Washington, DC Federal climate, weather and marine scientists will be subject to new restrictions as to what they can say to the media or in public, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under rules posted last week, these federal scientists must obtain agency pre-approval to speak or write, whether on or off-duty, concerning any scientific topic deemed “of official interest.”
On March 29, 2007, the Commerce Department posted a new administrative order governing “Public Communications.” This new order covers the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Commerce’s new order will become effective in 45 days and would repeal a more liberal “open science” policy adopted by NOAA on February 14, 2006.
Although couched in rhetoric about the need for “broad and open dissemination of research results [and] open exchange of scientific ideas,” the new order forbids agency scientists from communicating any relevant information, even if prepared and delivered on their own time as private citizens, which has not been approved by the official chain-of-command:
* Any “fundamental research communication” must “before the communication occurs” be submitted to and approved by the designated “head of the operating unit.” While the directive states that approval may not be withheld “based on policy, budget, or management implications of the research,” it does not define these terms and limits any appeal to within Commerce;
* National Weather Service employees are allowed only “as part of their routine responsibilities to communicate information about the weather to the public”; and
* Scientists must give the Commerce Department at least two weeks “advance notice” of any written, oral or audiovisual presentation prepared on their own time if it “is a matter of official interest to the Department because it relates to Department programs, policies or operations.”
“This ridiculous gag order ignores the First Amendment and disrespects the world-renowned professionals who work within Commerce agencies,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “Under this policy, National Weather Service scientists can only give out name, rank, serial number and the temperature.”
The agency rejected a more open policy adopted last year by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The new policy also was rushed to print despite an ongoing Commerce Office of Inspector General review of communication policies that was undertaken at congressional request.
While claiming to provide clarity, the new Commerce order gives conflicting directives, on one hand telling scientists that if unsure whether a conclusion has been officially approved “then the researcher must make clear that he or she is representing his or her individual conclusion.” Yet, another part of the order states non-official communications “may not take place or be prepared during working hours.” This conflict means that every scientist who answers an unexpected question at a conference puts his or her career at risk by giving an honest answer.
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LINKS HERE
here is the Dep’t of Commerce communication itself, and here is a letter of concern written in response by US House of Reps Committee on Science & Technonlgy.
The clock is winding down on that administration.
…but what’s the punchline??
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The article makes it sound like these federal scientists can’t even talk candidly on their own time. Surely this cannot be the case?
here is the Dep’t of Commerce communication itself, and here is a letter of concern written in response by US House of Reps Committee on Science & Technonlgy. I’ll update the diary with these links.
in the past have used their “legitimacy of office” to promote their own personal views , however biased, to the public who assumes it must be true because , after all, this person is the “Chief Blah blah of the Blah , Blah Federal agency isn’t he/she? so it must be true!!! Wrong…
It’s a good idea to subject ANY “official” government announcements about ANYTHING to a review of contemporaries and superiors lest we have a lunatic like a Professor Ward Churchill spewing his psycho-babble under a “USDA approved label”.
I mean, check out these sunglasses.
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You actually DO have a sense of humor! Thanks!
Unfortunately, if we removed the sun glasses , I fear we’d see
two “pinwheeling eyes” ( Ever see the Disney classic “Wind in the Willows” when “toadie” gets a new “mania”?) of a lunatic?
Ward needs help…don’t you think?
Nice “comedy” anyway!
about this being exactly what it looks like: the government trying to clamp down on anyone who might depart from the officially-sanctioned line?
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As someone with some conservative tendencies, I’d think you would find that worrisome. After all, it’s what totalitarian governments routinely do, if by more dramatic means.
it isn’t. Again, if you were managing a large business or corporation , would you want just ANYBODY ( including some nut case in the mail dept) in the organization talking to the media and giving the false impression that their personal views were those of the “company?” ..I think not. I spent many years in the employ of major global corporations and they all had the same policy.. Any and all public statements / communications are not allowed without the approval of the Corporate Communications people…. the US gov is no different.. makes sense to me
I mean, wow.
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I really, really don’t want to live in your America.
at least under the Communists, is what you’re describing.
And I have experienced the current climate of our country. We are not yet as stifled as Moscow under Breznev, but neither is their the free and open debate in the MSM that I recall from the 1970s.
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On the otherhand, blogs like this one, and internet news are really causing a change in the balance, and the information available.
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How did I find myself in a dorm in Moscow? Well, I took 24 credits of Russian as part of my freshman year in a now- defunct but very interesting experimental college named Justin Morill – the sort of place where you study 24 credits of Russian and Abraham Maslow – and design utopian governments – all in your Freshman year.
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There does seem to be a drift towards more governmental control under this Republican administration – shameful, really, since the Republicans I knew back in the days I was in college were really more like libertarians. No idea what happened to them, but I cannot imagine them tolerating Big Bush is Watching YOU!
Come on, we all know you’re 16.
if there are so many who have abused their stature as government employees, then you should be able to name them readily.
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i have never known anyone to have special respect for federal employees. usually the assumption is just the opposite: government employee = lazy, as communicated by the common phrase “it’s good enough for government”, as in, might get you by, but certainly nothing stellar. so….who are the dupes who you allege are wowed by these rock star feds?
There is a man named Dr. Richard Albanese, who works as a scientist for the Air Force. He – and he alone – has a theory that phased array radar is more dangerous than ordinary radar.
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Phased array is what the PAVE PAWS installation in Sandwich uses to track info in the sky and transmit it to Cheyanne Mountain for analysis. Dr. Albanese’s research has been hailed as a breakthrough by a wide array of anti-militarists who want the base shut down.
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The Air Force performed a sweepeing $2 million study on the potential heath effects of phased array radar. It found – nothing. Dr. Albanese contends that they didn’t do the study right because his theory – never published in a peer reviewed journal – is still correct.
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Now, when he writes ‘Danger, Will Robinson’ press releases for the anti-Otis people, he must include a disclaimer that he is writing as a private citizen and scientist, not as an Air force official. He doesn’t like that much – he WANTS to throw his status behind his unproven and discredited theory. But the Air Force won’t let him anymore, although he can continue writing with the disclaimer.
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Does that sound unreasonable to you?
Be careful discrediting research done by a gov’t employee who has “never published [it] in a peer reviewed journal”. Lack of publishing in this says ZREO about the veracity of the work. Research done by gov’t employees and contractors must go through an internal review and vetting process prior to submission for publication. This guy’s bosses are members of the military, who answer to bush, who has a track record lightyears long of gagging data, reports or opinions that contradict his. Are we surprised that the research never made it through an internal review under these circumstances? DUH! In addition, his work may very well be unpublishable for security reasons. Anyone discrediting a fed employee’s lack of publication record (or for that matter someone in industry) betrays a woeful ignorance about how the system works.
And NOBODY has been able to replicate his theory. Do you think CLINTON also had him under a ‘gag order’?
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The ‘gag’ consists of requiring him to stop representing his work as that of the military, which has spent money investigating this, and got opposite results.
theories are imminently replicable. you just use a photocopier.
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look, i’m not going to argue the details of this case because a) it is irrelevant to the subject of this diary, and b) i know nothing about it.
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but i will say this: it is common for members of the scientific community to have individual and sometimes contradictory interpretations of data. don’t you think there is a teeeensy bit of conflict of interest for the alleged culpret (military) conducting a study on itself and then concluding that nothing is amiss? would you accept that set-up from your local pharma company? no. if he believes x, y or z about his daya why shouldn’t he say so? the gov’t will refute him. people will make their own choices. there is no controversy. also, if he was a gov’t employee when he did the research, that is a fact he should be able to state. the only thing he can’t do is state that his opinion is that of the gov’t.
BTW – MIT did the research on the health effects for the Air Force. Could not replicate the RESULTS he described from test data.
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No, what it means is that they may not use their rank/employment to add credence to non-official communications developed on their own time. And after 10 years, the Air Force has yet to fire Dr. Albanese.
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Imagine that.
you presented one case. i am still waiting for center isle to overload my inbox with evidence of mass blatherings by multitudes of government employees. i applaud you, PP, for coming up with one name at least. center isle seems to “know” a lot that cannot be supported with facts.
Doesn’t just prohibit someone from making claims on behalf of the government (that would be reasonable). It prevents citizens in their private capacity from voicing any opinion at all if the government deems it has an interest.
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Draconian. Not just prohibition of unauthorized representation but prohibition of unauthorized private thought.
Contrast
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Peter Porcupine @ Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 09:42:24 AM EDT
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Now, when he [Dr. Richard Albanese] writes ‘Danger, Will Robinson’ press releases for the anti-Otis people, he must include a disclaimer that he is writing as a private citizen and scientist, not as an Air force official. He doesn’t like that much – he WANTS to throw his status behind his unproven and discredited theory. But the Air Force won’t let him anymore, although he can continue writing with the disclaimer.
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with
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Peter Porcupine @ Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 11:52:11 AM EDT
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And NOBODY has been able to replicate his theory. Do you think CLINTON also had him under a ‘gag order’?
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Um, Clinton? Where did Clinton come into this? Did Porc throw Clinton into this just to–um–mention Clinton’s name in a derogatory manner? My–how Republican of him/her/it to do so.
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And where is the gag order regarding Albanese? What does Albanese’s situation have to do with the Commerce Department’s gag order? It sounds like Albanese is gagging himself, if he refuses to provide the disclaimer in what he wants to have published. It appears that he can publish the stuff, as long as he provides the disclaimer. See my comment below on disclaimers corporations may require of publications by their employees.
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That’s a completely separate issue from the Commerce Department gagging government scientists from any publication, without CD approval. And the CD, under the Bush II malAdministration, has made it clear that it wants to inject its politics into the science that it allows government scientist to be published, and have the publications screened by incompetent children (re: Deutch). I would probably also be correct to suggest that the Bush II malAdminstration injects politics into the grants that are made to university scientists, but I don’t have specific information on that issue.
…I mentioned that Dr. Albanese had been proclaiming his theory for ten years.
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This is 2007. Subtract ten years. Try to remember who was President then.
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THAT was why I asked her if she thoguht Clinton had issued a gag order.
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Try to keep up – and stop trying to cherry pick sentances out of comments. They’re all right here to read on this thread, for all to see.
…but I do believe it a bit odd to think–as you appear to have done–that Clinton himself would have gotten involved in a non-gag order of a Defense Department scientist. And, aside from that, do you recall who was SecDef during Clinton’s entire second term, including the time period that you mentioned? William Cohen, a Republican. The non-gag order would most charitably be called a bipartisan hit.
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As a further aside, it strikes me as odd to discount–as you have also appeared to have done–the fact that the Bush II malAdministration has sought to silence more than a few government scientists–a real gag order–and, as has been reported, has gone so far as to order the installation of offices in numerous government agencies whose only task is to run government scientists’ papers through their political filters. Hence my reference to the child Deutch, who was filtering a real government scientist’s (Hanson’s) comments through the Bush II malAdministration’s political filter.
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As to the latter point, Republicans might want to consider what they wish for. They aren’t going to be in power at the executive branch forever. And, when Democrats take over at the executive branch, they will probably continue the political filtering–but for their own purposes. Tit for tat.
you’re right to point out that this is a well-documented trend with Bush the Lesser. Among other sucessful gag moves, he has closed many EPA libraries and warehoused their data, which is supposed to be available to the public (not to mention EPA employees) but now isn’t. I’ve updated the diary above with a related link.
…what the Bush II malAdministration has pulled out of public circulation.
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You don’t know the half of it.
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But there are sources on the Internet that have archived much of the material. MemoryHole.com is one of them. And I’m sure that there are others.
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(NB: I’m in Germany and don’t have all of my US links here.)
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I read the refrence to Clinton as to indicate how very long the discredited Albanese theory has been dragging along, not as any slight or derogation of the former President.
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But that’s only because I bothered to think about it for a moment, rather than to reflexively post a weak rejoinder. I could be wrong.
Amerikaner should know the following. One, that the American government increasingly views government-sponsored science as a commercial operation–hence the intervention of the Commerce Department, and scientists as part of that commercial operation. I’m sorry, but thats horse manure, Scheisswurst (the German term for BS), whatever you want to call it.
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Two, science is increasingly going abroad. Particularly basic science. In no small measure because of gag orders such as this, but also because of the difficulty that foreign scientists have in entering the states. I mentioned here several weeks ago of the difficulty that even an Irishman traveling on a diplomatic passport had in entering through O’Hare airport in Chicago. Scientific conferences are increasingly going abroad because of the entry problems in the USofA. Grad students are increasingly going to university outside of the USofA because of visa issues. The USofA will in the not too distant futher find itself in second (or lower) rank in terms of science.
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Whatever. The USofA has made its bed.
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Going up a bit, center aisle is correct about the protocol faced by scientists employed by corporations in publication*, but there is a significant difference between them and scientists employed by the federal government. The difference is, that the scientists employed by corporations are just that–employed by corporations and, essentially, paid by the shareholders. Scientists who are employed by the federal government are paid by the taxpayers. Not by the particular interests of the political party that happens to be in power at the time.
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Let’s understand something, center aisle. What you are advocating is science in service to politicians. If you want that, say so. If you would like something more neutral, admit it. But I will tell you something that you might not want to read. Eugenics and Social Darwinism were “science” in service to politicians. Would you like that?
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*Actually, the protocol faced by scientists employed by corporations usually is that the scientists have to make clear in their papers that the views expressed in the papers are those of the persons writing the papers, and not those of the corporation. Problem solved.