[AnimalMuppet]

Right. He can't stop you from saying what you want to say. He can stop you from saying what you want to say on an official Federal government platform.

For that matter, many employers can do that. I can say whatever I please, but not with my company name on it.

[shostack]

So this taxpayer funded research data shouldn't be available to the citizens that paid for it?

[xname2]

Exactly, can't believe so many people here lacking basic understanding of professionalism. You can't use office account to deliver your personal message.

[vmeson]

We'd need a specific example to determine if the communications were a personal message, raw data supporting climate change or (unlikely) 5 sigma confidence level results in say a temperature trend.

Personally, I struggle with the idea that scientists working for the federal government have to report to or be muzzled by the current administration. I see these people as working for the country not for the administration but I'm naive and optimistic in general so I'm sure many people will point out that it would be a crazy way to run a country.

In the Canadian case, scientist needed to request permission to attend conferences months in advance and, from what I understand, if there was the least chance of bad press coverage from the scientific results being presented, then the person was not allowed to attend. I believe there was a similar muzzling of attempts to publish in peer-reviewed papers. That sort of thing is clearly not acceptable behaviour for a government administration. Government organizations like the EPA are not companies trying to maximize profit by selling a widget, they are researchers and regulators trying to determine the best path for everyone in the country with respect to economics, health, and environment.

[kenjackson]

Same people supporting Trump want Snowden to win the Nobel Prize.