Weather Service Employees Tethered by Illegal Gag Orders

Seems someone is "tightening" up policies, but to what end?
At first glance it appears to just be a union grievance, but I'm not sure as a taxpayer I want meteorologists etc....muzzled the way Harper did in Canada.

Did a ATS search an someone did a mini-political thread, over in regional politics.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I would think this affects us Nationally? Things like this get buried easily in memo's and us being complacent. I may not agree with Jim Cantore's jumping up & down in storms & whatnot, but I defend his right to provide us with accurate science. Others in NOAA as well.
Will admit the second link is a mite inflammatory.
I'm of the opinion we need MORE science, not less.

How about it?

"In recent weeks Washington has placed "gag orders" on the following agency employees, "The National Weather Service", the "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration", and the "US Department of Commerce". This is a massive red flag that should trigger alarm bells everywhere.

Bill Hopkins, the executive vice president for the National Weather Service employees organization (NWSEO) said this:

“As a taxpayer, I find it highly disturbing that a government agency continues to push gag orders to hide how they operate. This is the work of the American government, owned by the American public, and should be open to the American public.”

Jeff Ruch, the executive director "PEER" (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) said this about the "gag orders".

“The National Weather Service is about the last place where national security-style secrecy rules need to be enforced,” Ruch noted that the broad scope of the gag orders put much of what goes on inside the agency under wraps. “Everyone is free to talk about the weather except for the people working inside the National Weather Service. Go figure.”

www.geoengineeringwatch.org...

www.geoengineeringwatch.org...

a reply to: Caver78

How do they link gag orders about CBA's, grievances and organizational planning to geo engineering?
www.geoengineeringwatch.org...

Won't let me highlight on that pdf to copy paste but the three gag orders are in there.

I do agree that I think we should probably know about them since it is a gov agency, but both your links just go off the rails about what this means.

a reply to: Caver78

Dane Wigginton is full of crap.

The "gag order" concerned union participants in discussions with the NWS.

But one other interested party has pulled out of the talks – the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents the meteorologists and support personnel.

Union officials say that starting in May they attended several meetings with the agency to discuss the reorganization .

However, at a meeting in August, the participants were asked to sign a “confidentiality” agreement under which they wouldn’t disclose what was discussed at the meeting.

Union members balked, saying they had the responsibility to brief their members on matters involving their very futures.

www.philly.com...

is this why the weather channel got flushed so instantly..........
yes I think so.............does anyone think the new service.....the one only one we can access is better....HA HA
I smell sheeeeeit.....

a reply to: Phage

This is where it get's fuzzy.....disregarding the hype of the Geo-link, on the surface it appears to just be a internal policy now being handled like a union grievance. I'd like to know more about the specifics of the gag orders, under what circumstances etc.....the confidentiality agreement they had to sign is at the very least, curious.

Aside from the original point made by the other thread"s OP's that back in 2005 all NWS personnel had to get approval from the Dept. of Commerce.....to speak to the media ( backlash from Katrina)

It seems like a LOT of politicking is going on within the NWS. Believe it or not, dummy lay-people like me still think NOAA & NWS are unbiased & scientific. If things are twisting to where these jobs become based on any current political parties whim, well.......damn!

THAT's why I think this bears discussing.
NOT because the topic has been used to promote the links agenda. Because we just got done watching Canada's scientific community get de-funded, disbanded & in some cases outright muzzled. Is this starting HERE?
In this forum we get our news from some of these people, it's relevant, no?

a reply to: Caver78

Ya but you are still using the gag orders that have nothing to do with anything that you feel needs to be discussed.
No one is being told they can't talk about the weather or any sort of science behind it, just that they can't talk about their union negotiations.

Taken from your link Phage
btw THANKS!!

"The backbone of this ubiquity remains the U.S. taxpayer-financed National Weather Service, still the prime source of warnings and all that data that we take for granted.

Thus we taxpayers and the nation’s commercial weather services have a stake in the outcome of the weather service’s “reorganization” talks, which ultimately could result in the closing of some offices and reassignments of meteorologists."

Unlike Hurricane Patricia, or a whopper snowstorm reorganizing The National Weather Service admittedly ISN'T sexy, or going to be "Twitted" over.....but it does deserve some attention. Especially from us "weather-geeks".

a reply to: Caver78

I'd like to know more about the specifics of the gag orders, under what circumstances etc

Here ya go. Here is the NWSEO complaint.
www.peer.org...

Here is the union's press release (with references)
www.nwseo.org...

I wonder why Wiggy didn't link them himself.

It seems like a LOT of politicking is going on within the NWS. Believe it or not, dummy lay-people like me still think NOAA & NWS are unbiased & scientific. If things are twisting to where these jobs become based on any current political parties whim, well.......damn!

The complaints have nothing to do with any gag orders on the science. They are about procedural matters.

a reply to: Sremmos80

I'm aware I SUCK at articulating a "case"....LOLOLOL!!
Think I finally spit it out tho!

a reply to: Caver78

Unlike Hurricane Patricia, or a whopper snowstorm reorganizing The National Weather Service admittedly ISN'T sexy, or going to be "Twitted" over.....but it does deserve some attention. Especially from us "weather-geeks".

You want to be informed about the bickering? Why?

How much have you heard about the reorganization of the military (base closings, consolidations, etc.) before the negotiations were very well along? When something is actually done, we (the ones who are interested, anyway) will hear about it until then, it's the union doing what it does.

Does anyone believe anything these Meteorologists say anyway? They are usually wrong in my experience.

a reply to: Phage

Thanks for the help Phage


Call me a tad "jumping the gun" but this is how things get started. RIGHT NOW it's an internal gag order on employee's regarding the restructuring....but it's not a long shot that this restructuring will NOT be beneficial to the public.
Maybe it's just a few closings of mechanically obsolete recording stations? I'd flip that nickel and say maybe it's not that simple.

We don't know WHAT is being discussed now in this restructuring plan. The fact THERE IS a restructuring plan is news all by itself. To me anyways.....

Yes you're right no NWS scientist has been told to stuff it.....yet.......that we know of. We don't know how many research projects have been shelved, or just not publicized altho that goes for most industries.
( now I definitely sound reactionary, but don't mean too)

Just trying to turn this and see it from all sides.
If that makes sense?

a reply to: Phage

As ignorant as I've managed to come off here, I DO read about that stuff, and maritime logistics in the great lakes and any other manner of generally inane topics that bore my friends & family to tears.

Patterns all have sources....
tiny backroom policy changes can, or not snowball into big hot messes.
Some of which my tax dollars fund....so yes....this is actually interesting to me.

For instance....in fracking PA jumped into it so fast by the time anyone had a CLUE Rendell had literally given away all our State Game Lands for pennies on the dollar then left the DEP to hustle cause no one certified any state inspectors. It was a hot mess & still is.
Now that gas prices have tanked, we still don't have enough inspectors & companies are pulling out.
Great.

a reply to: Caver78

We don't know WHAT is being discussed now in this restructuring plan. The fact THERE IS a restructuring plan is news all by itself.

Well...yes.
www.washingtonpost.com... munication/

Just trying to turn this and see it from all sides. If that makes sense?

Honestly, it seems like you're sort of looking at one side, that there is something nefarious about the "gag orders." But I understand your point.

OK.....S.1331 is some seriously dry reading....the page to the other bill comes up as not being there, the one for H.R 1561.

This is gonna take a few to grasp....not even gonna lie about it!


Only thing besides some lovely federal jobs created, is the clause that if NOAA can't retain services from the National Academy of Sciences that contract can go to a private entity.
( somewhere around page 17-18)

Call me crazy but isn't that a minuscule amount being appropriated for more weather satellites?

OK.....pretty sure based on reading one of the new bills they are NOT hamstringing scientist's right before the UN summit.

Altho everyone ( including me) could have inferred that without googling more background info. Have to thank Phage for trying to stop me before I totally took that cliff. Altho I did quite a wiley-coyote dive off it before climbing back up.

Seems the second bill is still pending, but that this one is in effect.
Dry reading, but important policy as this will be in effect until 2020.

www.commerce.senate.gov...

originally posted by: Sremmos80
Won't let me highlight on that pdf to copy paste but the three gag orders are in there.

I do agree that I think we should probably know about them since it is a gov agency, but both your links just go off the rails about what this means.

I can agree with that, although the PEER link rep is entitled to make the statement,
“The National Weather Service is about the last place where national security-style secrecy rules need to
be enforced,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch" .......if that's how he sees it, and I have some sympathy with that.
The other thing is, 'organizational planning' is really as simple as it sounds? although at least the budgeting for anything novel or radical, or whatever should be in the public domain. Thing is, to me at least, if there was something muddy in any, 'organizational planning' before, after the fact, (damage control) or for the future, it would be fair enough for the union guys to get some clarification on where they stand in this STFU situation.
Dane Wigington though, does need to get a direct hit for what he represents, I don't think he has done it it here.

a reply to: smurfy

Those rules are being enforced for negotiations, while I would be for knowing about them I don't see nefarious reasons to gag them. Pretty standard to so so imo, and I don't know the about it all to say if it is or isn't allowed.

It gets discouraging watching a twist, then laborious clarification, then "oh well" running off in every direction with it still....shakespeare said man was a giddy thing but I'm thinking since the may have become a goosey thing...
$$$ negotiations are always confidential and people will try to use things for leverage by leaking them.

a reply to: Caver78

Obviously the scientists know about the upcoming Ice Age, and are having their free speech suppressed because it doesn't conform to the global-warming lies.