On the heels of the furor over the February Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report, “The Modern Militia Movement,” which linked populist rightwing and conservative organizations with violent, extremist militia movements, resulting in Missouri State Highway Patrol Superintendent James Keathley to cease distribution of the controversial report to law enforcement officers, the Virginia Fusion Center’s “2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment” has now come under fire by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

As HSToday.us reported, the MIAC analysis provoked considerable legitimate criticism and raised brows among conservative political adherents for what they claimed was the report’s muddied portrait of rightwing groups and individuals.

ACLU declared in a statement this week that the new Virginia Fusion Center terror threat assessment, which was made public by ACLU and other critics of the report,  that it “says the state’s universities and colleges are ‘nodes for radicalization’ and encourages law enforcement to monitor First Amendment-protected activities of educational and religious foundations as terrorism threats.”

“If we are to believe this exaggerated threat assessment, Virginia’s learning and religious institutions must be hotbeds of terrorist activity,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

“This document and its authors have displayed a fundamental disregard for our constitutional rights of free expression and association. Unfortunately, it’s not the first time we’ve seen such an indifference to these basic rights from local fusion centers. Congress must take the necessary steps to institute real and thorough oversight mechanisms at fusion centers before we reach a point where we are all considered potential suspects.”

While the MIAC analysis by all accounts clearly went a bit too far in using a broad brush to paint certain conservative thought as an indication that certain individuals’ have proclivities toward terrorist-like violence against the government, similar complaints leveled this week by the ACLU and opponents of the Virginia Fusion Center report aren’t as forceful.

Law enforcement sources said the report offers balanced, "legitimate" concerns and threat indicators regarding potentially violent radical student groups and protest activities, "which, in light of the radical student groups the likes of which were involved in the G20 protests, are a real concern," one commented. "We have to pay attention to the sorts of potential violent radicalization that's discussed in this and many other similar threat assessments."

[Editor's note: See HSToday.us' coverage of these groups and counterterrorists' concerns during the G20 meetings in London]

The ACLU in particular asserted that the 2009 terror threat assessment by the Virginia Fusion Center, run by the Virginia Department of State Police, claimed that the “nation’s oldest universities [are a] possible terrorist threat,” and that “internal document warns against Virginia student organizations and associations.”

The group also implied racism in the report.

The assessment states that “recent incidents of groups within the black separatist movement who have openly supported transnational Islamic extremist causes … serve to highlight a potential threat. Additionally, targeted recruitment efforts of inmates and street gang members by extremist threat groups indicates a possible willingness of these groups to employ violent tactics in future events, which would be of major concern to the Commonwealth.”

“Further compounding the domestic threat is the recent instances involving radicalized US persons engaging in terrorist planning against US interests. Although there is no available information suggesting an imminent threat to the Commonwealth from US-based homegrown extremists, activities indicative of recruitment, training, radicalization, and surveillance have been reported throughout the state. The difficulty in detecting the threat from these extremists is compounded as these individuals are not typically involved in group activities that would attract attention from law enforcement.”

According to veteran intelligence and law enforcement officials familiar with the problems with the MIAC and other fusion centers’ reports and activities, their careful reading of the 215-page Virginia threat assessment found no grounds for the ACLU’s claims, adding that the public civil rights advocacy organization “twisted and distorted” portions of what the report actually states.

While some fusion center critics undoubtedly will argue over certain of the language in the report, by most accounts it is far better balanced than the flawed MIAC report and makes its points pragmatically and based on a clearer understanding of the threats, whether they be supremacists of any color or Al Qaeda.

As for potential domestic threats, the report accurately discusses anarchist extremists, black separatist extremists, homegrown Islamic extremism, lone wolf extremists, militia extremists, special interest extremism and white nationalist extremism.

“As with previous years, the threat from terrorist and extremist groups can be categorized as international or domestic threats. Each of these groups holds particular values and political goals and thus represents a different type of threat to Virginia and the US,” the report states.

Continuing, the “executive summary” says “the international terrorism threat to Virginia and the nation as a whole stems from several radical Islamic militant groups. The domestic terrorist threat is comprised of a wide variety of groups, to include special interest groups, anarchists, race-based groups, including black separatists and white supremacists, militias and sovereign citizens, and homegrown extremists.”

Last month DHS secretary Napolitano praised fusion centers, calling them a front line area of law enforcement and a lynchpin of efforts to improve intelligence sharing.

The House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, convened a hearing on fusion centers last week. Read HSToday.us' coverage here.