Package Gives State Broad Emergency Power
by Matthew Mosk, Washington Post
Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening signed legislation yesterday that gives state health officials expanded powers to confront a biological or chemical attack, including the ability to seize medications and require uncooperative victims to submit to medical care.
The measure was the first of nine bills passed by the Maryland General Assembly this year aimed at better preparing the state for a terrorist attack. Several of the provisions give the governor wide latitude to curtail personal freedoms and keep governmental activities secret at times when the state is facing a serious threat.
“The challenge in this post-September 11 world is to carefully define the balance between security and civil liberties,” Glendening (D) said. “As we found out with these bills, that is not an easy balance. And I am absolutely hoping that no governor ever has to use these powers.”
The provisions he signed in a ceremony at the State House in Annapolis are intended to cover a range of emergency scenarios, and also are meant to improve preparedness for a terrorist attack.
One measure creates a 15-member Maryland Security Council to coordinate the response plans for all state and local agencies. Another gives state agriculture officials the right to monitor the spread of contagious diseases through livestock, even if it means trespassing on privately owned farmland.
Glendening also signed legislation that will permit the governor to keep secret any building plans, blueprints, schematics or emergency manuals that, in the wrong hands, could expose the state to terrorism.
The most controversial anti-terror measure approved during the legislature’s just-completed 2002 session will expand police powers to plant wiretaps. It also widens the reach of authorities who patrol the state’s airspace and seaports. That bill was not before Glendening yesterday, but he intends to sign it, as well as two other terror-related measures, his press secretary said.
The expanded eavesdropping powers drew criticism yesterday from an attorney for the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who said it is overly invasive, has long been pushed by police and will do nothing to fight terrorism. “This was an irresponsible bill that was falsely labeled and falsely advertised,” said David Rocah, a staff attorney in the ACLU’s Baltimore office.
But Rocah said he was relieved that other proposals, such as a plan to withhold driver’s licenses from foreign nationals whose visas have expired, failed to win legislative approval. And, he said the bill that expands the powers of health officials to quarantine people during a biological attack is reasonable.
In its initial form, that measure subjected bio-terror victims to criminal penalties if they failed to accept immediate medical care. Under the law signed by Glendening, those stricken with a contagious ailment could be quarantined against their will but not charged with a crime. And those who are isolated would have defined legal rights to challenge any health department quarantine. Health officials would also have wide latitude to obtain medication or supplies to distribute to victims.
Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D) said she had reservations when she heard about the scope of some of the anti-terrorism proposals -- she did not want to see an avalanche of bills pass in the wake of Sept. 11 that appealed more to emotion than to sound legal judgment.
But Townsend said yesterday that she believes the legislature took a measured approach, weeding out provisions that threatened to strangle civil liberties.
“I think it’s always tough to assuage all those concerns and still make sure we are safe,” Townsend said. The legislature “tried to strike the right balance, and whether they succeeded will be tested over time and in the courts.”