Tennessee Official: Water Complaints Could be "Act of Terrorism"

An anonymous reader writes "A Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director is threatening citizens with being listed as terrorists for giving official complaints. Sherwin Smith, deputy director of TDEC’s Division of Water Resources said: 'But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there's no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.' 'In terms of the comments made by a member of the Water Resources Division at the meeting, we are just receiving the information and looking into this on our end,' spokeswoman Meg Lockhart said. 'The department would like to fully assess what was said in the meeting. I am told that the meeting was far longer than the audio clip provided by SOCM and that Mr. Smith actually clarified his remarks. But again, we are looking into it.'"

Comments

Re:This has to end..

[Concerned Onlooker]

I am in agreement with Mister Transistor on this one. Abuse of the terrorist label seems to be going up, not down. I was going to suggest we call what's going on now McCarthyism v2.

Re:Scare tactics

[mhajicek]

Very much so. I have never in my life been afraid of a foreign terrorist, but often afraid of those who control this nation.

Re:Scare tactics

[cusco]

Nothing new here, Alcohol prohibition was enforced by police against the cop's competitors 'way back when my grandfather's uncle got his still smashed in the 1920s. The funniest thing to me is that most small town residents that I've known think that there's no official corruption in their community, that it's just a problem for the 'big cities'.