and local: Addressing expected DHS cuts, a Mesa city securicrat argues that “residents are benefiting from the addition of lifesaving equipment obtained from grants that the city otherwise couldn't afford,” The Arizona Republic reports. Frederick, Md., cops, meanwhile, are tapping DHS monies to equip at least five patrol cars with digital video cameras, the News-Post reports. Colorado has not done enough to ensure that local fire and police departments are trained to respond to terrorist attacks, The Denver Post quotes from a pending DHS IG report. Delaware officials want residents to add one more New Year's resolution to the usual list: emergency preparedness, The Wilmington News Journal notes. A majority of states are reporting a significant depletion of their National Guard forces to respond to local man-made and natural disasters, The Washington Times cites from a governors’ report.

School Daze: When Baltimore’s Homeland Security Academy decreed a school uniform of royal blue polos last fall, gang fights broke out between Bloods and Crips, The Baltimore Sun says — as NPR broadcasts yet another profile of the homeland security curriculum at that state’s Joppatowne High School. Florida's university system has told a federal judge to throw out part of a state law that bans colleges from spending money to send professors to Cuba and other “state sponsors” of terrorism, The Miami Herald mentions — while Tampa’s 10 News notes that the University of South Florida is still “taking hits for housing three students with alleged terrorist ties.” The University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Spectator Sports Security Management, meantime, exists to teach and preach the concerns that face event managers in the post-9/11 era, AP profiles.

Bugs ‘n bombs: Suspicious packages containing white powder temporarily shuttered the U.S., U.K. and Israeli embassies and discombobulated Australia’s capital yesterday, The Canberra Times tells. Health officials are seeking dozens of airline passengers who may have encountered a 30-year-old woman infected with drug-resistant TB on a flight from India, AP reports. The just-inked Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act “falls far short of the strict law that some in the counter-terrorism community and federal law enforcement were hoping,” the Los Angeles Times tells. “A witch's brew that includes political instability, a burgeoning Islamic insurgency, a demoralized army and an intensely anti-American population, puts Pakistan's nuclear weapons at risk,” Newsweek surveys — and see The Hindu for Pakistani assurances such fears are “nonsense.”

Coming and going: “Air crimes need to be stopped at the planning stages. By the time a terrorist gets to the airport, chances are it’s too late,” a pilot argues in a New York Times blog. “These wasteful and tedious protocols have solidified into what appears to be indefinite policy, with little or no opposition. There ought to be a tide of protest rising up against this mania,” Smarter Travel, relatedly, assails. House homelanders are staging a field hearing today to examine increasingly lengthy border crossing times, The El Paso Times tells. Miami-Dade County very much wants DHS to open a regional office there and fund operations to inspect ship hulls in the Port of Miami, Miami Today mentions.

Courts and rights: Ten Saudi Guantanamoites were repatriated last weekend, reducing the number of Saudi nationals still held as enemy combatants to approximately a dozen, the Post reports — while AFP finds a federal appeals court blocking the return to Algeria of a Gitmo detainee who fears torture or worse. Confessed terror supporter David Hicks poses no threat to society now he has been released from jail, The Australian quotes ex-U.S. Army Muslim chaplain James Yee. A British resident freed from Guantanamo is accused by the U.S. of direct links to a radical preacher described as al Qaeda’s “spiritual ambassador” in Europe, The Times of London tells.

Over there: Sudanese officials insist that Tuesday’s killing of a U.S. official and his driver in a pre-dawn shooting in Khartoum was not a terrorist attack, AFP reports. Some American investigators believe the area's porous borders make South America’s tri-border region an ideal springboard for terrorists to make their way to the U.S. via a variety of smuggling venues, Newsday spotlights. Traditional New Year's Eve fireworks in central Brussels were canceled due to a continuing terror threat, BBC News notes. “The current chaos in Pakistan could turn into a defining moment in the fight against Islamist extremism,” The Wall Street Journal surveys.

Qaeda Qorner: Sympathy for al Qaeda has produced “sudden jihad syndrome” in domestic terror cells unaffiliated with foreign terrorists and people seeking to carry out attacks in the U.S., The Washington Times cites a law enforcement intel analysis. Osama bin Laden last weekend warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against fighting al Qaeda and vowed to expand its holy war to Israel, AP reports. The newly assassinated Benazir Bhutto “is just the first major casualty in the broader plan of al Qaeda ideologues to stamp their vision on Pakistan and its neighbor Afghanistan,” Asia Times surveys - while Harper’s harrumphs that somehow the fawning obits have omitted mention of her support for the Taliban.

Not by the skin of his teeth: “The Senate Judiciary Committee announced yesterday that, after five days of intense questioning, internal debate, and outside testimony, it is no closer to confirming Dr. Richard J. Applebaum, President Bush's controversial nominee to be the 73rd presidential dentist in U.S. history,” The Onionreports. “Applebaum—a Howard University College of Dentistry graduate, owner of the private practice Gentle Dental, and close friend of the Bush family—faced a seemingly unending battery of questions during the first week of his confirmation hearing, with the committee's 19 members grilling him on issues ranging from tooth decay to tartar control to the divisive ‘brushing side-to-side or up-and-down’ question. According to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., however, the most important matter is restoring honor and dignity to the dentist's office. ‘We cannot stand by and allow the Republicans to rubber-stamp another dentist,’ Leahy said on NBC's ‘Meet The Press.’”