Bush Administration Gets Muzzle Award

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/10/442/

Bush Administration Gets Muzzle Award
by Zinie Chen Sampson

RICHMOND, Va. - The Bush administration and the Defense Department are among the winners of the 2007 Jefferson Muzzle awards, given Tuesday by a free-speech group to those it considers the most egregious First Amendment violators in the past year.The Bush administration appears on the list, compiled by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, for its efforts to discourage, modify and sometimes censor government scientists’ reports and studies to be more in line with the administration’s political policies, notably on global warming, the center said.

“The number of major scientists who have come forward and indicated they were constrained by the administration viewpoint is quite worrisome,” center director Robert M. O’Neil told The Associated Press. “There have been similar concerns arising in other areas but we wanted to focus specifically on climate change as the most invaded or intruded area.”

The Defense Department won a Muzzle for its covert investigations of organizations that conducted peaceful anti-war protests, most of which were against military recruitment for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the center said. Created in 2003, TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice) also monitored e-mail messages among members of anti-war groups. Its activities were uncovered last year after the American Civil Liberties Union filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests.

“We recognize that our government appropriately gathers information,” O’Neil said. “Anything related to genuine terrorist activity is of legitimate concern, but we’re troubled when it extends to innocuous groups that oppose the war.”

In citing the Bush administration, the free-speech center noted testimony from Philip Cooney, the former chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney publicly answered questions before the House Government Reform Committee about 181 changes he made to three government climate reports, and defended many of the changes.

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