This article examines recent efforts by the Canadian government to silence a federal scientist from publicly speaking about her research on the decline in Fraser River sockeye salmon. I argue that the information embargo through which Canadian officials silenced government science not only served an agnotological function of demobilizing the opposition by promoting public ignorance about ecological issues, but also functioned as a means of state making by producing an image of the state as a unitary and powerful actor. This performance of secrecy represents a critical component of contemporary governance, and its examination has much to reveal about the central role that the production of a state effect plays in neoliberalism.