‘Cop City’: civil rights groups urge US to investigate surveillance of protesters

ACLU and NAACP among organizations condemning homeland security department over domestic violent extremist' label

Prominent civil rights and civil liberties organizations have called on the US homeland security department to investigate the agency's intelligence-gathering on protesters against Cop City', the police and fire department training center planned for a forest south-east of Atlanta.

The organizations draw attention to the dozens of environmental protesters arrested and charged with domestic terrorism in a letter to the department director, Alejandro Mayorkas. The charges have caused outrage among many observers who accuse Georgia law enforcement of a heavy-handed crackdown on the protest movement.