NORTON - The governor was up in arms. The mayor threatened legal action. And the assistant attorney general insisted there was malice.

But a day after Boston was temporarily paralyzed when authorities mistook a guerrilla marketing campaign for a potential terrorist attack, some Wheaton students thought the official response to the episode exceeded the boundaries of reason.

"I don't think it's appropriate to sue; I think it's an over-reaction," sophomore Amanda Chomicz said while dining at the campus cafeteria. "If the company issued an apology, that should be good enough."

Students' familiarity with an advertisement-saturated atmosphere, which includes viral, digital, street and guerrilla marketing tactics, is partly responsible for the tenor of its response, Wheaton senior Gate Gannon suggested.

"I can understand people in the older generation being concerned," Gannon said, "but it's an overreaction." Gannon also said the government's response was connected to a heightened atmosphere of tension: "9-11 is definitely a factor," she said. "Everything seems to be in a state of high alert now."

For other students, the fiasco over the marketing stunt raised questions about constitutional issues.

"It's a blatant violation of the freedom of speech," sophomore Sam Brown said of the city's attempts to recoup $750,000 spent on police operations. "It's not the company's fault someone misunderstood their message."

His friend and fellow sophomore Alex Banduzian agreed, saying it was bad policy to make a company pay for such a misunderstanding.

Banduzian said that living in a post- 9-11 environment did not justify an extreme reaction.

"It's a pretty stupid excuse," he said.

Not all students, however, faulted the government's response.

"To be honest, with the state not knowing what was going on, I was pretty proud they took it seriously," said Peggy Shannon-Baker, a senior at the school.

"I think the company should pay whatever it cost to take (the signs) down," she said.