Pesticide spurs free speech flap

[nosmokes]

The problem here is that the so called inert ingredients aren't necessarily benign ingredients. And regardless of WTF you call it,If you're gonna be spraying over my house and me and my family I wanna know what it is and I want the right to say no.
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original-latimes

Pesticide spurs free speech flap

Officials say trade rules prevent disclosure of inert substances in a spray applied over parts of Monterey County.
By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 18, 2007
If the state and federal governments get their way, night-flying planes will soon resume dousing the Monterey Peninsula with a moth-targeting pesticide, before they move on to other areas of Northern California.

State regulators insist the chemical compound is safe. But they also insist they can't disclose much of what's in it.

"Trade secrets," said Steve Lyle, spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

The mystery has opened a free-speech front in California's latest battle over potential health risks associated with aerial assaults on crop-threatening insects, in this case the light brown apple moth.

Experts say the Monterey dustup pits the public's right to know against the needs of pesticide manufacturers to shield the ingredients of their products from competitors.

Similar clashes between the 1st Amendment and trade secrets erupted over unauthorized leaks about an Apple Computer product and Internet postings of DVD decryption codes. Another skirmish came after a former employee tried to write about Oprah Winfrey, in defiance of a confidentiality agreement.

The Monterey fight centers on whether the government, at the behest of a corporation, should refuse to identify the chemicals that it sprays over homes, businesses and schools, as well as orchards and vegetable fields.

"It's outrageous," said David Dilworth, executive director of Helping Our Peninsula's Environment in Carmel. "Democracies don't do that."

But state officials say that, under trade secrets laws, they have no choice. Only the active ingredients in pesticides are routinely disclosed. Other components that make up the formula -- so-called inert ingredients -- are not.

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complete article here

[mike_c]

1. sue them-- force them to prove the safety of the WHOLE compound...

...in open court. Any good lawyer could argue that the burden of proof is on the agency proposing to use the pesticide, and if they refuse to divulge the ingredients, they cannot prove the compound is "safe."

[depakid]

2. Yet another of the myriad abuses of intellectual property law

taken to the extreme.