Under fire for cronyism? Hire your personal attornery to the Supreme Court.
Under fire for a slow respone to Katrina due to bureaucracy? Add some loopholes to announcing the weather.
But really, who know more about the weather, the National Weather Service, or the Commerce Department.
Bush gag orders National Weather Service
by curtadams
Tue Oct 4th, 2005 at 22:02:17 PDT
Employees of the National Weather Service, in the process of accurately warning the public about recent hurricanes, have apparently stepped on some toes. Recent weather facts have exposed both Bush's incompetence and Santorum's corruption. As reported by Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story NWS employees who wish to talk to the press must now obtain authorization from the Department of Commerce.
curtadams's diary :: ::
Reality has been hard on the Bush administration lately. Part of the slow response from the federal government to Katrina resulted from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA using different weather services. DHS used a weather service which has made large contributions to Santorum, who in turn introduced a bill to prohibit the National Weather Service from releasing information that is available from private weather companies - which is to say, anything. NWS will still have the privilege of providing these companies with information for free, paid for by taxpayers.
Now the Bush administration has taken a new tactic to reduce the effectiveness of the National Weather Service and reduce the chance that weather facts will refute administration spin or show up private companies (which cannot currently match the NWS' hurricane forecast accuracy)
NWS must obtain approval before they talk to the media. Employees must obtain the following:
-The name of the reporter and their affiliation
-Their deadline and contact phone number
-The name of the individual being requested to give the interview
-The purpose of the interview
-The expertise of the requested interviewee on this subject.
send it to the Department of Commerce, and get approval.
Obviously, this is ludicrous for an agency with such desperately time-sensitive information. The next major weather event - hurricane, blizzard, tornado, you name it - will be a much greater hazard to the public, which will be restricted to the narrow straw of regularly scheduled bulletins. Call CNN to announce a shift in forecast track? Ix-nay! Good luck, suckers.
2 comments:
Isn't the National Weather Service an agency of the Federal Government? So why can't the Government set restrictions on what is classified and what's not? On the positive side - couldn't this decision be made because of all the lower level employees at the NWS that call Hurricanes (like Rita) Level 5 catastrophies? When they may not be, causing panic in Houston? I can see if Bush tells them to call a Level 5 Hurricane a Level 3 for some reason, but he's not. He's just saying that if you want to talk to the media, you have to get clearance first. Welcome to every private/public agency.
It is a Federal Agency, like FEMA, it seems like a move to privatize the weather by crippling the Weather Service that suckles at the liberal government handout teat and support the one that the Republican would make money off of. I have a feeling that even if they could forecast that Rita would be a level 3, they wouldn't risk the political catastrophe (kinda like littering in Heiroshima right now) of not evacuating. Bottom line, we need a color-coded sign.
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