¶ … terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 as well as several previous acts of domestic and international terrorism sparked responses from nearly every civic agency in the United States. Each and every agency across the nation was called to action both immediately with temporary changes and in the long-term with fundamental legal and policy actions that are believed to aid in the future response to disasters of both the man-made kind and natural (Glendening, 2002, p. 21). Maryland is poised in a position where challenges are inherent due in part to its close proximity to Washington DC, with Maryland surrounding two thirds of Washington DC, and because of some of the fundamentally high risk target sites within it, such as a nuclear facility and its own World Trade Center in Baltimore, long and sparsely controlled coastlines, just to name a few (21). "Maryland is home to many important federal installations, including Camp David, the National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, the United States Naval Academy, and several federal laboratory research institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health" (22). Maryland also experienced a tragic series of events in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 tragedies that called the state to action, such as the actions of the DC sniper attacks (2002) as well as the Anthrax mail attack (2001) both of which touched and shaped Maryland giving the state cause to put into effect newly gained skills and policies that are intended to respond to such situations. According to the then governor Parris Glendening...

The former governor calls the post September 11th governance an attempt to balance and achieve a new state of normalcy. Some of the things he noted in 2002 include security reviews of several possible targets, the implementation of change in policy and planning in those locations as well as others that are seen from a local and national perspective as possible targets or places of possible staging. The challenges of creating a new state of normal that involves challenging a culture that has and likely will always be relatively open and free with regard to travel, association, speech and action are huge as we have seen over the years as more and more of the immediate and even long-term policy and security measures have been challenged or even abandoned as both apathy as well as functionality of such measures began to redirect the actions of individuals and groups.
Immediately following the attacks of September 11th Maryland was directly affected as the state government went into almost complete shutdown, excluding those personnel and agencies directly responding to the attacks. There are as the former governor states many Marylanders that work at the Pentagon, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania crashed very near the Maryland border and the governess office was also alerted to a potential target in Maryland itself. Additionally, Maryland's proximity to the attacks created a situation where Maryland National Guard troops as well as civil…