We need to do more to ensure that the public and press are getting timely access to reliable and complete information about the pandemic and about government’s response to it. (1/x)
Yesterday @knightcolumbia filed a FOIA request for policies regulating the speech of CDC employees. (2/x)
knightcolumbia.org/documents/cdc-…
knightcolumbia.org/documents/cdc-…
We filed it b/c the WH has issued misleading and inaccurate statements about the pandemic even as it has imposed restrictions on the ability of CDC employees to speak to the press and public. (3/x)
Also yesterday, international press-freedom monitors @davidakaye @edisonlanza @harlemdesir issued a very strong statement calling on governments to provide truthful info about the pandemic, protect internet access, and counter disinformation. (4/x) osce.org/representative…
In the United States, there is a broader pattern of agencies unwarrantedly and sometimes unconstitutionally restricting the right of their employees to speak out—even in their private capacities—about matters of public concern. (5/x)
See, for example, this @justsecurity post from Stephanie Krent about restrictions that the Executive Office of Immigration Review has imposed on immigration judges who want to speak publicly about immigration policy. (6/x) justsecurity.org/69048/revised-…
This paper by @FrankLoMonte @brechnercenter—which properly characterizes some of these restrictions as “prior restraints”—puts all of this in broader context. (7/x) law.ku.edu/sites/law.drup…
