This is troubling news for academic scientists. An organization called “US Right to Know” has issued at least a dozen legal requests to the home universities of public scientists who have made efforts to educate the public about genetically engineered crops. Using the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state laws, they want access to all of the emails sent to and from the targeted scientists and a list of industry and industry-associated organizations. Claiming to only be interested to “understand the dynamics between the agrichemical industry’s PR efforts, and the public university faculty who sometimes are its public face”, these FOIA requests risk violating academic freedom and having a silencing effect on scientist-communicators who fear becoming political targets. Reminiscent of Climategate, the scientists who have been targeted fear that their correspondence will be twisted for political purposes.
We will report more about this concerning issue as it evolves. Keith Kloor has the story at Science Magazine, and will be updating this post at Collide-A-Scape with additional details as he receives them.
The fierce public relations war over genetically modified (GM) food has a new front. A nonprofit group opposed to GM products filed a flurry of freedom of information requests late last month with at least four U.S. universities, asking administrators to turn over any correspondence between a dozen academic researchers and a handful of agricultural companies, trade groups, and PR firms. The scientists—many of whom have publicly supported agricultural biotechnologies—are debating how best to respond, and at least one university has already rejected the request.
Biofortified 
Maybe people will be able to recognize what we’ve tried to tell them: the anti-GMO outfits are no different than climate deniers and anti-vaxxers.
Harassing academic scientists workplaces now. And people wonder why more scientists don’t engage.
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I have already had my say on this disgusting turn of events in 2 other forums, gmo skeptic forum and the original article. To sum it up. I think folks should comply, only for PR reasons. Carefully and thoughtfully to minimize out of context use to mislead.
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I had heard about this on another forum. This is a disturbing McCarthyesque development, and is an increasingly pervasive means in other politically and socially controversial areas of opening new fronts of character assassination, innuendo, accusation, and can be an affront to academic freedom and inquiry. A lot of innocent people can get hurt in the process.
There will be those who will say that if researchers at public universities have nothing to hide, they have done nothing illegal or unethical, they should be happy to turn over their e-mails. But whether they have done anything illegal or unethical is irrellivant to the damage to reputations, the chilling of free exchange of information, because those requesting, digesting and interpreting the information do not have to prove actual collaboration in any legal or ethical sense. The fact that an email was exchanged between a faculty at a university and someone at Monsanto is all that the court of public opinion requires to fan the flames of conspiracy.
Freedom of information is the law and should be complied with. But FOI can be used legitimately as a check on lack of transparency, but it can also be used as just another weapon in the cultural wars for intimidation and witch hunts.
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Rick, I have seen very similar arguments in favor of no further weakening of the 4th amendment. Well done.
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What’s missing here is probable cause. Hence the greater potential for abuse.
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I think that is a good check. If the request was based upon some reasonable basis to believe that a specific case of some manner of collusion had occurred involving a scientist, that would be one thing. But a broad request based on the premise that scientists routinely collude with industry to produce cooked research or hide risks is a slanderous premise that I do not believe that FOIA was meant to indulge.
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At least USRTK is honest in that respect. They flat out say they wish to learn of any connections and only imagine they are there.
On a related note, it has been posted elsewhere that, at least in Florida, the requester can be billed for reasonable and expected costs for complying to such requests.
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Yes, I believe I remember news stories and court cases about clerks trying to charge ridiculous fees for the copying. I had not remembered that. Thanks.
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This group is unbelievable. They recently published a 65 page article called ‘Seedy Business’ which was packed with fallacies. I had a little fun debunking it last week – http://iowameetsmaui.com/2015/02/03/a-seedy-business-for-sure/ I found it especially interesting that USRTK has only one major donor, the Organic Consumers Association.
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Can we in turn also request all of the email and personal correspondence of things like the Institute for Responsible Technology, other pro-organic, anti-GMO institutes or non-profits, and somehow Food Babe? I’d like to see just how transparent THOSE folks are willing to be.
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Charles Benbrook is on the staff of Washington State University. His e-mails might make interesting reading?
In fact, I think this is a deplorable action. The FOI requests are clearly being made to intimidate rather than to elucidate anything. And I would not condone a request to get access to all of Benbrook’s e-mails.
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I agree with regard to GMO critics and FOIA. There’s no evidence that they have anything to do with it or would condone it. In fact, I wonder if they would voice an opinion against this tactic?
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I am also interested to know what the response will be from the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the American Association of University Professors. They heavily supported Michael Mann: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/02/359543/chris-mooney-climate-scientist-michael-mann-wins-a-battle-against-deniers/
That links to this PDF in the original: http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/sullivan-letter-8-10-11.pdf
It has also been pointed out that Michael Pollan has a professorship at a public university.
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Well, being outside of the Corporate Military Agricultural Industry Horticultural Manicured Lawn Complex, he’s squeaky clean.
Or is he?
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I just found this I wanted to be sure we had for the record:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/04/17/va-supreme-court-rules-for-u-va-in-global-warming-foia-case/
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Well done. FOIA abuse is not just an issue as it relates to genetic engineering, its misuse is a concern to any area of scientific inquiry. Folks who are concerned about the misuse of FOIA should apply that principle in all fields, even in defense of scientists who they might disagree with in certain fields, just as we should be very concerned if say an ag chemical trade association were to demand FOIA access to Charles Benbrooks emails. I will be impressed if Mr. Halpem is equally cautious about the potential FOIA abuse to harass scientists working in ge related fields as he was in defense of scientists working in climate topics.
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Huh. Just saw this come through my twitter feed too: http://blog.ucsusa.org/let-the-engineer-speak-on-scientific-free-speech-and-the-harassment-of-experts-616
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Wow–got a reply from the woman who wrote the blog about the engineer:
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Time and again. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
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