Censoring scientists is not new in human history, but some would say that its reached another level, in Russia, but especially in the United States.

Russia

When I first started traveling to Russia (at the time it was the Soviet Union), a world of dissidents was real. Dissidents were brave men and women who disagreed with Soviet ideology, and had the strength to speak out. During one of my first trips to the USSR (1983) I went to a Jewish synagogue in Moscow on Yom Kippur. On this day, hundreds of Soviet Jews crowed into the synagogue, and filled the streets outside standing in small groups and moving around. Among them were men wearing black or dark brown leather jackets. They were KGB agents.

Also among them were a small group of Americans and Canadians. We met and talked with a number of dissidents, who called themselves refuseniks—a person who was refused permission to emigrate, usually to Israel. The people I met were science teachers, and teachers of language. There were scientists among the groups we talked with. Their stories were of courage and determination and the hope that they would be able to travel out of the country. Some had been waiting for years, with no income and no hope of getting a job.

At that time, it was illegal for Soviet citizens to be in contact with citizens from the west. We and they knew that, but at the time there was an urgency to get to know each other, and foster relationships. We did that over the next two decades. During those decades, the Soviet Union collapsed, but not before Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev promoted the implementation of “glasnost,” and “perestroika, openness and restructuring, respectively. The world inside the USSR changed rapidly, and many of the Russian people that I worked with over those years felt the changes, and many acted on them. One of my friends, an English teacher, disagreed with the director of his school. Instead of putting his head down and taking the criticism of the director, my friend resigned, and opened his own foreign language teaching service. A mathematics teacher I knew, who wrote poetry, got his first book of poems published, in Paris. Before Gorbachev, this would have been impossible.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, many scientists and engineers left the country and sought work in the United States and other countries. It was difficult, at first, for Russian research institutions to get funding from the government. With time, however, they entered the world of writing research proposals and seeking funding from European agencies.

Russian science and mathematics education has always prepared a cadre of researchers, but as I pointed out, the resources for high level research waned. As a result, doing science in Russia is difficult.

Despite the recent government efforts to revitalize Russian science by injecting more money into select research centers, such as Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, and creating funding programs like the infamous nanotechnology initiative ROSNANO, science as a whole is still struggling to recover from a long period of decline and stagnation. For me, like many others, moving to the United States represented a big opportunity to break free from stifling atmosphere of research institutions depleted of funding, where lab supplies can be unavailable for months and salaries barely cover the price of a monthly bus pass.

Anastasia Gorelova, I’m a Russian scientist. Why can’t Americans see past my citizenship? Massive Science, March 14, 2018.

Lunch? And then very recently, Russian scientists have been told that they must seek permission to meet with colleagues from another country, even for lunch, and provide detailed notes of the conversation. Of course Russian scientists called the recommendation stupid, and they would not act on these ideas.

United States

America is a land of democratic ideals, and as an American one has “freedom of speech.” So, if your a scientist working for the American government, a democratic institution, you might think that censorship would not be part of the work environment.

This is simply not true. Here are some examples of how censorship of science was rampant during the George Bush administration, and how Trump has undermined the nature of scientific thinking and research.

• Dr. Richard Carmona, the U.S. Surgeon General (2002-2006), reported to a House of Representatives committee that Bush administration political appointees had repeatedly censored his speeches and prevented him from releasing reports on controversial issues, including stem cell research, abstinence-only sex education, secondhand smoke, and mental health. (National Coalition Against Censorship)
• Political appointees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Commerce Department heavily edited the written and oral testimony of Dr. Thomas Karl, the Director of the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, before the House Committee on Climate Change Science–altering and removing Karl’s statements which found carbon dioxide emissions, a result of burning of fossil fuels, to be a serious cause of global warming.
• Restrictive policies in the United States have had a negative impact on scientific development of hESC-based therapies. The current Administration has suppressed research and impeded access to responsible scientific discovery. The President, however, did not act alone. Congress followed suit, choosing to retreat safely within the federally-declared moral high ground rather than confront the challenge of meeting both the values and scientific needs of the country. As a result, the United States has lost ground during seven crucial years of research. (CENSORING SCIENCE:A Stem Cell Story, 2008
• The Trump administration is circumventing guidance from scientific experts by shutting out scientists from the decisionmaking process, leaving science positions vacant, disbanding or compromising advisory committees, or sidelining independent expertise.  Trummp is also Politicizing scientific grants by allowing political appointees to review them, which undercuts the scientific process and deters progress of the wider scientific enterprise.(Union of Concerned Scientists)

Government scientists have been threatened, and some sent into exile at the Department of Agriculture. The EPA, the protector of the country’s air, water, and land, has gone through several secretaries, and many scientists have fled.