FEMA is preparing to take its martial law exercises to the next level this July. According to a factsheet buried on the FEMA website, the agency will host National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) on July 27 through July 31, 2009.

“NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery,” the factsheet states. It is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise, or TOPOFF, which are exercises conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), “which serves as the nation’s overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises,” according to FEMA.