ACLU placed on Tennessee terror map for letter to schools

The ACLU of Tennessee says it ended up on a map of potential terrorist threats after it sent a letter to school superintendents asking them to be “inclusive” in their holiday celebrations.

The civil rights group says it found itself on the Tennessee Fusion Center’s map identified under the category “terrorism events and other suspicious activity,” with the explanation “ACLU cautions Tennessee schools about observing ‘one religious holiday.'”

“It is deeply disturbing that Tennessee’s fusion center is tracking First Amendment-protected activity,” Hedy Weinberg, executive director of ACLU-Tennessee, said in a statement. “Equating a group’s attempts to protect religious freedom in Tennessee with suspicious activity related to terrorism is outrageous. Religious freedom is a founding principle in our Constitution—not fodder for overzealous law enforcement.”

State fusion centers were set up after 9/11 to help states collect and share information on potential security threats. The ACLU has previously warned of “the potential dangers of fusion centers, including their ambiguous lines of authority, excessive secrecy, troubling private-sector and military roles and a bent toward collection of information about innocent activities and data mining.”

A fusion center spokesman told the Nashville City Paper that it was a mistake to have labeled the ACLU’s letter as a “terrorist” event and said the tag on the map should have been labeled “general information.”

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