&gt;  Nobody complains about legal-advice privilege creating &quot;muzzled lawyers&quot;<p>The attorney-client privilege belongs to the <i>client</i>. The purpose of all the traditional privileges is to allow the client&#x2F;patient&#x2F;parishioner to divulge a secret while seeking professional advice without having to worry that it will be published or used against them.<p>In the case of science, the secret the government wants to keep is not anything the government had to be encouraged to give the scientists. It&#x27;s the result of the scientists&#x27; research.<p>And allowing politicians to choose which scientific research is published is <i>catastrophic</i>. It invalidates everything published by government scientists because the political filter biases the published results -- intentionally. It would be better that the research not be done at all than that it be published only if it aligns with the political goals of elected officials.