The First Amendment of the Constitution safeguards that most essential feature of democracy: the liberty to communicate ideas and advocate alternatives to the status quo. It protects freedom of the press, speech, assembly, and religion. It guarantees our right to complain to and about the government.

Environmental advocates use these freedoms to champion reform. Greenpeace has taken the right to assemble to an artform in their protests and demonstrations. The litigious Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund flourish with lawsuits against lethargic or misguided government agencies. The paganism of Earth First! depends on freedom of religious expression. Vibrant environmentalism requires free press and free speech.

But environmental advocacy prompts censorship by government agencies and private interests. On the "left coast" this fall, two Eugene Register-Guard employees were arrested and their notebook, comeras, and film confiscated after the US Forest Service closed the Warner Creek salvage timber sale site amid vocal protests by environmentalists. According to managing editor Jim Godbold, "We think the issues raised by the arrest and confiscation of our material at Warner Creek are serious enough injuries to the First Amendment that they deserve to be heard in a federal courtroom."

The Forest Service is notoriously heavy-handed with its censorship, manipulation, and denial of information. USFS forester Jeff DeBonis created AFSEEE (The Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics) in response to repeated Forest Service suppression of information.

The National Park Service likewise censors and impedes outside investigations. Alston Chase's Playing God in Yellowstone recounts obstruction, inexplicable omissions, and other chicanery on the part of the Park Service. It took a court order to force the Yellowstone Institute, an "independent" organization chaired by the then-president of Montana State University, to add this challenging book to the visitor centers' publications. Those advantaged by the status quo colluded to hide it.

Honest assessments are difficult to come by because, as Chase says, "The usual fate of whistleblowers kept many officials silent, and the threat of losing their prerogative to study in Yellowstone frequently inhibited university scholars." That's exactly what happened to Professors John and Frank Craighead. Before their highly critical research could be completed, the world's grizzly experts' Yellowstone cabin, with all their data, mysteriously burned down.

The need to protect whistleblowers is not limited to public lands agencies. In June of 1996 the Supreme Court ruled, in a case involving landfill user fees, that independent government contractors, like government employees, are "protected under the First Amendment from retaliatory action" for failing to follow the agency's "party line". According to Justice O'Conner, "[The threat of retaliation against contractors] may chill speech on matters of public concern by those who, because of their dealings with the government, are often in the best position to know what ails the agencies for which they work." Threats to environmental whistleblowers are widespread.

Take the case of Professor Norman Whittlesey of Washington State University. After he testified against expanding the subsidies of the Columbia Basin Project, State Senator Tub Hansen reportedly met with the dean of the School of Agriculture to have Whittlesey's tenured position eliminated. When that failed, Hansen then tried to make Whittlesey's salary as a line item in the state budget so it could be eliminated in committee. Speaking truth to power is hazardous duty.

In popular press, we can also see political interests shackling free speech. New York Times environmental reporter Keith Schneider was among the most prominent writers to be removed from his post for honest reporting. He bucked the envrionmentalist orthodoxy by writing about trade-offs to environmental regulations and cleanup, and quickly found himself out of work.

And then there is Gregg Easterbrook, author of A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism. He notes that his personal popularity plummetted after publishing the book: "My book was blistered by enviro lobbies.... Wham! I had hit the Al Gore glass ceiling."

Another "green-listed" author was Tom Wicker, a New York Times columnist. Last February, John Flicker, head of the National Audubon Society, demanded that Wicker's article be pulled from the Society's Audubon magazine because it criticized the Clinton Administration.

Protecting First Amendment rights empowers environmental reform. When federal agencies control information, abuses of authority often follow. Environmental orthodoxy and bureaucratic expediency often trump honest and free reporting.

If the environmental movement is to motivate innovative and scientifically sound reform, we must encourage dissenters to speak and be vigilant in keeping government agencies from controlling information.

The alternative is to quietly slip towards an Orwellian nightmare with government as the "Ministry of Truth". Too melodramatic? Take a look the California EPA's recent "record retention policy":

Please dispose of all documents... [electronic mail] messages and other communications prepared during the course of policy formulation which contain other policy proposals not adopted or reflected in the final decision.