Trump silences government scientists with gag orders

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/24/14372940/trump-gag-order-epa-environmental-protection-agency-health-agriculture

by azurelogic • 9 years ago

71 16 9 years ago

I have a laundry list of issues with the current administration but this is seriously alarming.

This is an administration that seems intent on openly lying to the public on even the tiniest of issues like inauguration crowd size, and large ones like accusations of voter fraud. An administration set on quashing any dissent and against the idea of a free and independent press. (See constant attempts to http://delegitimize/ the press and media, plans to defund public broadcasting, threats to open libel laws against the press)

And an administration that pushes aside and denounces experts in their fields for industry hacks and politicians with no knowledge and experience, or gigantic conflicts of interest - see Betsy Devos, Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry, see also claiming climate change is a hoax, wanting to appoint anti-vaxxers to lead a vaccine safety commission.

Trump voters, are you not the least bit concerned? I keep expecting some movement on the right to keep leadership accountable, but instead Republican politicians are falling in line hoping to gain some power in the new order.

dsschnau• 9 years ago

^^ yeah. that. all of that. wtf is going on?

m3ta2• 9 years ago

"Doug Ericksen, the communications director for Trump's transition team at EPA, said he expects the communications ban to be lifted by the end of this week."[0]

and,

"ARS spokesman Christopher Bentley said the ban would not include scientific publications released through peer-reviewed professional journals."[0]

[0] https://www.apnews.com/5ada25fc57b44a0989e681d6dc2a3daf/Trum...

dashundchen4• 9 years ago

That was added since I first read the article.

We'll see if it's actually lifted by then, as we've already seen a lot of misdirection and outright lies from the Trump team.

Also from the article:

"The Trump administration has also ordered what it called a temporary suspension of all new business activities at the department, including issuing task orders or work assignments to EPA contractors. The orders were expected to have a significant and immediate impact on EPA activities nationwide."

"Officials at state and local agencies that rely on EPA for funding said they were left in the dark, saying they had received no information from EPA about the freeze."

Why do they need to quash the speech and operations of employees during the transition, other than to have a chilling effect in the department?

Unless you're already appointing leadership like Scott Pruitt, who is actively hostile to the organization's goals and intent on dismantling it from the inside.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/can-t...

Before the inauguration the transition team sent surveys to the Department of Energy and other agencies seemingly meant to ferret out anyone working on climate science. Trump received a lot of criticism for this. A media blackout would be a good time for him to clean house of anyone who disagrees.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/20...

whodunser• 9 years ago

Doug Ericksen was apparently a Washington state senator, and this article[0] is the second I've seen now to refer to a "beach" team.

[0] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-admi...

bnolsen• 9 years ago

It's hard to tell what's going on honestly. The media is full out at war with Trump. They hate him (more than 90% donated to Clinton's campaign, and wiki leaks was full of collusion between the media and Clinton campaign). Some things he's doing is totally necessary.

The way the whole climate data and models have been vastly misrepresented (look for "estimated data") has been far over the top. The EPA has been far over the top as has been the BLM.

Will have to keep an eye on the Trump campaign. There are things that he is doing well (like massively cutting federal employees, gutting a TON of executive actions, hopefully returning power to the states, etc). The conservative media is probably going to be more reliable since they're trying to see how much he's going to keep to policies he advertised.

yladiz• 9 years ago

Is this gag order legal? And what would happen if an EPA scientist did talk to the press during the gag order?

btreecat• 9 years ago

Presumably with the $1 salary rule reinstated they wouldn't even need to fire the scientist, just demote them and force them to quit (potentially no unemployment that way).

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/312797-hous...

m3ta2• 9 years ago

Is there a source for this? I am not seeing a source in OP's article nor am I seeing any sources in any of the articles that show up on the front page of DuckDuckGo. Also, none of the articles written about this are written in a major news outlet.

dashundchen4• 9 years ago

Here's a link from the Associated Press. https://www.apnews.com/5ada25fc57b44a0989e681d6dc2a3daf/Trum...

pedalpete• 9 years ago

The same thing happened in Canada during the Harper years.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2013-2014/the-silence-of-th...

Thankfully it was reversed after Trudeau became PM.

For a look at a few other things under Harper which it seems may be copied by Trump, see http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/adam-kingsmith/canada-freedom-o...

Lots more where that came from.

I'm now living in Sydney, Aus, and to be honest, it isn't considerably different here. Last week a planned protest of the "Lockout Laws" (which has very strict limits on when venues can serve alcohol and allow patrons to enter) was denied because the the organizers did not provide police with "had failed to show mass evacuation and crowd dispersal plans." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-20/sydney-lockout-laws-co...

eon1• 9 years ago

Yeah, that protest business was extremely shady. According to KSO it was approved previously (as noted, they applied on Jan 9th for the protest to take place on the 20th) and approval was revoked at the last minute and taken to the Supreme Court at the request of the commissioner, giving the protest group in question about 1 hour to submit those previously unrequested documents (which didn't need to be submitted for any of their previous protests, somehow).

technofiend• 9 years ago

This is truly unfortunate. I can only hope despite Trump's best efforts these agencies continue to do their jobs and protect the public. And if not I guess the next round of thalidomide babies will be named after him.

Trump silences government scientists with gag orders

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