Wounded by their losses on healthcare, Republicans have gone on the offensive after the Christmas attack, amplifying partisanship by criticizing President Obama's national-security credentials.

Lawyers for Guantánamo detainees want surveillance records. An appeals court ruled Wednesday that agencies could refuse to confirm or deny the existence of such records for national security.

Full-body scanners could have foiled the Christmas Day airline bomb plot, some experts say. In 2010, US airports will add at least 150 to the 40 already in use, the TSA says. But critics say the machines won't help.

AP - The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday

AP - As a prisoner at Guantanamo, Said Ali al-Shihri said he wanted freedom so he could go home to Saudi Arabia and work at his family's furniture store.

AP - A federal judge dismissed all charges Thursday against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007.