Could muzzling federal scientists be illegal?

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kiwi
Posts: 564
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:58 pm
Location: New Zealand

Could muzzling federal scientists be illegal?

Unread post by kiwi » Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:04 pm

In relation to this I was sent this message ------QUOTE :-----Practical Example: You are a Canadian Govt. Scientist. You visit Thunderbolts more that three times. You lose database access and credibility, which ever side of the fence you're on...-----

Snip from full article.....
The Information Commissioner of Canada is being asked to investigate whether "federal government policy forcing scientists to jump through hoops before speaking with the media" breaches the Access to Information Act.

The request was made as part of a complaint filed Wednesday by Democracy Watch, a non-profit organization that advocates for government accountability, and the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic.

"In sharp contrast to past Canadian practice and current U.S. Government practice, the federal government has recently made efforts to prevent the media and the general public from speaking to government scientists,” said Tyler Sommers, coordinator of Democracy Watch, in a statement.

He noted that the scientists conduct research that is paid for by taxpayers who therefore have a right to learn the results.

Calvin Sandborn, legal director of the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic, said in a statement that "Canadians cannot make smart choices about critical issues such as climate change, oil sands development, and environmental protection if the public does not have full, timely access to the government’s best scientific knowledge on those issues.

"This is why we’ve filed this complaint and why we are asking for a full investigation."

Sommers said the groups believe that parts of the act being violated include those that:

State government information should be available to the public and necessary exceptions to the right of access should be limited and specific.
Specify that the government should provide "timely access" to records without regard to the identity of a person making the request.
"We don't know how far-reaching the situation is," he added in an interview.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story ... ioner.html

kiwi
Posts: 564
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:58 pm
Location: New Zealand

Re: Could muzzling federal scientists be illegal?

Unread post by kiwi » Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:18 pm

Meanwhile, Canadian and American scientists have been cruising Arctic waters since 2003 on Canadian ice-breakers, tracking the ice conditions from the surface to compare it to the satellite data. One of the problems with observations from space is that an instrument looking down from above can only see differences between one area and another. In order to know exactly what it's seeing, to establish a baseline from which those differences can be understood, there needs to be "ground truthing." That's where the same piece of the Earth is looked at from above and from the surface to get the most accurate picture of what's going on.

But now, thanks to new confidentiality rules introduced into the U.S.-Canada project, both the Canadian scientists working at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Americans may not be able to publish or distribute that data without government approval. Is this yet another example of environmental scientists being restricted by the government from distributing their own work?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/quirk ... grity.html

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