The American public's sense of domestic security, of being safely removed from a turbulent world, was overturned on September 11, 2001. What is less widely recognized is that terrorism has a long history, and in the decade prior to 9/11 the leaders of government were well aware of the growing threat of terrorism to our homeland, as well as U.S. interests abroad. This awareness was documented by a succession of high-level task forces, charged by the White House with evaluation of the terrorist threat and recommendations for mitigating that threat. Through this process, critical infrastructure was identified as a key issue, and the view within the government of its role grew in both scope and importance.

This chapter provides a chronology of U.S. government responses to terrorism from 1993–2005, with a specific focus on critical infrastructure protection. The chapter highlights the key organizations and efforts created to address the emerging area of critical infrastructure protection and the response of infrastructure providers to those efforts. Important excerpts from primary sources are provided. The evolving definitions of “critical infrastructure” and related concepts are tracked via those sources, and the discussion is signposted by capsule summaries of significant indicators of threat and vulnerability to terrorism during each time period.

A NEW THREAT EMERGES: 1993–1995

A series of events and responses from 1993 to 1995 began to make concrete that there was a new world of threat emerging and that it would involve new actors and attack vectors.