NASA "Clarifies" E-Mail Commanding Silence On Disaster Movie - NYT

"NASA has clarified its stance on whether its scientists can publicly discuss the coming disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow," saying that e-mail messages telling employees not to discuss the movie were not an effort to muzzle them.

The movie, which opens May 28, depicts a world ravaged by an instant ice age touched off when global warming disrupts warm currents in the Atlantic Ocean.

The e-mail messages were sent because the filmmakers and NASA never formally agreed to cooperate, Glenn Mahone, the assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, told NASA employees last week.

They "should not be interpreted as an attempt to keep scientists from speaking out on the issue of climate change," he said, adding, "We encourage our researchers to openly answer all appropriate questions regarding the science explored in the movie." (He made the same point in a letter to the editor in The New York Times on Saturday.)"

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/science/earth/04POST.html

"e-mail messages telling employees not to discuss the movie were not an effort to muzzle them."

Go figure!

What does "cooperation" with NASA "cost" a movie producer these days?

I seem to recall something from a few years back, around 9/11, where the government wanted movie producers to "share" their various scripts with them to "help" in planning for worst case scenarios. Perhaps "the cooperation" is in one direction only.