Disguised & With Electronically Altered Voices, NPS Workers Slam Bush

[hatrack]

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"On Thursday, disagreements between the administration's environmental officials and some of their employees took a turn toward the bizarre. Two longtime National Park Service workers — disguised by dark glasses, hats and scarves — arrived at the National Press Building in a sedan with tinted windows. Long before reporters filed in for a news conference, they hid behind a thick blue curtain.

Then, with their voices modified by a "voice disguiser" from a counterespionage store, they denounced the administration for "enacting policies and laws that will destroy the grand legacy of our national parks," as one put it. The fact that the two men resorted to tactics usually reserved for organized-crime informants or witnesses in espionage cases suggests the intensity of the conflict between the administration and some longtime government employees who have spent their careers protecting natural resources.

David Barna, spokesman for the National Park Service and a 28-year veteran at the agency, said the spectacle made him "angry." He questioned whether the employees were who they claimed to be, and said their statements did not reflect the views of most of the agency's 17,000 permanent employees.

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Of the 1,361 employees who responded to the e-mail survey, 84% said they had a "great deal of concern" about the effect of current policies on protecting park resources, and 59% said they believed that the situation had worsened in the last couple of years. Most of the respondents described themselves as satisfied with their jobs; however, 79% said morale had declined over the last couple of years."

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[Zeke]

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