In a move that had many people drawing parallels to George Orwell’s classic novel “1984,” the Trump administration issued communications bans on several government agencies this week.

On Monday morning, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent out an email to the employees of its research branch–the Agricultural Research Service, which includes about 2,000 scientists–instructing everyone to stop most public communication. This move, which was eventually reversed, echoed similar other orders that were issued to several government agencies.

Buzzfeed obtained a copy of the email to the Agricultural Research Service, which said:

Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents. This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content.

Members of the scientific community criticized the announcement, citing suppression of science. After only a day of public outcry, another email was sent to the staff at ARS on Tuesday evening. This email came from ARS administrator Chavonda Jacobs-Young and reversed the initial order, saying the previous notice should not have been sent in the first place. Officials later told the media that the order to the ARS had not been coordinated with the rest of the department and that it would contradict current guidelines that encourage scientists to share their finding with the media.

Scientists at the USDA were also told that they could keep publishing scientific papers in academic magazines, but could not do any interviews with the media without getting approval from the communications office first. Communications restrictions were also sent to the EPA, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, and the National Park Service. The EPA order also included instructions to freeze all grants and to not discuss it with any outsiders, the Huffington Post reported. The EPA issues grants for environmental research, air quality monitoring, education, and more.

USDA gag order rescinded after public outcry.https://t.co/L1x2EXsM9A
SO KEEP OUTCRYING – it works

— Kelly Hills (@rocza) January 25, 2017

Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, voiced anxiety about what this may mean for the agency’s future. “To our knowledge, there is not a precedent for large-scale communication freezes like this,” she said to Buzzfeed.

Last week after the inauguration, the official National Park Service Twitter account retweeted a picture comparing the crowds at the event to those attending Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Immediately after, it was ordered by its Washington office to stop all tweeting until further notice. The account was allowed to resume again, after deleting the original tweets and posting an apology.

We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you pic.twitter.com/mctNNvlrmv

— NationalParkService (@NatlParkService) January 21, 2017

Then on Tuesday, the Badlands National Park sent out a series of tweets with climate change facts but were quickly deleted.

These are tweets that the new Admin has already deleted. RT if you believe in science and oppose Trump’s gag order on climate facts! pic.twitter.com/yBUgyfACN6

— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 25, 2017

And now, an alternative, unofficial National parks account claiming to be run by NPS employees has surfaced. The account, with the username @AltUSNatParkService, quickly gained popularity, with nearly 650,000 thousand followers on Wednesday afternoon. Several very similar accounts popped up as well.

What do we want?
Peer-reviewed Science
When do we want it?
Yesterday, please!

— AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told the Hill that he couldn’t comment on the specific bans, but did say that it was normal procedure for a new administration. “I don’t think it’s anything surprise that when there’s an administration turnover, that we’re going to review the policy,” he said.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Police officers in Idaho are hereby banned from talking to the media on weekends. The new policy from the Police Department in Lewiston, Idaho became official earlier this week in order redistribute resources during understaffed weekends. Journalists seeking weekend updates must now be present at an actual crime scene, even if it’s only to get a quick brief.

Lewiston’s City Councilman Jesse Maldonado disapproves of the new rule and called it “disquieting.” He told the Idaho Statesman, “City residents reading the newspaper, their interest doesn’t stop on Friday. That’s just not how it works.”

Newspaper readers aren’t the only ones affected by Idaho police suspending communications during weekends. The decision also hinders transparency between the police and the public, preventing them from interacting openly with the community. In the midst of recent discussions about police misconduct and violence, it would probably be in the police department’s own interest to show openness towards the media.

As Law Street reported previously, the number of prosecutions of police officers involved in civilian shootings is higher than it’s been in a decade. It’s possible that these numbers have grown in part due to growing media attention on the issue. Therefore, the media could play an important role in bringing cases of misconduct into the limelight.

According to the Idaho Statesman, surrounding towns have very open and transparent relationship with the media. One sheriff claimed that he bas given his cell phone number to reporters and another officer claimed he allows reporters to have access to call logs and personnel during regular business hours.

“As an agency we have a good, efficient, working relationship with the media and we keep those channels of communication open,” said Joel Hasting, Police Chief in Clarkston, Washington. “It’s about the police department being part of the community and not segregated.”

Progress is being made to make police departments more transparent, with more and more officers wearing body cameras and being indicted for use of excessive force. Prohibiting police officers from talking to the media seems like a step backwards. However, the mayor of Idaho pointed out that they can change the new policy at any time if it ends up hindering public information. Hopefully he will keep an eye out for that.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Idaho City Bans Police From Talking to Media on Weekends appeared first on Law Street.

As someone who grew up firmly entrenched in the era of technology, interpreting what people say via plain text on a screen is almost second nature to me. Emojis, elongated words, abbreviations, as silly as it sounds, all convey their own unique meaning. So, it follows that how to deal with those unique meanings is an important question that jurors and the legal system were going to have to deal with someday. Well that day is today, as an argument over the significance of emojis and other kinds of virtual language have made their way into the much-anticipated trial of alleged Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht.

Silk Road was an online site where many illicit transactions took place–particularly the sale of illegal drugs. It was a virtual black market, hidden under layers of secrecy and encryption. In November 2013, the website was shut down and Ulbricht, 29, was arrested and accused of being “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the founder of the site.

Ulbricht is now on trial, facing charges of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and procuring murder. That last one refers to the fact that “assassins” allegedly advertised their services on Silk Road.

His trial has taken a weird turn though. It was more common when I was younger, but every couple of years someone writes a reactionary article claiming that today’s teenagers are using emoticons and abbreviations to set up giant orgies (or whatever it is that kids do these days). These articles are usually much-ridiculed by anyone who’s ever seen a computer before, like this CNN piece from December entitled “28 Internet Acronyms Every Parent Should Know.” Choice abbreviations from this article included: “IWSN – I want sex now” “GNOC – Get naked on camera,” and “KPC– Keeping parents clueless.”

Well, parts of Ulbricht’s trial kind of sounds like a real life reenactment of an article warning parents about the acronyms that those darn kids nowadays are using.

pic.twitter.com/5YGWmqi0jA

— Sarah Jeong (@sarahjeong) January 23, 2015

That brings us back to the whole emoji issue too, because apparently this happened “IRL”:

He said “emoticon” literally every time there was an emoticon pic.twitter.com/deisI0nSEH

— Sarah Jeong (@sarahjeong) January 23, 2015

There was also a  particular message at issue in which a “smilie face” was used, and the prosecutor didn’t mention the smilie face after reading the message to the jury.

Essentially, the issue here is that the attorneys in this case are realizing that they can’t treat Ulbricht’s emails, chats, texts, or whatever other form of online communication like they’d treat a letter or an audio recording. The ways in which we communicate online have developed their own nuances, such as elongating certain words like “soooo” or using multiple question marks. Both of these were discussed in Ulbricht’s trial so far.

That’s why Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht’s attorney, wrote a letter to the judge asking that any forms of written communication–including emails, chats, and texts–be shown to the jury, not read aloud. He argued that the danger of different inflections, or ignoring parts of the message altogether (like just saying “emoticon”) was too high. The prosecution, obviously, disagreed.

Eventually Judge Katherine B. Forrest allowed a compromise. She allowed the chats and other text-based communications to be read into the record, but also instructed the jury to read them on their own and take note of any symbols.

This is just one part of a trial that in many ways deals with a world that has the potential to be utterly foreign to some of the jurors. Judge Forrest even recommended to both sides of the case that they develop a glossary for the terms that jurors may never have heard of, like Bitcoin, IP address, and Tor.

It’s a division in our society that is as inevitable as it is ubiquitous–knowledge of technology divides people of different ages, different social classes, and even different interests. That being said, it’s clear that the ways in which we communicate are ever-changing, and not as easy to interpret as they used to be. It’s easy to tell if someone is sarcastic from their tone when you listen to a recorded voicemail; it is not as easy when reading an email. The jurors will have to weigh these changes in technology along with the charges against Ulbricht, and moving forward, I bet we’ll see a lot more cases where the meanings of different facets of technological communication are up for debate.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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