By: Zoë Strickland Managing Editor
On Jan. 24, the Trump administration ordered the employees of multiple federal agencies, including the EPA, USDA, HHS and DOI, to halt external communication with both the public and the media.
According to the New York Times, the communication halt is in place “… while the Trump administration struggles to put political appointees into position.” The moratorium on 
communication from those departments came after the administration began re-doing the White House website on Jan. 20, during which they deleted any mention of climate change.
As a result of these combined events, the Twitter account of Badlands National Park began posting scientific facts relating to climate change. The National Park Service then came forward and admitted that the information was being posted by a former employee who had hijacked the account and proceeded to delete what they had tweeted.
Though the National Park Service attempted to correct what had happened on their Twitter, the tweets sparked an onset of unofficial ‘resistance’ government accounts. Among those accounts are @altUSEPA, @RoguePOTUSStaff, @RogueNASA, @altNOAA and @NotAltWorld, which was originally used for the unofficial National Park Service but has since been handed off to non-government workers.
Since all of the Twitter accounts being made are working against the orders of the Trump administration, it’s unclear which accounts are being run by people inside of the the organizations. Some, like @NotAltWorld and @RogueNASA, publicly admit to being run by non-government employees.
The Rogue POTUS Staff twitter claims to be run by people within the government. Their website identifies them as the “Official White House Resistance Operation,” saying that they “are White House staffers, working at various levels, operating in secrecy to reveal hidden truths of the Trump administration to the American people.”
However, since all of the Twitter accounts are openly resisting the new administration, none of the account managers have come forth to identify themselves.
The Twitter accounts join together as part of a larger movement that draws attention to the communication halt as well as the “… recent proposals from the Trump transition team for drastic cuts in environmental science in federal agencies,” as reported by Scientific American.
Most recently, on Feb. 3, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-F.L., introduced a bill into congress that
seeks to completely terminate the EPA.
The recent setbacks to the scientific community have helped draw attention to the work that has already been done by each agency. People are drawing attention to old research, such as the database that NASA introduced in August of 2016 where they post the peer-reviewed articles of research that NASA has funded. Articles on the database range from studies about how spaceflight may increase certain clinical symptoms in astronauts to if it’s possible to inhabit Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
The rogue twitter accounts, government employee run or not, are starting a conversation that helps spread awareness for government-funded scientific research.
The science community is planning the Science March on Washington on April 22 for Earth Day. A satellite march is currently set to take place in Portland.
Contact the author at journalmanaging@wou.edu
