Message control or 'spin'

Harper Government Spends Millions Monitoring Press Of Own MPs

Topics: 
Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
0

Althia Raj – May 8, 2013

The Harper government has spent more than $23 million over the last two years on media monitoring — including more than $2.4 million tracking some of its own backbench MPs in television interviews, radio and print, according to documents tabled in the House of Commons earlier this week.

The names of 65 Conservative backbench MPs — or just about 64 per cent of all Tory MPs who have no ministerial or any parliamentary secretary duties — are included in a list of search terms the federal government paid third-party contractors to monitor in news media from April, 2011 to December, 2012, although some of the terms were also monitored in early 2013.

Federal librarians fear being ‘muzzled’ under new code of conduct

Topics: 
Government transparency, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
4
James Turk

Margaret Munro – March 13, 2013

Federal librarians and archivists who set foot in classrooms, attend conferences or speak up at public meetings on their own time are engaging in “high risk” activities, according to the new code of conduct at Library and Archives Canada.

Given the dangers, the code says the department’s staff must clear such “personal” activities with their managers in advance to ensure there are no conflicts or “other risks to LAC.”

‘Muzzling’ of Canadian government scientists sent before Information Commissioner

Topics: 
Science, Message control or 'spin', Government transparency
Rating: 
4

Federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is being asked to investigate the “muzzling” of Canadian government scientists in a request backed by a 128-page report detailing “systemic efforts” to obstruct access to researchers.

“She is uniquely positioned, and she has the resources and the legal mandate, to get to the bottom of this,” says Chris Tollefson. Tollefson is executive director of the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre, which issued the request with the non-partisan Democracy

Prestigious science journal slams government’s muzzle on federal scientists

Topics: 
Science, Message control or 'spin', Government transparency
Rating: 
4

The Canadian Press – March 1, 2013

One of the world’s leading scientific journals has criticized the federal government for policies that limit its scientists from speaking publicly about their research. The journal, Nature, says in an editorial in this week’s issue that it is time for the Canadian government to set its scientists free.

It notes that Canada and the United States have undergone role reversals in the past six years, with the U.S. adopting more open practices since the end of George W. Bush’s presidency while Canada has been going in the opposite direction.

Scientist calls new confidentiality rules on Arctic project ‘chilling’

Topics: 
Science, Message control or 'spin', Government transparency
Rating: 
4

Margaret Munro – February 14, 2013

A bid by the federal government to impose sweeping confidentiality rules on an Arctic science project has run into serious resistance in the United States. “I’m not signing it,” said Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware, who has taken issue with the wording that Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has proposed for the Canada-U.S. project.

It’s an affront to academic freedom and a “potential muzzle,” said Muenchow, who has been collaborating with DFO scientists on the project in the eastern Arctic since 2003.

Daniel Ellsberg on secrecy and national security whistleblowing

Topics: 
National security, Reprisals, Message control or 'spin', Daniel Ellsberg
Rating: 
2
The following are selected extracts

Daniel Ellsberg – January 13, 2013

Daniel Ellsberg is the former American military analyst who sparked a national uproar in 1971 by releasing the top secret 'Pentagon Papers' to the USA media. This encyclopedic 7,000-page history of the Vietnam war revealed that successive presidents had systematically lied to the American people about the war, which they knew to be unwinnable.

In this lengthy and insightful article Ellsberg discusses the rigorously enforced culture of secrecy that pervades many agencies, especially the 'intelligence community'. Ellsberg asserts that virtually all of this secrecy is not to protect the nation from foreign powers, but to protect agencies from proper oversight and accountability – by keeping the public and lawmakers in the dark.

"Zero Dark Thirty" exposes Washington, Hollywood relationship

Topics: 
USA, National security, Torture, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
2

Michael Hastings – January 10, 2013

During President Obama’s 100 or so campaign trail speeches this past year, he usually received the biggest applause for mentioning the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The lines were real crowd pleasers. Zero Dark Thirty picks up where the cheers from the Obama rallies died off.

Rather than casting Obama and the White House as heroes, though, the film lets the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency play the protagonists with the true claim to Bin Laden’s scalp.

Defence officials dodged F-35 questions before election

Topics: 
National Defence, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
3

Lee Berthiaume – December 1, 2012

In the lead-up to last year’s federal election, Defence Department officials intentionally dodged repeated requests from Parliament’s budgetary watchdog to sit down and discuss the true cost of the F-35 stealth fighter program.

Newly released internal emails show that’s because they were awaiting approval from the top echelons of government to meet with Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page and his staff — approval that never materialized.

Federal scientists muzzled re. oilsands contaminants

Topics: 
Tar sands, Environment, Message control or 'spin', Science
Rating: 
3

Mike De Souza – November 5, 2012

Environment Canada scientists have confirmed results published by researchers from the University of Alberta showing contaminants accumulating in the snow near oilsands operations, an internal federal document has revealed. They also discovered contaminants in precipitation from testing in the region.

But the researchers were discouraged from speaking to reporters about their findings, first presented at a November 2011 conference in Boston of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, says the document, released to Postmedia News through access to information.

DND tells staff to withhold even non-sensitive information

Topics: 
National Defence, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
0

David Pugliese – September 20, 2012

A Citizen article about the Defence Department’s handling of tax dollars has prompted a crackdown on the type of information DND and the Canadian Forces releases to the public, according to newly released documents.

The April 11, 2011 article came in the middle of the federal election campaign. It caused embarrassment to the department and the Conservative government and prompted an unsuccessful hunt for the source of the documents, military officials privately acknowledge.

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