USDA Scientists Have Been Put On Lockdown Under Trump

[n2doc]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by DonViejo (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Buzzfeed

The US Department of Agriculture has banned scientists and other employees in its main research division from publicly sharing everything from the summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets as it starts to adjust to life under the Trump administration, BuzzFeed News has learned.

According to an email sent Monday morning and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the department told staff — including some 2,000 scientists — at the agency’s main in-house research arm, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to stop communicating with the public about taxpayer-funded work.

“Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents,” Sharon Drumm, chief of staff for ARS, wrote in a department-wide email shared with BuzzFeed News.

Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/dinograndoni/trump-usda?utm_term=.thx7eJe2W#.sowNB1BVL

[underpants]

1. Science is hard

[Cryptoad]

24. Science is an Alt-Fact!

[Achilleaze]

2. The corporate "scientists" of the GMO chemical pharmaceutical cabal will love this

Fewer voices to challenge their corporate "findings" about the cretinous dulling industrial crap they are feeding to the world.

[longship]

28. GMOs???? Apparently some people do not understand science. nt

[randr]

3. This must violate some FOI law

Somehow someone needs to tell Twitler that he works for the public.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. That was my first thought.

[Cryptoad]

25. That was back in good ole days...

when we had a functioning Constitution.

[metalbot]

17. Not necessarily

It's a crappy policy, but I don't think it's saying "the public can't have the research", but rather that they can't proactively broadcast it.

[MissB]

20. So an organization can still make a FOIA request and then release a news release.

Extra step but it'll be relatively hard for this administration to gum up the FOIA process.

[IronLionZion]

23. Trump doesn't have time for laws

and feels that we have too many anyway.

Meanwhile our Tweeter in chief will be sharing nonsense and alternative facts 24/7

[highplainsdem]

4. Not wasting any time implementing fascism, are they?

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. That is what this is and millions of his supporters love it.

[enough]

5. I guess we knew this would be happening, but horrifying.

Can he really keep the people from the research being done with taxpayer dollars?

[In_The_Wind]

6. So, we will be treated like mushrooms.

?token=EGvcUPoXitYTeZOAO6Ye9fnNiT4%3D

[Botany]

7. The growth of science is based on the sharing of knowledge

Trump is a nightmare.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Violates 1st Amendment and FOIA and Accountability and Transparency. . . nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Cons PM Harper tried this in Canada & it was part of why the Liberals won big majority. . . nt

[Rowdyag]

10. So basically

The USDA, EPA and possibly CDC have been put on information lock down? Information that is taxpayer funded to better our lives is being withheld ....yup, that's gonna make America great.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. Time for their "alternative facts" training! n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. Sounds like it's about time to bury the administration in FOIA requests.

[MissB]

21. Yep.

[underpants]

14. I heard the reverse in 2008

A Pew Resesrch employee was at our house for a GOTV launch. She said that everyone she'd talked to had stopped doing any work waiting for W to be gone. W&Co. had political operatives deep into agencies who reviewed, spun, added opinion, or just flat out changed public reports. The researchers were sick of their work being altered so they were just sitting back and waiting.

I expect the same editing in Snowflake's regime.

[JudyM]

15. Very troubling. There needs to be major media coverage of his shutting down transparency.

[TranssexualKaren]

16. This is how it starts.

Most people don't realize that the majority of research scientists in this country are in fact or ultimately government employees. If they aren't directly working for the government they are in universities or even private industry supported by government grants. This is the first step to actually controlling science!

[kjones]

19. Time for guerilla research

[uppityperson]

18. The only releases can come from Minitrue."the office of communications'

That'll teach them to post a photo of the inauguration.

" all media interviews must be approved by the office of communications in Washington"

[Hekate]

22. I hope that department leaks like a sieve. I hope they all do. But it will take enterprising journos

...to gather up the stories.

[longship]

26. We don't need no stinking science!

The Drumpf is everything anybody needs to know. Science is just facts. We have our own facts!!!!

We are screwn, utterly screwn!

[charlyvi]

29. We can't access the information we have paid for?

Interesting.

[DonViejo]

30. Locking...

Duplicate of http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141675568