Bishop Hill reports here that he was advised today that the UK National Domestic Extremism Team has been called in by the Norfolk Constabulary. Bishop Hill reports the following statement:
Norfolk Constabulary continues its investigations into criminal offences in relation to a data breach at the University of East Anglia. During the enquiry officers have been working in liaison with the Office of the Information Commissioner and with officers from the National Domestic Extremism Team. The UEA continues to co-operate with the enquiry however major investigations of this nature are of necessity very detailed and as a consequence can take time to reach a conclusion. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.
Climate Audit 
274 Comments
This would appear to indicate that they are focused entirely on apprehending the source of the leaked files, which matches well with Rajendra Pachauri’s statement the other day.
It security has been a major focus of UK government, mostly because they’ve done such a very poor job of dealing with security issues. They will most likely to be content with leaving any wrongdoing by scientists to professional organisations and search for the leaker.
****confidential*****
Mc,
Ya, looks like they contacted JeffId.
They are gunna have to FOIA my mails. I have that to hide behind.
cheers
Steve
Very funny!
Mosher, is this your comment on Patrick Courrielche’s article re peer-to-peer review?
“Patrick it looks like the police have contacted JeffId. ( domestic extremism task force or some such nonsense)
I suspect they will be contacting me, after the whole story breaks.
I do want to protect deep throat. May need legal help. ”
Care to elaborate? Why need legal help?
I know nothing about the whistleblower laws in the UK, but it would seem to me that any court would be more sympathetic to a claim of whistleblower protection if that person sought protection before the authorities caught up to him.
Re: mpaul (Jan 8 15:40),
Well, based on this there is a reference to here.
I don’t know… back to work.
Cheers,
Jimchip
I hope they don’t call-in the Spanish Inquisition (. . .I *never* would have expected that!) 🙂
Cardinal Ximinez: “NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our *four*…no… *Amongst* our weapons…. Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again.”
It sounds ludicrous on its face, but the involvement of the “domestic extremism team” may be for completely practical purposes. It may be that the team has a lot of experience with forensic examination of computer networks. If they’re sitting around, why not use them ? I think everybody would like to know who leaked the e-mails, for different reasons.
This sounds like a law enforcement group that might be looking into Earth-First type networked ecoterrorists in the UK. [a group that damages building sites, but not people – directly…]
On the other hand, the UK gov’t is certainly “all-in” the AGW pot. Its hard to imagine there are any Sir Humphreys in Whitehall, pushing for an audit of CRU climate data.
I do not think they are being called for their experience, most likely to garner experience. Most certainly it would be an attempt to stop further Whistle blowing in this domain. There is a joke in all this. When in Opposition whistle-blowers are held up as national heroes and more are encouraged to ‘leak’.
When in Government it is a breach of National Security and MUST be prosecuted. (for the good of all, of course)
regards
Having done IT and financial audits, it is so obvious they do not have someone working on this that knows what they are doing. There are hackers that are kids that could crack their system and that could track the transfer of files.
In the case of embezzlement or other financial crimes, cops have a tendency to physical crimes and not electronic leaks of a non financial basis. If this was a hacking and it was money, the people that could trace it would have done so within hours.
Never heard of them. There’s a definition here though:
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/domestic-extremism.html
It could be this…
http://www.netcu.org.uk/default.jsp
…which seems to be some sort of Quango rather than a branch of the police.
I’m going to Norwich tomorrow to watch the mighty Canaries, so I’ll keep an eye out for any balaclava-wearing anti-climate change hacker terrorists.
Well be careful, you are more likely to find them than a football match!!
Boy, now I know it’s time to talk in code and acronyms! I wandered over to tAV, followed a link to some Big site, and saw a long article. They’re naming names!
This may be to much of an aside to be on topic but in the US there was a TV series called MI5. In the UK I think it was called Spooks. Sometimes I wonder about things like ‘Fiction based on facts’ vs. ‘Facts based on fiction’.
Does Art imitate Life? or…
Re: Jimchip (Jan 8 16:01),
I guess it’s bad when I have to reply to myself. Same as above, Part II .
Now that I recall, Mosher did say something like Timeline.
They are cops with cameras, check out this photo (and news story about the NDET…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/25/police-surveillance-protest-domestic-extremism
Seems like Big Brother hunting down thought crimes to me.
good find! It describes NDET clearly.
Subversives.
And I recall how we thought about totalitarian states back then when we watched in “Unbearable Lightness of Being” where her photo reportage is used by the state police to identify protesters during the crackdown following the Prague Spring…
Will Alexander over at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=4836 remarks that there is a need for something to unfold so that politicians can save face.
Henry chance @ 3:52 PM
“If this was a hacking and it was money, the people that could trace it would have done so within hours.”
True, so some other method must be in play.
If someone carried the zip file off the premises on a DVD and uploaded it to the web from a publically accessible site what file would identify the whistle blower?
WRT the files the whistleblower had to take one action to cover his tracks. He took that action. You can see the results of that action if you know what to look for and if you know why he had to take that action. A hacker would not have to take the same action.
I assume that “National Domestic Extremism Team” is NETCU which stands for the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit.
They have a web page here
Perhaps the Basijis were too busy?
In England, a grocer who sells bananas by the pound (instead of kilo) is a criminal. So maybe the domestic extremism team was called in because some of the CRU raw temperature data was in Farenheit.
Re: Sean (Jan 8 16:42),
This is OT! I read a hypothetical set of emails. It was a team sitting around worrying about oC vs oF. I won’t repeat the emails at all but, in summary, it was something like, “gee, is that 5/9 or 9/5?”; “Should we use decimal, 1.8 or, gee, I don’t have a calculator, 1/1.8 ?” and, lastly, “I really think WE should add, +32. We shouldn’t be using -32, should we? If only we had a formula! Well, that’s what research is all about.”
The Domestic Extremism Team
Do they Practice Domestic Extremism, recommend, research, investigate or…?
dang,
this movie keeps running through my head
You laugh. Have you ever seen an englishman with good teeth.
Actually, this one comes to my mind:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHGOl-jfUK0&feature=player_embedded
A couple of years ago I half jokingly commented on making a movie about the exploits of Steve McIntyre. It would be called “Climate Audit: The Movie” starring Richard Dreyfus as Steve and Wallace Shawn as Michael Mann. Now after ClimateGate the idea no longer seems like a joke but a real possibility after the inquiries and blowback run their course.
Too bad Wallace Shawn passed away. He would have been perfect for the part. Anyone else would be INCONCEIVABLE!
Are you kidding me or is there really a National Domestic Extremism Team? It sounds awfully 1984ish to me.
But maybe it is like Domestic Violence. My wife and I find each others views rather extreme at times. Maybe it is time to call in the Team.
traffic wardens with cameras in thier hats, more cctv than all of europe put together, local authorities allowed to covertly spy on you and enter your house,DVLA sells your data to anyone, police d n a data base, most of these were justified with the new anti terror laws(and who could forget micro chips in rubbish bins)
Kenneth,
Over in “what happened the polar Urals” a comment was made: Recall K. Fritsch’s demonstration that mean and variance are correlated”
Can you give a clue because that is something I need help on. It could have been theoretically true all along and I never knew it but I never had too because of the previous datasets I’ve worked with. Or, at least, I hope it’s OK that I never had to. A good link would be fine.
It was discussed here:
But that is not where Ken first posted his result.
It was prior to Nov 6, because it was discussed here as well:
It was prior to Oct 19 because it was discussed here:
The story starts here:
Re: bender (Jan 11 11:49),
I only asked for one and look what happened. I did like Mosher’s one joke about you. I tried it.
I said, “Bender Bender Bender”
I ended up in Kansas.
dont distract him from his pool cleaning duties
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 11 16:23),
He probably did it while he was fulfilling those duties. I’m the one that ended up in Kansas.
“Kenneth Kenneth Kenneth” should get you to Yamal. “Wilson Wilson Wilson” used to work … before commenting at blogs was considered “extreme” activity.
From the NETCU website FAQ on Domesitic Extremism…
“The terms are generally used to describe the activity, individuals or campaign groups that carry out criminal acts of direct action in furtherance of a campaign. These people and activities usually seek to prevent something from happening or to change legislation or domestic policy, but attempt to do so outside of the normal democratic process.”
“Domestic extremism is most commonly associated with ‘single-issue’ protests, such as animal rights, environmentalism, anti-globalisation or anti-GM crops. Crime and public disorder linked to extreme left or right wing political campaigns is also considered domestic extremism.”
1984 anyone?
Mmm. Well maybe it is appropriate after all. CRU would seem to fit the category of criminal they normally go after.
It’s quite possible they are after the whistle blower.
If you look at the web site you can see an alternative though:
What kind of criminal activity is involved?
The tactics used by extremists vary and are always changing. Incidents have included public disorder offences, malicious letters and e-mails, blackmail, product contamination, damage to property and occasionally the use of improvised explosive devices. Domestic extremist campaigns rarely cause a danger to life, but in some cases the aim is to create a climate of fear.
The last line says it all.
They are after the CRU team. I rest my case.
Re: WillR (Jan 8 17:49),
The link for those who missed it.
http://www.netcu.org.uk/de/default.jsp
You really believe they are investigating the CRU Team? C’mon.
They are looking for the whistleblower or hacker.
Actually the person(s) receiving the data from the whistle blower may very well be charged with hacking. Hacking need not be done through key strokes only, but also by using someone inside to deliver to you.
I’d be overjoyed if you turn out to be right.
Someone created fear by releasing the files? It seems to me that there’s more fear about NDET than there is about a whistle blower. The CIA is already busy on the track of the national security impacts of AGW (google CIA and climate change for their official web page on the topic), maybe the NSA could help out NDET.
Sooooo. . . “Domestic”, eh? Still investigating the possibility, or they now have reason to believe the Russian angle was just a smoke-screen?
Everyone seems to be focusing on the involvement of the NDET, but surely the mention of liaison with the Information Commissioner’s Office is far more interesting.
In the background while Sherlock Holmes is completing his investigation and the University Committees are performing their “independent” inquiries, what do you think about the possible threat of another release of e-mails? The original hacker implied that only selected e-mails were posted on the server, no? Suppose there are more, and suppose the potential of another bomb may be looming over the heads of the inquiries should they attempt to go the route of a whitewash; i.e., if there were to be cover ups, and another round of leaked e-mails occurred as a result, the effect would be catastrophic. Maybe some heads will roll after all. Wishful thinking anyway.
Re: Dave L. (Jan 8 19:00),
If I were a whistleblower and still had some unreleased files I would have made sure my attorney had copies. I wouldn’t be releasing anything on my own, even if I had a hotmail address so I could send from a random location.
Calling in the Information Commissioners Office.
For what ?
This is an organisation that has so little power that (apart from the jobs) I see little reason for its continued existence.
A waste of time. People (in the building trade) have known for decades that many companies ran a “blacklist” of individuals…it took the ICO nearly that time to decide they were right.
I won’t hold my breath waiting.
There is a newly appointed Information Commissioner who is prepared to acknowlge past failings and seems to want to make the legislation work. A high profile prosecution would probably suit him pretty well.
Why call in the National Domestic Extremism Team when we all know CRU was hacked by a super-secret agency of the Russian government to disrupt the Copenhagen conference?
@mpaul:
The history of official attitudes to “whistleblowing” in the UK is not encouraging. There is an entrenched attitude in favour of secrecy, confidentiality, and closed doors. Disclosure of information to an outsider could be regarded as theft of an employer’s property, and of course if there is the slightest whiff of national security being involved then there is recourse to the offical secrets legislation, and nowadays, anti-terrorism legislation. We see now, almost daily, the misuse of the latter in the arrest of innocent photographers, photographing architecturally interesting buildings, etc.
Theoretically there is now supposed to be a “whistleblower’s charter” but I have yet to hear of it having been used successfully. Sadly, the UK is not a free or a particularly democratic country. That there are less free and less democratic countries around in the world is hardly any defence and absolutely no consolation whatsoever. (I speak as a UK citizen).
Dum dum da da dum dum, da da dah…. da da dah….
What will they do when mission impossible leads to a pissed of disenfranchised grad student?
Domestic Extremism Extremism (not redundant) is what lead to Michael Savage being banned by an out of control government.
Spying by local constabularies is nothing new. Some even advertise it:
http://www.cityofno.com/pg-50-90.aspx
@”Intelligence Division”
National Domestic Extremism Team — another bit of disquieting nationalization………there’s your problem.
“What will they do when mission impossible leads to a pissed of disenfranchised grad student?”
Settle out of court to avoid open, public cross-examinations, of course
Someone else posted that breaches of the UK FOI attracted only fines – again, out of court settlements seems attractive if such offenses are proven
WillR
What kind of criminal activity is involved?
The tactics used by extremists vary and are always changing. Incidents have included public disorder offences, malicious letters and e-mails, blackmail, product contamination, damage to property and occasionally the use of improvised explosive devices. Domestic extremist campaigns rarely cause a danger to life, but in some cases the aim is to create a climate of fear.
The last line says it all.
They are after the CRU team. I rest my case.
I kind of read it the same way too….. I guess time will tell ….. am I naive? …. hopefully I’m just clinging to my belief in the truth winning out in the end
I read it completely the other way. The AGW hypothesis is embedded in government. The release of the CRU emails constitutes ‘fear’ in the public, as in ‘fear that the AGW theory might not be as solid as they think’.
I cannot see a sitting government, who is actively pursuing financial and legislative action in line with the AGW theory, prosecuting the CRU. If anyone gets prosecuted, it will be the person(s) who took the files and distributed them. The only way this would change is if there were a change in government, and the incoming government made investigating the matter an electoral priority.
In the end, I predict they will find ‘traces of a skilled hacker’ who they can’t trace. This stops the files being involved in a legal case, it embeds the ‘hacker’ meme in the public mind, and allows the world to roll on and forget about the emails. The last thing the government wants is an ugly, front page, court fight, because the ‘science is settled’.
I was thinking more along the lines of a leaker’s testimony at a hearing of some kind. But perhaps you’re right, an anonymous goat would be much safer – for the powers that be…
Re: inversesquare (Jan 8 23:58),
One small comment and I will try to leave this alone.
I figure that the CRU and the Hockey Team generally have been creating a climate of fear with their predictions. That simple. One could say it is an act of terrorism.
The comment was “tongue in cheek” — but now that I have thought about it — it kinda sticks — if you see what I mean.
It was a smart aleck comment and I apologize for that.
I guess politically motivated death threats might qualify as “domestic extremism”… at least if they appear as the kind of threat that may lead to an attempt.
“Norfolk Constabulary continues its investigations into criminal offences in relation to a data breach at the University of East Anglia. During the enquiry officers have been working in liaison with the Office of the Information Commissioner and with officers from the National Domestic Extremism Team.”
“criminal offences in relation to a data breach”. Not a lot there about “politically motivated death threats” as far as I can see. But then again your ability for irrelevant extrapolation has been one of the features of your postings here.
I might be mistaken, but think it was mentioned somewhere (not in the sentence above, of course), that Phil Jones received a death threat subsequent to the “data breach”. (In the US, I think Hanson had to accept police protection when going to a conference, due to similar reasons, also after the “data breach”. Which doesn’t sound like a “irrelevant extrapolation” to me, but it is always interesting what kind of responses I get when I mention such things here.
National Domestic Extremism Team?
What on earth are they doing? Compiling a list of extremists? Will anyone who has tried to acquire climate data from the CRU be placed on some sort of List?
Sounds to me like they’re investigating the wrong matters.
Perhaps soon we’ll be called, or even accused of, being something far worse than a sceptic.
James Delingpole’s piece in the Daily Telegraph (8th Jan) is worth a read.
Typifies how we go on in the UK. Add to that a professor investigating other professors and the most that is likely to happen is that there will be a slap on the wrist for loose talk for CRU. As the British government is wholely behind this lot, anything to save face will be the outcome.
If it is an internal leak, the person responsible will become the scapegoat. If it is a hack it will be very convenient for the “powers that be” to jettison any responsibility.
We are unlikely to get anything anywhere near satisfactory from this charade. Most UK newspaper’s seem to be on board with the warming theory (no openmindedness there) apart from perhaps The Daily Mail and The Express, both of which tend to publish sensationalism and are disregarded by folk with a modicum of intelligence. The Telegraph still publishes pro global warming articles despite allowing James Delingpole to sound-off occasionally.
The question is: Are we now dealing with an out-of-control government and justice or not? We’ll soon find out, won’t we?
The science may indeed be settled – by authority! Pretty brutal.
When authority decides to settle science by using its very authority – well, that oughht to wake you up. I have no doubt as what Mr Gordon Brown will try. His chances aren’t that bad, too.
Assuming it is a whistleblower, can you just imagine what the atmosphere within the CRU must be like RIGHT NOW….they must be all looking at each other and wondering “was it him, was it her…can I trust him,…where was he yesterday afternoon…..why has she been spending so much time in the library….etc etc …and so on….???”…..and now police have arrived….as they say “You couldn’t make this sh*t up”
Perhaps this is the reason for the involvment of the National Domestic Extremism Team? It’s not just hacking but death threats(?) in private emails. It is interesting that there are none of these email threats in the hacked mails Hide the data, Hide the emails
Perhaps those hacking the UEA AND those writing hate mail to scientists should be worried.
1254345174.txt
On Sep 30, 2009, at 10:30 AM, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike, Gavin,
The short note may not say much. As you’re aware Kaufman et al have a plot without
trees – their plots shows trees, lakes and ice separately.
Another issue is science by blog sites – and the then immediate response mode.
Science ought to work through the peer-review system….. sure you’ve said all these
things before.
We’re getting a handful of nasty emails coming and requests for comments on other
blog sites. One email has gone to the University Registrar because of the language used.
Keith had one that said he was responsible for millions of deaths! Even one reading far
too much into his off ill message.
Even though I’ve had loads of FOIs and nasty emails, a few in the last 2 days have
been the worst yet. I’m realizing more what those working on animal experiments must
have gone through.
Cheers
Phil
At 16:06 30/09/2009, Michael Mann wrote:
Hi Phil,
lets not get into the topic of hate mail. I promise you I could fill your inbox w/ a
very long list of vitriolic attacks, diatribes, and threats I’ve received.
Its part of the attack of the corporate-funded attack machine, i.e. its a direct and
highly intended outcome of a highly orchestrated, heavily-funded corporate attack
campaign. We saw it over the summer w/ the health insurance industry trying to defeat
Obama’s health plan, we’ll see it now as the U.S. Senate moves on to focus on the cap & ….
Mann seems paranoid on the subject of corporate funding and anyone who disagrees with him. I have yet to see any evidence from him to substantiate the “corporate attack machine” vast conspiracy.
This idea among climate scientists of “highly-orchestrated, well-funded corporate attack machines” is fascinating.
If there is evidence for that, they should bring it forth.
I imagine that Anthony, Steve, Lubos, Lucia or others would welcome a blog article from someone having such evidence – where better to post it?
If there is no evidence, then that indicates that either it is not real or that the perpetrators are so good that they have removed all traces of their activity. The companies with which I’m familiar are simply not that talented.
If there’s evidence, they should bring it forth.
Re: David Smith (Jan 9 09:10),
Here, and here, are a couple of emails (circa 6 Oct 1999) with evidence of the solicitation of corporate support, for something called the Tyndall Center, though Wigley didn’t like the name. I could paste in a longer list. Evidence of an ‘early-team’ solicitation. I wonder if Mann knew?
A few ‘choice’ selections:
Also, do you have a BP Amoco contact? The name I’ve come up with is Paul Rutter, chief engineer
– Charlotte Grezo, BP Fuel Options (possibly on the Assessment Panel
There are others in BP Tim [O’Riordan] knows too.
– Richard Sykes, Head of Environment Division at Shell International
Mr Keith Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Esso UK (John Shepherd]
I can’t resist: “We could probably do with some more names from the financial sector.Does anyone know any investment bankers?“
I have been wondering about the infatuation with the corporate ‘machine’ since I watched the MIT debate. This infatuation with a machine seems psychologically unsound, like a paranoia. But I believe that it is, instead, a psychological defense that they are using to justify their own unethical behavior, allowing them to believe that such behavior is not wrong when fighting the ‘machine’.
I watched the MIT debates myself. I wasn’t stunned to see Lindzen sitting there, perfectly calm, not making any bombastic statements… But I was taken aghast to see the pro-catastrophic AGW advocates railing like madmen about “the machine” ceaselessly like lunatics. I half expected them to start quoting “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” at any moment. Who are the conspiracy nuts now?
Mr Mann is a graduate of Berkeley.
Some of the literature at the Berkeley Workshop on Environmental politics is somewhat ‘conspiratorial’.
You mean “Beserkley”, I think. BTW, any reference to the work you describe?
Re: thefordprefect (Jan 9 07:25),
Hmmm, ford, perhaps every “comedian” needs a straight-man?
“Nasty” is anything Phil doesn’t like. Mann takes “nasty” and turns it into “hate”. Typical.
Mann: “I promise you I could fill your inbox w/ a very long list of vitriolic attacks, diatribes, and threats…”
My comment is that Mann didn’t but some whistleblower did. Except they left from Mann’s outbox as originals not as forwards.
“One email has gone to the University Registrar because of the language used”. I hope it wasn’t a ‘bad word’: The team would never write a ‘bad word’ in an email…
Jimchip https://climateaudit.org/2010/01/08/9844/#comment-214920
Nasty is NOT just calling someone a “twit”. I do not think you understand the hatred some of the anti-AGW crowd feel towards those proposing AGW as a possibility.
Just ask McIntyre why a whole thread had to be pulled from this blog. Look at some of the vitriol posted here. Look at the outpourings of Monkton.
If the emails are similar to those sent to scientists who use experimental animals then death threats to the scientist and their family would be the norm. I hope this is not the case.
Steve: I have insisted on politeness as a blog policy. I constantly ask readers not to be angry – something that I find distasteful. Readers here by and large comply with these rules. To try to insinuate that Climate Audit endorses or acquiesces in this sort of conduct is something that is simply untrue. As to “pulling a whole thread” – I presume that you’re talking about Lorax. Your comment can be taken as insinuating that threatening language occurred or was tolerated on this thread. There was no such language. I’m not going to debate this with you so please don’t bother.
Sort of like the hate that angel Ben Santer expresses for demon Pat Michaels in one of the leaked emails?
bender bender bender.
Dood I called your name three times and you appear.
Your presence is requested over at Lucia’s. One of the threads I forget which.. has a couple hundred comments.
Less chlorine, next time. effs up my hair.
thefordprefect wrote:
“I do not think you understand the hatred some of the anti-AGW crowd feel towards those proposing AGW as a possibility.”
Oh come on. The notion that alarmists like Mann are merely “proposing AGW as a possibility” is laughable — and you know it.
It’s not just hacking but death threats(?) in private emails.
Wouldn’t the Team have already turned such threats over to the Police?
This comment on Delingpoles blog is worrying:
Hmmm Have you seen who set up Nectu? = ACPO!
The National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) is a British police organization funded by, and reporting to, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) that coordinates police action against groups in the United Kingdom it describes as extremist. As of April 2007, it was headed by Superintendent Steve Pearl.[1] Because the ACPO is not a public body but rather a private limited company, NETCU is exempt from freedom of information laws and other kinds of public accountability, even though they are funded by the Home Office and deploy police officers from regional forces.[2]
aND GUESS WHAT?
Because it is a ‘Private’ Company it is free form FOI REQUESTS!
http://www.netcu.org.uk/about/about.jsp
Here is a quote from the NETCU website:
However, we also recognise that within some campaigns there are a small minority of individuals with extreme views and who are prepared to break the law in order to further their cause. These individuals sometimes try to hide their illegal activities by associating themselves with otherwise lawful campaign groups. Our work focuses on that criminal minority and not the majority of peaceful and lawful campaigners.
This seems to fit the description of James Hansen and his co-conspirators in their attempts to break laws and vandalize private and government property. For the sake of consistency, he should be investigated as an international extremist and brought to justice, or at least fired from his enabling job.
In the UK, are actions taken in apparent violation of FOI statutes investigated in response to a private complaint or must investigation be initiated by the government? Must a prosecution be initiated by the government?
Can an FOI violation be a basis for civil action, one anyone damaged by the violation can bring?
An FOI violation looks like it would be a criminal offense, but if the government is not interested in prosecution, what can you UKers do to provoke one.
It’s good to see that the English have an agency for investigating these things, or did they just assign the group that handles marital disputes which have moved beyond pots and pans as projectiles?
Has anyone (e.g. a member of the public with actual knowledge of wrongdoing) filed a formal complaint with the police about alleged FOI lawbreaking, etc. etc. yet?
If they haven’t, they may be following the lead of Capn Jack:
“I have been in the middle of one of these FOI messes before. This thing is an emotional, political and financial mess. Laws broken, ethics missing. Money and Prestige and Jobs on the Line. Yes Wiki failed, yes it may be that Google has been less than fair. But the big Issues and main issues are: Is the AGW movement corrupt. Has science been corrupted for political and perhaps malevolent purposes. Side issues are side issues.”
But I’d still like to offer a parable:
Many wives refuse to press charges against their abusive husbands for the sake of a twisted domestic “bliss”.
ruminations:
j ferguson above: “if the government is not interested in prosecution, what can you UKers do to provoke one[?]”
“Provoke” implies a public attack on the conduct of the investigation, pressure on leadership and a general closing of the ranks.
Now consider that a victim’s complaint (or co-conspiritor’s testimony) which quietly lands on the desk of a sympathetic or conscientious officer can often be used by him as a fig leaf for quietly going off the reservation or as a table pounder.
Seen it.
Sorry, I didn’t mean provoke in the sense you suggest. Maybe “inspire” would have been a better word. Regrettably, we can’t always reasonably expect our judicial types to see things the way they look to us.
Sorry I misunderstood you, but some of the going-off-half-cocked posts on this thread (including mine – jan 8 20:17 – oops) remind me of the mythical? guy with “stop police brutality” placards all over his front lawn wanting his house break-in investigated!
I like your sentence in reverse: We can always reasonably expect for our judicial types to sometimes see things the way they look to us. We can expect a few (some?, many?) judicial types to understand, sympathise or even agree with “us”.
Sometimes outcomes depend on the dumb luck of who gets the call. Rarely are those with something to say able to figure out the best person to go to. Sometimes it is a sympathetic officer who first makes contact . . . . . . . hello . . . . . . anyone out there?
The AGW folks are busy getting the message out that the current cold winter should not be interpreted as being counter to AGW; temperature extremes don’t support or disprove AGW. This seems quite a shift in position as conveyed through the media. I’m concerned that the asymmetry is increasing on several fronts.
More on topic, I haven’t seen that existing FOI requests have been fulfilled. Perhaps the police investigation will result in no FOI requests being fulfilled while the matter is under police investigation, since the emails / files pertain to an on-going criminal investigation. If that is the case, it could be some time before anyone gets any FOI requests fulfilled.
As Steve Mac mentioned recently, Jones himself is possibly guilty of a ‘data breach,’ given that on the one hand he was refusing data to those outside his trusted circle on the grounds that these data were subject to confidentiality agreements, whilst on the other hand he was sharing said data to others on The Team, as is suggested by the famous Emails.
Call me a cynic (aww, go on!), but I doubt it is this particular ‘data breach’ that is being investigated.
Re: David, UK (Jan 9 10:09),
Spooks use the term ‘mole’. I seem to recall a mole rooting around in a public ftp site. CRU finally did something about it, just a little (~10 years) too late. I hope “they” are not on a ‘mole hunt’ for that one. They could be, though… There seems to be a lot that the team doesn’t understand.
When Mann or Schmidt (I assume) replies here:
“Lets not get into the topic of hate mail. I promise you I could fill your inbox w/ a
very long list of vitriolic attacks, diatribes, and threats I’ve received.
Its part of the attack of the corporate-funded attack machine, i.e. its a direct and
highly intended outcome of a highly orchestrated, heavily-funded corporate attack
campaign. We saw it over the summer w/ the health insurance industry trying to defeat
Obama’s health plan, we’ll see it now as the U.S. Senate moves on to focus on the cap & ….”
I have to take his comments as those of a political shill or a scientist who has become delusional. Surprised that TFP would show this in his post. Comments like that must be embarrassing for Mann’s clearer thinking colleagues.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle in the US use potential (most often not documented or only calculated from one side of the scarce resource argument) loss of lives to push legislation all the time (the health care bill being a recent example) but when scientists do it you really have to start questioning what that must mean in terms of what they do as a scientists.
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Jan 9 11:43),
“Comments like that must be embarrassing for Mann’s clearer thinking colleagues”.
25 Apr 2007 , not Mann:
“Dear Phil,
I looked at some of the stuff on the Climate Audit web site. I’d really
like to talk to a few of these “Auditors” in a dark alley…”
09 Oct 2009
“I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.”
kenneth if you look at Mann, and the relationship between mann briff and jones you see even more going on. I’m not even going to touch on their glee at the changing of the guard WRT blair. I’ll focus on Mann’s perception.
Mann perceived that he was under the attack of a well orchestrated movement. He characterized himself as fighting this battle alone. Said it was too much for him. He repeatedly calls on others to stick together in this “common goal.” As we all know Briffa is kinda ambivalent on Mann. Other memebers of the team doubt his ability to be objective. He is too thin skinned as they say. Still Mann sends out these rallying cries. The opposition has staged a “coup” at journals (2003). The walled garden of peer review has been breached. He suggests boy cotting journals. Suggests building files on certain editors. Jones suggests an insider strategy ” we have a guy from CRU on the editorial board” . Jan 2005, Jones wigley and Mann start to worry about FOIA. Feb 12th, 2005 The wall is breached again. MM05 GRL hit the Street.
On feb 21, 2005 Briffa, without commenting, sends Jones a long pile of clippings about the press slamming Mann for his data hiding. Jones forwards the mail to Mann, notes that the skeptics are picking up steam and replies, “ya I gotta couple of people asking me for data”
So there you have the set up. The walled garden is under attack. Skeptics are inside the wire. Not just once with the Soon paper in 2003, but now with MM05. Mann is under seige. He’s told people he can’t fight this battle alone. What will Jones do? Was Briffa sending the comments to Jones to say in effect “look at all the bad press, I told you Mann was a liability?” was he intimating that Mann needed the help he was asking for? We don’t know. And what of Jones? His co author is under siege. He’s in the press. Is Jones motivated purely by a desire to help Mann or does he want a piece of that publicity? That’s unclear. What we do know is this. It’s Feb 21, 2005 Mann has characterized this as a fight against organized opposition. The encampment of Peer reviewed journals has been breached. The Mongol McIntyre has slipped past the wire. Former collegues like von Storch are viewed with suspicion. Mann is being overrun by the press for not sharing data. Jones is worried about FOIA. With that he jumps to his keyboard and writes that famous mail to Warrick Hughes on the very same day: “Why should give the data to you when your only aim is to find something wrong with it.”
Steve, being a non-poster but an avid and very grateful lay reader of this blog, to me you seem to have demonstrated, in your post – as Steve Mc has done in others – the great benefits of this email leak allowing the jigsaw to be put together.
There is a major educational book in this where, with crystal clarity, what seems to me to be the opposite of ‘openness’ in science is, at times ruthlessly, practiced by those who had become leaders in this area of scientific investigation.
It has simply everything. Politics – where Michael Mann is the stand-out leader, always seeing the political way of dealing with potential road blocks (eg oil company pressure) instantly seeing political ramifications of doubts (and thus emailing a copy of his knee-jerk response to MM03 to Joe Leiberman’s office -when the McCain/Leiberman legislation was about to be under the spotlight within days) and so on.
The long timeline is very illuminating as to the gradual circling of the wagons and – my personal opinion only – the subtle and marked psychological uniformity of attitudes towards scientific critics (‘outsiders’) as time went on. These behavioural changes have been seen before and the attitude of Keith Briffa is the most interesting of the lot, rather than those who in the 90’s were cautious about their science, yet who were in the vanguard of the reaction to critics later in the 2000’s.
It is a tantalising question that of ‘who is the whisteblower?’
Thanks Warrick,
It’s been my pleasure to have a few long chats with Steve McIntyre about the changes we see reflected in people through the mails. Briffa, Osborne, wigley, Santer, Mann. What a cast. Mann is relatively easy to figure out since he sees things in dramatic “frames” or metaphors. This style of thought is very easy to penetrate. Jones, on the other hand, is far more difficult to pin down, at least for me. It’s probably a British thing, I can read right through the bombastic american, but the British character requires a very subtle ear. Not to make too much of it, but it’s decidely funny when Jones tries to step up to Mann’s level of metaphorical rhetoric. When the team publish A paper critical of McIntyre Jones writes “the empire strikes back”
DOH! the empire is bad dr jones
Although I’m not sure whether I would want to help you figure out Jones, I’ll mention that I had more than once the impression that such remarks may be parodies on how others might perceive the situation.
Norbert,
There is always the parody defense, sarcasm defense, hyperbole defense, irony defense. Always and forever. The intention is always underdetermined by the text. So, please. The first lesson I taught freshman in determining authorial intention, whether one is looking at an “artistic” text or the personal correspondence of an author or the private diary is that there is always some “slippage” between the intention and the text. That observation, like the observation that any theory is underdetermined by the data, is the stuff of freshman philosophy. Try again. The simple fact is this. From before 2000 through 2002 up until 2005, Jones, in word and action, takes an attitude of benign neglect with regard to sharing data. Never quite saying yes or no. The very day upon which he receives a mail from Briffa showing Mann under siege in the press, he decides to grow some stones and answer Hughes directly. I explain this change by arguing that Jones appears to have taken on a bit of his American counterparts attitude toward things, both in action and in word. Specifically, in a shift toward seeing the battle as something larger than himself, a position that Mann has been soapboxing about repeatedly over the years. On my reading of Jones he is adopting the frames of Mann, albeit clumsily. On your reading, Jones is parodying a metaphorical way of looking at things. But how does that work? It just looks like a bad parody. I don’t know which is the less charitable view of Jones, but neither of them would recommend him as a particularly sharp tool in the box.
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 10 02:15),
Hopefully, da’ book has enough of the historical background to show how they finally got sucked down the drain together in spite of the fact they all didn’t jump in together. (no spoilers please)
My one point is that Jones had those papers with Mann and was being self-protective, outside your above. What would have happened if he had kept growing stones and come to his senses?
There are so many times when “this issue” could have just faded away.
As SteveMc will tell you there are a good number of issues raised in the mails which have yet to be covered. For those issues that have been covered ( hide the decline, the FOIA, the jesus paper ) what we try to do is provide the context, historical context. For example, People complain that Jones’ words are taken out of context. For example, why EXACTLY does Jones ask Mann to delete mails, and ask him to ask Wahl. Forget the impropriety of that act, which is just the surface. You have to do a close reading of all the mails.
One thing that JUST occurred to me. Briffa didnt delete his mails that pertained to this issue. we know that because we have two mails that bears directly on the issue. hmm
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 10 13:49),
meh. Might as well put a mosher quote on the desktop. I’ve got room. I could put it in a directory but I’d probably have to use a find function or something to get it back.
hmmm.
I did lose track of time. me bad. I don’t understand why anyone would protect five or so years ago unless there might be something to hide. I thought that “decadal” was some kind of standard.
Hey, I have visited Australia (at my own expense). No Worries.
really really neat
(And all NDET, I still don’t know)
Steven Mosher,
Our interpretations (or “theories”), or, in my case, I just call it “impressions”, appear to have an aspect or two in common; mine, among other things, expecting a higher degree of humorous reflection on a situation in which the “toolbox” of pure science may appear a bit empty.
Ya
I guess it comes to this. It’s very dicey business talking about motives and profiling someone from a redacted corpus. The mails are not a complete record. Steve Mc is rather circumpect on this blog and I respect that because discussion of motive and personality are so squishy.
They spin our of control into nasty business.
Nevertheless, I make a stab at my best “story” that makes the facts ( words) hang together. Jones strikes me, in the beginning, as somebody who either is wiling to share the data.. OR as somebody who is “slow rolling” the request.
otherwise known as giving the slow no. non confrontational. If I met him in person I’d calibrate him on this distinction very quickly, ugly american style.
In any case, his behavior WRT hughes strikes me as different. Although there too I’ve seen someone maintain ( perhaps it was fordperfect) that jones is joshing. In all cases, I see a change. So I try to make sense of that.
WRT the star wars thing, I dont think much turns on it. It’s kinda like second lines of evidence.
It’s enough on my view that Jones starts to feel as embattled as Mann. Thats my fundamental sense.
Perhaps he breaks out in humor when stressed.
Mann clearly starts out embattled, jones it seems to me
is not in the same state as Mann. For one, as he states, the internet phenomena is not hitting the UK scientists as hard.
Now, you could argue , ya Jones does become embattled. not because he adopts Manns rhetoric, but because he actually IS embattled. That would be a reading that I would say gets to the root.
is that a fair opposition? You might argue that Mann and Jones are rightly defensive because they are in fact under attack ( nasty requests, nasty posts, hate emails, blah blah blah ) While I might argue that Mann has this conspiratorial mindset from the get go and Jones catches the disease from him.
If that’s our disagreement, then lets just say that. You think there reaction is based in fact, and I think they bring this conception to the facts. That’s a pretty fundamental disagreement and probably makes for a good discussion. Although Steve should probably not allow it. Can we agree that is our disagreement?
It seems to me, one way or the other, you’d allow that Jones might have thoughts of the kind “Isn’t there some alternative to all this?”, questioning this (perceived) state of an actual “battle” on one side or the other. I probably haven’t read enough emails to seriously discuss this (not that I’m going to), and, who knows, we might come back to such questions in some future thread. For the time being, I’d say we can agree to disagree, in a sense related to that point.
Ok. That seems fair.
I think in general what I’ve seen on both sides, and in myself of course, is this way people are sucked into a frame of thought. especially when information is missing..
It takes a special training to avoid that trap.
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 9 20:24), Steve, I had to come to terms with someone in my life who had been a very good friend, then, under pressure, went and collected lies about me to make a “report” without my having any say in the content.
What finally clicked for me was Stanley Milgram’s experimental work: gentle please-alls, when put under pressure from “authority”, are the ones who tend to become the most mindlessly ruthless of torturers against those outside the pale of the “authority”. Freethinking sods tend to be far more aware of, and resistant to, inhuman demands from “authority”.
I’m not going to disagree.
Long ago I lived in academia. The battles were brutal and wicked and personal. Over what? nothing. with nothing at stake the behavior is not moderated by ultimate sanctions.
I moved into business. The internal battles were civilized.over what?
Big stuff. why was the behavior moderated and controlled?
WTF? One of my friends in academia, a female, theorized:
people outside the power structure dont know how to fight.
And the smaller the issue the more strongly they fight, and unfairly. her two examples were women and academics.
They fight like girls. hehe ( hit me lucy, but she said it not me)
Inside a power structure, people learn to pick and choose their fights. when to back down. They have a power structure to preserve and a life inside that power structure. If they fight by the rules, they can lose and survive. They can wave a white flag. they can back down from a challenge. Dogs bark. They show their vulnerable neck to back down.
Academics dont know how to fight. they dont know how to use power. when they are given power, watch out.
Wow, this could be a fight just like scientists versus engineers.
Steve:
I think Jones is simply protecting a reputation that is based on very little real substantive scientific work. His “subtlety” is because the limelight is likely to show that there really is not much of substance – a bit like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz.
The compilation of all the temperature records was probably a lot of detailed work and has its own value … but what can he hang his hat on besides his “ownership” of the data.
As to your characterizing of academic vs corporate power conflicts – my experience, after 30 years consulting in the public and private sector, is that when folks believe they cannot be fired or held accountable, you get to see the nasty side of their natures regardless of the overall environment and regardless of their osition in the hierarchy.
yes, tenure plays a role.
The other thing is this. Academics make lousy sales people.
They dont know how to close on objection. But enough of that.
Reputation plays a large role at CRU. In odd ways that you wouldnt imagine. In such a short period of time it is hard to be fair, its like a close reading of the text done very fast.
So, I like some of what Norbert says. His feedback is Always circumspect. Other toos. Steve Mc has his own take as well. very circumspect.
Jones is a human being, some personal component, institutional component, professional, political
even if we can understand him as a character the question is.. was he acting in character?
Tenure may play a role but so does ego. If you look at the emails back to 2002 and earlier, the “stars” of the team were more plentiful and brighter than today. The fact that some fizzled, others disappeared , whilst a select few shone, is at the heart of this whole puzzle. My money is currently split between 3 individuals. The first is nameless and would have provided more than one person on the “anti-team” with enough encouraging information to tempt them to access and download information from password secure sites. The second would be one or more researchers who held strong moral belief in their findings and were relegated from the “in” to the “out” crowd without realizing it, until just recently (and that made them mad). And finally we would have the obvious: Briffa, Osborn, and/or Dr. Dendro – Ed Cook. Somewhere between the 3 of them there was a spark of trying to make their own gang… which fizzled
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=268&filename=.txt
I also speculate that Osborn may have been a Judas to Cook and Briffa after the Esper paper and it’s fractious “peer” review.http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=272&filename=1024334440.txt
Recall the very measured Briffa (& Osborn) replies to McIntyre’s Yamal analysis. In stark contrast to the Team shrieking at RC. (remember the wundernut gurus Tom P, CB, etc?). I was amazed at the even tone of the B&O replies. Still am.
I liked tenure. It meant that every new Administrator couldn’t just fire ya’.
Of course, what we always thought was Tenure is for sissies.
If a character is conflicted then his out-of-character act may actually be “in character”. Scientific minds can flip states. And indeed they must if they are working in a contoversial area of science. Did Jones flip on Nov 13?
http://ask.metafilter.com/80812/Academic-politics-are-vicious-because-the-stakes-are-so-low
Re: Lucy Skywalker (Jan 11 14:16),
I need a little help (anyone) but it looks OK to me.
Lucy, I’ll post here. I might know of a book that you might like. Later.
and I have I have 2 quotes regarding what Mosher said. (Unfortunately, it can be true and, perhaps, faculty need to be taught about it). I bet Steve was paraphrasing, anyway.
The help I need, since I’m a noob, is to see if you can see two comments from me that include an email. One may have a password, which I don’t want others to see (slight foulup, hopefully) in spite of the fact everyone else has access to those emails).
I don’t see them. And a home glitch is is better than a real public one. If you do see it… I don’t know how to nix it.
I have to do something else and I might as well, regardless.
Just let me know either way
Steve,
The Mann that emerges from the e-mails is precisely what we would expect from reading Mann’s letter re: Solomon which was already out there. He’s quick to slander, sees everything in terms of politics (his detractors are obviously right-wingers), shoots from the hip without knowing the facts, and assumes that anyone who disagrees with him is paid to do so by the evil fossil fuel industry.
That letter is so over the top it’s almost self-parody. But we see that same person throughout the e-mails.
The Hadcrut team and their supporters have been alleging that the emails were hacked rather than leaked. In England and Wales, hacking could be a criminal offence but leaking is not (unless the information leaked is a state secret). In a recent incident the police, at the instigation of ministers, arrested both a civil servant and a conservative member of parliament, because the former had leaked Home Office information, proving that the minister had not been telling the truth,to the latter. After much huffing and puffing neither of those arrested were prosecuted and the police were obliged to give a grovelling apology to the member of parliament.
The Norfolk Constabulary police investigation is yet another smokescreen.
Bit more background to this, a later report on the leaks and resulting arrests blamed Civil Servants for presenting leaks as a national security isssue to the Police when in fact they were really on subects such as illegal immigrants getting work cleaning the Home Office offices, ie the dept responsible for ensuring illegals are not allowed in.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5248278.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/12/arrest-gree-leak
Re: Solomon Green (Jan 9 12:22),
One thing I read (I can’t remember where) was that leaked evidence could lead to criminal charges, based on that evidence. If there was an illegal hack then there was a restriction and the evidenced couldn’t used. Is that true for the UK?
It’s different in the US.
Using the UK MP’s expenses leak gives us 2 further insights. Note this leak was an insider job.
1. Investigations into leaks can be dropped before they are complete, based on the unlikeyhood of successful prosecution, the defence of ‘Public Interest’ trumping the act of leaking.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/19/police_drop_expenses_probe/
2. 6 UK MP’s have been told they will be prosecuted over their expense claims highlighted by the leak
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6966274.ece
Why do people suppose that police would be interested in internet blog claims of scientific fraud. Neither PC Plod nor National Domestic Extremism Team are capable of deciding truth, lies, mistakes in any scientific debate. Surely this can only be decided by review of other scientists with similar specialities.
Police are interested in provable illegal deeds – hacking/hate mail/embezelling.
PS. Remember that most email systems record the ip address of the sending computer. In hot mail right click the email and view message source. The senders IP is in their somewhere. Hopefully the hate-mailers used an ip anonymizer!
Steve: I presume you mean things like the use of confidential documents to get an edge on government contracts – sort of like here .
As a couple of readers have noted, there wsa a controversy last spring over heavyhanded police actions in connection with leaked documents. AFter an expensive investigation, it was concluded:
Words that the University of East Anglia might keep in mind. Here are some URLs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/17/damian-green-arrest-leaks-inquiry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/17/jacqui-smith-damian-green
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/damian-green-pleased-with-home-office-leak-decision-1669449.html
The CRU emails release seems to be much more the work of a whistle-blower than the
act of a hacker or extremist since no physical damage seems to have been done to CRU,
only their reputation has been damaged. The environmental extremists or anti-vivisectonists or anarchists are really big into physial damage. This individual wanted to get out information about the actions and behaviour of the individuals at
or working with CRU. As far as we know all of the data is still intact, all or the files are there (except the emails the team deleted), nothing has been destroyed to
our knowledge, and good for that. It is our hope that after a period of reflection, the climate crew could proceed onward with their valuable research taking into account some of the criticisms that have been offered here and elsewhere. BTW,
I just noticed that UEA have just endowed an new chair of Statistics, being filled by a well-regarded Russian mathematician. Coincidence?
If the IT department is even close to being competent, even the deleted emails should be there on backup tapes… somewhere.
On a previous post I understood why my comments were not posted?
On this post I am not sure why my comment is awaiting moderation?
Happy to go with the flow but it would be good to know why?
I used to be paranoid untill I discovered all those people following me?
Say, Steve, are you sure you’re not breaking copyright by posting the ACPO logo at the head of your post? 🙂 It rather provides the look of an official document.
Also, the crown topper on the star is such a quaint touch, don’t you think? The British are so charmingly loyal to tradition. I wonder if the metal police badges also sport a little crown of royal vermilion. One could hardly restrain a smile, even while being arrested.
Steve M: Might you have a photographic memory? Mere mortals are astonished.
Norbert, Norbert when you say:
“I might be mistaken, but think it was mentioned somewhere (not in the sentence above, of course), that Phil Jones received a death threat subsequent to the “data breach”. (In the US, I think Hanson had to accept police protection when going to a conference, due to similar reasons, also after the “data breach”. Which doesn’t sound like a “irrelevant extrapolation” to me, but it is always interesting what kind of responses I get when I mention such things here.”
I think no one here will condone threats against public figures but what has that to do with the Domestic Extremism Team getting involved with the CRU emails. You seem better at creating confusion than enlightenment. Are you somehow connecting the revelation of the emails with someone interested in doing bodily harm to climate scientists and if so on what would you base that conjecture?
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Jan 9 18:07),
“In the US, I think Hanson had to accept police protection when going to a conference…”
I did not look it up but my understanding was that Hansen’s protection was suggested by his conference hosts. Not because he had to have it because of a specific threat. He’s sorta like a rock star.
Also, not “due to similar reasons”. Hansen is allowed to do what he does but he can be confrontational enough so that others might want some police around. People are allowed to protest, I always think, like here.
Phil is a separate case, entirely. No matter what, no one should be threatened.
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Jan 9 18:07), While I was a greenie warmist, I had no idea of the existence of a section of the underworld who were likely inspired by such as desmogblog, or at least reliant on them as sources, who were actively responsible for tarring good scientists and sometimes using death threats to silence them, thus helping keep me in a coccoon of naive ignorance of the corruption of the science. I have heard elsewhere of threats to Phil Jones after Climategate. Much as I hate that man’s actions, I’d like him to know that I wouldn’t want him treated the same threatening way that some of our “side” have been treated.
It could well be the existence of such threats that has given rise to the involvement of the National Domestic Extremism whatsits. I hope their thoroughness enables them to separate out such threateners from the likes of those who post here, whose concern is the content of the emails that reveals CRU corruption.
Kenneth, you wrote: “Are you somehow connecting the revelation of the emails with someone interested in doing bodily harm to climate scientists and if so on what would you base that conjecture?”.
I know of no existing evidence that there is any connection. However, the police, as far as I know, was considering that the emails where hacked illegally, and in the case it was a whistleblower, there was still (possibly not by the same persons) also the attempt (as far as I know potentially illegally) to hack the realclimate.org server in order to post the stuff there.
So with two or even three potentially criminal acts, why wouldn’t the police, for example, investigate the possibility that they were coming from the same corner of the universe?
Or, at least, that those investigations would want to share information, and work together in understanding which groups and/or persons, in general, are “interested” in causing CRU/Phil Jones harm.
So why do you think you need to attack me personally for bringing that up (“You seem better at…”) ?
“However, the police, as far as I know, was (sic) considering that the emails where (sic) hacked illegally,”
Some kids never were that good at “connect the dots”.
Poor Norbit doesn’t realize he has been talking to… err… um… I’ll just keep my mouth shut.
Also, let’s try to reduce our comma footprint, shall we?
I wrote “was” because I have no idea which possibilities the police is currently investigating. I’ve only heard that they started with the possibility of illegal hacking. BTW that should be “were” instead of “where”. Your misspelling of my name seems worse than the number of commas I’ve used. Just copy and paste it.
So who have I been talking to? And which dots are you talking about? What else do you have on your mind that you should keep you mouth shut about?
Personal attacks are frowned upon on this site… tone it down. It’s very frustrating trying to solve puzzles.
No personal attack. I just demand an understandable message, if any at all.
Norbit,
Ken asked you a simple question. Why don’t you answer, in the interest of generating an “understable message”?
Actually, there are two questions there. So please continue.
By simply reading the thread, not the blog, just this thread, the answer from Norbert, “I know of no existing evidence that there is any connection”, answers the first question and invalidates the second one.
Bender: Willard is correct. I answered the question in the first sentence in direct response to the comment in which it was asked. You are actually indirectly responding to that response. Is there anything else I can do for you?
So did anybody have a look at the metadata in the .doc files to find if they are all ‘autorecovery’ generated copies or other details that indicate more about their origin?
yes. There are some forensic details in those files. It’s consistent with a insider and inconsistent with a hacker. That is, no hacker that I know would even bother to cover the trail that the person who put this file together covered. And an insider who was able to get the files would definately want to erase the information that was erased.
Thanks. I guess there will be more clues tomorrow over at the big blog.
I thought that too.
I don’t imagine there is any logging of lan traffic…lol.
No dave, I didnt talk about this aspect with Patrick.
I noticed something. lets say bleach on the crime scene. others have seen it as well. who the hell
bleaches a crime scene? and only certain parts of the crime scene. and in two different ways? I’ll just add that after I had my theory, I asked a forensic specialist wise in the ways of hacking and tracking what he would make of the fact pattern. We both agreed.
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 11 16:49), One thing that I noticed – it may mean nothing – is all of the mail files and some of the document files have a create and modify time of “Jan 1 00:00:00 2009”. This might just be an artifact of the computer system that the files were gathered on but it could also be to cover ones tracks – i.e. who had access at the time the files were written?
1- somebody was interested in revealing emails as early as Oct. 12 when one confidential email was sent to Paul Hudson, weather reporter at BBC.
means?
motive?
opportunity?
2- a couple weeks after that, many emails and many other files that are not the sort collected on an email server were aggregated.
Two interesting things here- at some time the folder containing the files was named FOIA2009. This is done for a reason. The files were initially sent to realclimate, the CRU pet site. This is done for a reason.
Naming the folder FOIA is to delcare ‘we got it anyway without you’. Uploading it to the enemy is to put it in their face.
Those 2 things are sceptic fingerprints that came after the files were obtained either by an individual who actually visited several computer stations at East Anglia or by someone running a trojan on the CRU servers who had plenty of time to explore and collect files, then transfer the lot to a remote server.
Re: Dave McK (Jan 9 19:41),
Hmmm… You’ll have to ask JeffId, over at the Air Vent.
The National Domestic Extremism Team has already contacted him. I think he received the first public link.
I have simply assumed that if a link went to real climate then Gavin nixed it immediately (as far as public viewing) and told the team to hunker down. I’m not sure that rc got a link. Who said so?
Did FOIA2009 come in as files? I thought it was links to open ftp directories somewhere in Russia. I don’t think 61MB files are simply accepted if sent by commentators.
My initial assumption about the FOIA label was that someone at CRU was trying to work out a FOIA package and, oops, left them on an open server there. (They’ve done it before).
I just want the National Domestic Extremism Team to know that I know nothing….
My understanding, always open to correction, was that the upload to realclimate was observed while it was happening and cut off in the act, after which it was very soon uploaded to Hotair.
It appeared as a rar archive in many places shortly thereafter, but the primary source of download was reportedly the siberian server.
Within a day it was available as a bittorrent, too.
It’s not clear if this was an orchestrated dissemination or adhoc – data distribution is second nature to netizens.
Re: Dave McK (Jan 9 21:38),
You could be correct, as far as I know. I’m not trying to be impolite but I get sarcastically skeptical when the topic of realclimate comes up.
“the upload to realclimate was observed while it was happening and cut off in the act”
Who said that?
Gavin Schmidt? He’s always on top of things! (Is it that he doesn’t sleep or that is his NASA job?)
He cut it off in the act? He didn’t even peek?
I always back-traced IP numbers. As long as I was present I always let the upload occur (I had a sand box for stuff like that). It’s like talking to a kidnapper–Keep ’em on the line so you can trace the call.
It was an upload? Do you mean realclimate was running an open upload server? (I always thought they were a little tight about things like that).
I hope the NDET remembers what I wrote before.
Apparently the uploader had privileges, too.
Breitbart’s got an amazingly competent reporter on this just now:
http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/10/peer-to-peer-review-part-ii-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-12570
“Tuesday November 17th at 6:20am EST when the Climategate files made their first known poke onto the internet. An unknown user logged into RealClimate.org, the climate science blog of co-founders Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt, disabled all legitimate users, then uploaded from an IP address in Turkey a zip file with the title FOIA.zip containing the Climategate documents.”
Steve: This is old news.
There is much more to the story than that. The next piece over at Breitbart will release some new information about the timelines and what happened. Then more of the story, later. Actually, if people read all the sites and all the comments. I mean all the sites and all the comments they could come up with 80% of the story. The last 20% is really really neat.
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 10 03:09),
I hope there’s more (hear that, NDET?). That all sounds good. I have been following along for quite awhile but I have some extra time so I can focus. I won’t hold you to 80%, 20%… I didn’t see you write anything about the associated confidence intervals.
20% really really neat? Why do I imagine a hockey stick? (no spoilers)
All right, moshpit, I read the last sentence. Spill it.
I’m enjoying it.
Can’t wait til tomorrow for the next exciting episode!
(The dog didn’t bark where I expected it should have done first.)
Oh-
the CRU never ever denied the authenticity of the leaked documents.
Sure, there were some mumbles of forlorn hopes that they might have been fraudulent or creatively edited, but that faded fast.
One infers that they knew full well that the documents were authentic, whether they knew the full extent of the contents or not.
One further infers that they had a reason not to doubt their authenticity, such as they already knew how they were leaked and who did it enough to be sure that real docs were, in fact, out of the bag.
Re: Dave McK (Jan 11 06:04),
They kept saying hacked. Illegally hacked. Criminals. blah blah blah
I can’t even say that they won’t just keep that up.
dave, you need to study the evolution of the IT infrastructure at CRU.
external hack, very difficult.
in 80% of cases it is an insider. Thats a pretty high prior to overcome.
that would take some compelling evidence.
In your various posts you have that the leaker took certain actions that wouldn’t be necessary for a hacker, i.e. bleach and redact. In regards to redacting the record that would give CRU pause before pressing the matter with the authorities because they don’t want the other, perhaps bigger, shoe to drop. And the leaker would probably give a copy of those extra emails to a trusted friend for safekeeping or distibution if necessary.
That puts CRU in a tight box. Participate in the investigation at the risk of having another damaging event which would further undermine the trust of the general public, but more importantly the politicians and the funds that feed the beast. Or let the whole thing die down in MSM and allow the matter to remain fodder of conpiracists and the blogosphere.
Of course a hacker might do the same thing, but their ability to exploit the leftovers would be undermined by their status as an outsider. CRU would have been “victimized” as opposed to “exposed.”
Some time ago I said that the actual package looks to be internally generated (to satisfy FOIA??)
The reasonimng behind this was that I thought emails are not held in plain text format (they’re protected on my and works pc!). It appears that only Briffa and Jones emails boxes are dumped into the zip.
Briffa uses QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.1
QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.0.6
Jones uses in later emails QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9
Osborne uses QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.0.16
I.e. the use QUALCOMM Windows Eudora
This amazingly seems to have completely unprotected mailboxes:
http://eudora.com/techsupport/kb/1967hq.html
Using windows to protect mailboxes = no protection
My original thoughts were that the zip would have to have been created by someone with access to Briffa and Jones’ Mail boxes (i.e. Briffa and Jones) and so the zip would have to be created by CRU.
Since Eudora does not protect the mailboxes this is no longer the case. The zip can easily be created by any person with access to the mail boxes.
It should be noted that even if the zip was created by CRU on their servers then according to computer misuse act access and disseminating the zip would still be illegal – hacking.
Whistle blowing would have to have shown illegal acts in the zip. The zip contains no such information.
In message 1225579812.txt headers are included from a message previously sent from the CRU. From those headers we can see that the CRU’s mail was processed through a Microsoft Exchange server prior to being relayed through the universities gateway mail server. (A Unix based Exim 4.50 mail server).
When Exim receives a message it splits it into 2 parts. The envelope information, which contains the headers, and the body. Exim is also capable of setting up multiple deliveries one of which could be a local text file for archive purposes. Interestingly the email file names are all named with Unix Epoch timestamps and do not contain the envelope information (the headers). My hypothesis is the emails were archived without the headers to save space. The only headers we see are those which were replies back to the CRU that would have been interpreted as belonging to the body of the message by the server. The clients that the users had would be irrelevant.
The emails coming from a central archive would also be consistent with requirements of the The Freedom of Information Act 2000. See Here. (PDF document)
There are further incentives to proper archiving of documents.
The university has roughly 13,000 students. From this we can conclude the only practical way to deal with the legal requirements is central managed email archive.
Finally.
Do you really want to argue there was no “intention of preventing disclosure” in the released emails?
Norbert when you say,
“So with two or even three potentially criminal acts, why wouldn’t the police, for example, investigate the possibility that they were coming from the same corner of the universe?”
You are either being intentionally obtuse or you like to speak in generalities. How do you know what the Domestic Extremism police are investigating or that there are any hints of connections to anyone or anything other than the person(s) who made the emails public?
If you have a conspiracy theory lets hear it?
Conspiracy theory? As far as I know, nobody here has any actual information, but it was discussed why NDET might be investigating or why that wouldn’t make sense. So I volunteered a “guess”. I said it is a guess. If I say it is a guess, why do you ask me how I know it? It just appears to be the kind of thing, related to CRU/Phil Jones, which they *might* be investigating.
snip – please do not editorialize on policy
Seriously, if it was a hacker s/he was very good and likely hiding behind multiple layers of IP addresses and a few borders to boot. If it was an inside job, then if they had any talent at all they would have stolen someone else’s password and used their account from inside the building using a desk that multiple people have access to, leaving all the electronic evidence pointing at someone else. No need to get an fancier than that.
Re: davidmhoffer (Jan 10 04:08),
Given the way the team worked, I wouldn’t be surprised if they emailed their passwords to each other…
“Too busy right now, have to travel”.
duh. about 5 times in the crutape letters.
how else do you think the whistleblower posted the files on RC?
I’m betting the password to RC got passed to Briffa or Osborne in oct 2009.
Why then?
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 11 05:19),
I could not believe anyone would cut off the upload. Give Gavin some credit for the IP trace.
The real irony is the offer to share IP numbers from the upload. That is the first time any of the team volunteered to share data.
So, regarding Part II… Even a cliff-hanger. I going to wait but don’t mind if you feel me wondering what you were doing for four days.
hmmm
BTW, no rush, but I like the phrase really, really neat.
Other than Gavins say so, I have not seen any evidence of this. Did I miss something?
Re: Greg F (Jan 11 09:57),
sorta missed, read the thread again. Emailing passwards?
Emailing passwords is not evidence that anyone tried to upload anything to RC.
Re: Greg F (Jan 11 11:18),
I agree. I read what you said too fast. Emailing isn’t evidence. Eyewitness testimony is.
Just in case: Part I here Part II here
I heard there’s a Part III coming along sometime. I also heard the phrase really really neat.
Gavin as the eyewitness doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. I would require independent confirmation before considering RC’s assertion to be established fact.
Re: Greg F (Jan 11 12:49),
An eyewitness that one would trust. I am not going to discuss RC, nor Gavin
Greg,
Lemme see If I can explain. There are three theories.
1. insider with access.
2. outsider who has to get access
3. Left in the clear as other files have been.
Outsider: needs to get access to CRU and access to RC.
hacking two systems, while not impossible, would be really neat
thing.
being inside CRU, capturing mails, reading them and finding an RC password would be easier. its a miracle. wow, bonus find. its willy wonkas gold ticket. I got the files and the coolest place in the world to put them.
So, what interests me is this. The conspiracy theorists all gravitate toward a super genius evil hacker of the dark skeptic forces.
1. it’s statistcially unlikely from a profile of historical cases of this type.
2. It’s practically impossible, especially with CRU new security system put in place Nov 12, 2008 ( hehe thats a funny date as well) That must of been a bitch of a job for IT guys, I wonder if any lost their jobs.
3. We’ve told gavin that we suspect that RC passed a password to CRU
I’m betting in the october time frame. eiether that or much early
Mann would be a likely candidate with respect to a certain issue.
gavin could call me out and say that I am wrong. Bonus points if he does this. Head scratching if he doesnt. Hmm does he know something, or is he too busy, or not even reading? hmm.
On my side it looks easy.
1. these cases are almost always inside jobs. No outlier here.
2. RC is explained if RC passed passwords. these guys do that
sort of thing? Yup. bonus points.
3. what happened nov 12 and 13, who knew?
4. Ah, crickets at CRU.
“its a miracle. wow, bonus find.”
almost as if,
“a miracle just happened”?? hmmm..
heh.
I think it was a miracle too, don’t you? Miracles happen…lol.
🙂
Just my 20% worth.
Based on a smallish sample of the emails, every one of them could have been embarrassing for some reason or other.
I posit that these emails are in fact dirty laundry, identified as needing deletion before FOI got to them.
Why they were collected into a single archive is a slight mystery, but perhaps the file was prepared to be stored elsewhere for historic reasons? Perhaps even on the RC server?
It would be interesting to know if the main mail archive system at CRU has these emails still?
They appear to have been archived with a filename using the Unix Epoch timestamps. All the email passed through a gateway mail server and was distributed to internal mail servers. My guess is the university archived all email going in and out of the gateway mail server for legal reasons. I would also guess the archive is the source of the emails and would have to have been retrieved by someone with administrative privileges. It also seems unlikely that emails dating back to the 90’s would still be on individual machines.
Not all the mails are signal. there are meaningless mails.
All this happened in the days immediately following Mosher’s intense scrutiny of the Melvin thesis.
I think you are spot on with this analysis – the FOIA files had been gathered for internal review, a review that was looking for anything that could appear damaging and which should not therefore be released as part of an FOI response.
The collection might well have been deleted from the main servers following the review (“Yes – burn shred pulp destroy it now!”), but that deletion was not reflected on the back-up servers which would have been working on a slower cycle. Before the back-up servers were sync’ed someone (with the right knowledge – therefore either party to the review, or tasked with assembling the material, or managing the infrastructure) burnt the files to a USB stick. Whilst most government organisations have now locked down USB ports on computers, the CRU almost certainly would not have done so because it would have too much of an impact on file transferring from from/to field and student machines.
And the FOI act is not the only way to get access to information. There is also the Data Protection Act, which does not require the organisation to be a public body. The scope of any requests would be much more limited, as it would have to be related to information concerning specific individuals (who would have to be the requestors).
I wonder what kind of servers they have… Sun? Cray? VAX? IBM? MOLE?
The used a mix over time. At the relevant periods it was Scientific Linux – a Red Hat Enterpise Clone with Apache 2.2.3 – That is usually a very safe and reliable setup – especially if they enabled selinux.
Full history is http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 11 05:19),
Here’s one example of the emailing of the password.
Oct was a busy month
Subject: Re: Yamal 2009
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:58:44 +0100
Cc: Keith Briffa , Tom Melvin , Tim
Osborn , Phil Jones
[snip] It makes far more sense to have
password-protection rather than IP-address protection. So, to access
those pages
Username:xxxx
Password:xxxx
Yup.
My money is still on someone quietly snooping on Tamino’s Hotmail account. On 28 July 2009 Jones emailed Tamino the login and password to his CRU ftp server space.
If Jones had subsequently been dumping all the incriminating FOIA material here, when he announced he was leaving the office at lunchtime on Friday 13th November, the snooper knew he had the field to himself for the rest of the day.
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 12 01:13),
I am not going to look for four more. Wait, a message from Mosher’s home:
*******************************************************************
I wondered where you were during those four days. I even thought that you might have been out with another computer.
Your Home PC
*************************************************************end message
I checked but easy to miss something. How about the example previously posted, cc. Briffa ? That’s one.
Yes, If you look back at CA posts you’ll see steve posting on this theory.
If I drop my door key on a sidewalk and someone else picks it up — just because I’ve not tended to my key carefully and someone found it doesn’t mean that I’ve given that person permission to use the key to enter my house. If someone found the credentials for RC and used those credentials to log in and change access privileges, that’s a problem.
OT – Rahmstorf under fire! (not under water)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6982299.ece
Interesting, but indeed OT here. In future, please post such tips to the latest Unthreaded. This can be found with CA Search at https://climateaudit.org/2009/12/13/unthreaded-38/.
I haven’t seen any discussion in regards to the analysis by John Costella here. If one hasn’t read this, they’re missing the forest for the trees, in my estimation.
Sorry, Norbert, and it might just be me, but I do have trouble deciphering what it is exactly that you are saying or the points that you are attempting to make.
What you are talking about would appear to be called a fishing expedition in the US when the law enforcement and legal entities do not have good evidence for pursuing someone who is not directly a person of interest in a case. What I think you are saying is that you are guessing that the involvement of the Domestic Extremism police might imply that the person of interest in the email case might have connection to people or an organization that have threaten the personal safety of climate scientists. Am I getting this right?
Or do you mean that the Domestic Extremism police are allowed to go after the “usual suspects” in cases like this one and not necessarily concentrate on the individual(s) responsible for this one illegal act?
What I said, at first, was that I guess something NDET might be investigating are the death threats.
Later on, I added that at least one death threat, in my understanding, occurred subsequent to the data breach, and was directed at Phil Jones, who is also, as I have heard, either the sender or the receiver of many of the emails. So there is a possibility that those two investigations are not completely separate, but work together, either by sharing information or even more closely. For example, I could imagine that groups and/or persons who are willing to write death threats might also be willing to hack the servers in the place. There have also been death threats, in so far as I have read somewhere, already before the data breach.
I think that is as much as I would want to discuss this, and might not respond to further questions, as I think I had already expressed myself clearly enough in regard to something that I mention as one of multiple possibilities.
Note to Steve: The link to McIntyre/McKitrick 2003 on the left side bar doesn’t work anymore.
The Domestic Extremism Team
So… who are the extremists in this case: the CRU researchers or the whistleblower?
O/T but I am sure you will enjoy comments in this article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6982299.ece
“Jason Lowe, a leading Met Office climate researcher… The mathematical approach used to calculate the rise is simplistic and unsatisfactory”
This article on massive sea level rise is ridiculous since the rise of 7 feet is based on the very claims which are in question namely that extra CO2 is the main cause of temperature rise and that it is possible to predict how much the temperature will rise. Both of these claims are phony and any simplistic claim that a 6.4 degree rise in temperature (sucked out of thin air?) will result in a 7 foot rise on sea levels is both meaningless and unscientific.
To: Domestic Extremism police
I know nothing!
Re: pat (Jan 10 22:59),
I read it. Same ol’ thing. Hmmm, over at WUWT here.
Don’t ask me. I just happened to be…somewhere
Domestic Extremism describes what the CRU team were up to at UEA. Manipulating data, hiding the decline and supressing others work that did not agree with theirs. So maybe that was the reason they were called in. Afterall, the global warming alarmists at CRU have had a real cost on the UK economy in terms of energy and food security plus the Governments policy defending the settled science now lays in tatters.
Jamie, nice try but Domestic Extremism would refer to attacks against the great British Establishment (of which I could in fact claim to be a member). CRU have surely counted as a member of that Establishment, because of the public funding they have received and support they have given to DECC etc. This position could of course be undermined in the future.
So, no, Domestic Extremism, presumably having computer-savvy officers, can only be investigating the people who would have been so extreme as to reveal the goings-on in a national organ.
Rich.
My prediction is that the really, really neat, 20% shoe is gonna’ drop AFTER the Norfolk/NDET have published their investigation.
I’m not saying who or where. I am typing from memory.
Those poor people. They did not understand.
“As I pointed out to Mr. McIntyre…”
Octobers are busy. November slows down. cautious. ‘careful’. And something is going on.
something is really really neat.
The week before XMAS, i received an email from an inspector at the norfolk constabulary, wanting to talk to me about climategate. he called a few days after xmas. i came to their attention because of my original post on climateaudit. they had not read my post, but someone apparently suggested my name as a “person of interest” because of my post here
Laughable approach, but not very funny. Sorry to hear it.
Hi Professor Curry. I learned a new phrase: really really neat. Please let me apply that to you.
really really neat.
Thank you.
Dr. Curry,
Those of us who believe in open access applaud you. A while back I was reviewing some threads where you reached out the Kirsten Byrnes about georgia tech. At that moment I figured you for a decent person. I wasn’t wrong.
FWIW, the reason I was doing this was I was going to do a chapter on what kind of interaction there should be between the warring factions and Dr. Curry was going to be the example the boys could take a lesson from. Lucia too.
I have a proposal.
Jeff Id said “Domestic Extremism Extremism (not redundant)”. Let’s be careful now.
With all due respect to Royalty, ‘Domestic’ could be substituted for ‘National’ and uppercase is respect, lowercase is ‘so what’. (I am tired of remembering N-blah-blah…). And, with all due respect to NDET-or-whatever-People
I (we?) need an acronym change [Note: keep the letter head].
Therefore National Extremism Extremism and the people that work for them could be
the knights who say NEE not to mention that the Polar Urals could be Shrubberies.
NEE is easier than N-blah.
meh, just a thought.
When the UK connection/mole is revealed, perhaps they can enter into the Guardian Observer Ethical Awards 2010? The Campaigner of the year criteria seems to match well
“This category recognises the public-facing campaigner who has made the biggest difference to Observer readers and put ethical issues on the global agenda.”
Seen on realclimate.org:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/8453117.stm
There is already “good background knowledge”…
Meaning?
It means my characterization about NDET’s involvement, above [5th comment from top, Jan 8 3:52 pm], was spot-on.
“…the involvement of the “domestic extremism team” may be for completely practical purposes. It may be that the team has a lot of experience with forensic examination of computer networks. If they’re sitting around, why not use them ? I think everybody would like to know who leaked the e-mails, for different reasons.
This sounds like a law enforcement group that might be looking into Earth-First type networked ecoterrorists in the UK. [a group that damages building sites, but not people – directly…]”
These aren’t scientists, they’re cops. Their understanding is that there are people who are upset about AGW, and are willing to act unruly in order to get their way. That’s the “background knowledge,” which may have been acquired during Dr. James Hansen’s foray into UK [un]civil discourse, when a number of his misguided adherents protested to shut down power plants in the UK.
Yes, spot on. I still find it plausible that they also might be the team investigating death threats related to CRU (depending on how serious they appeared to be), which would imply sharing more directly related background knowledge (since related to CRU), and sharing it (which was a possibility I mentioned before), even if that wasn’t mentioned in that statement. Just a possibility.
You may be right about peripheral investigations, but I think it’s creepy for the government to be developing lists of suspect civilians based upon their views or speech.
Certainly, but it would make more sense the other way around: based on whether they make death threads (if of a kind to be taken seriously).
“threats”, that should read.
Well, if there’s a real, credible threat, then by all means, investigate it. Then what ?
The likely legal remedy would be for the police to file a report [as distinguished from a list] and for the subject of the threat to get a restraining order in civil court.
If I told my nextdoor neighbor face-to-face, “One of these I’m going to sneak into your bedroom and blow your head off,” he’d have no recourse in the criminal justice system.
If I wrote the same thing in an e-mail to a “celebrity” who lives 2000 miles away, I’d likely end up in jail or a mental institution.
As uncomfortable as it might make Dr. Jones, the system we have generally allows people to make very inflammatory statements without incurring criminal penalty.
I dislike special protection for special people; as stupid as any offending e-mail may have been, I hope the author is treated as if he had e-mailed the same to Joe Blow.
Well, I mean something more simple like this: Let’s say, hypothetically, they figure out the real IP address of someone who sent an email with a death threat. Then, for each interesting internet-accessible server, there are probably 100s or 1000s of people trying out some passwords to see of they can get in. Most of that is probably “noise” in some sense. But if that IP address is one of them, then it might get more interesting to investigate if that leads anywhere. Just an example.
Well, it’s possible that you could find a real charge to present at court [attempted computer hacking]. That might make it easier to get leverage over the guy.
You can’t be implying that there’s actually a black-ops group that is spying on climate scientists and conspiring / threatening to break their kneecaps ?
As a practicial matter, the guys who are going to successfully hack, probably aren’t the same guys as those who will make misguided death threats.
Here is a video of the “Black ops” NDET in action.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/jun/21/fit-watch-kingsnorth-arrests
Puggs:
Great video, thanks.
Will police agencies abuse citizens’ rights if officers are annoyed ? Absolutely. I think you’ll find this is true in both the US and UK, and that a protester’s politics won’t provide immunity.
I haven’t seen any evidence of action against scientists, however.
thefordprefect
Posted Jan 12, 2010 at 8:59 PM | Permalink | ReplyYour comment is awaiting moderation. I assume because of the links here with the links missing a w
ww.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/04/conduit-horseracing-andrew-rodgerson
34 weeks in jail
ww.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2600771/Cyber-bully-posted-evil-death-threats.html
Jailed
Thanks – interesting stories. Especially the first one – that would make a great movie. [Steve Zahn in the lead…]
Note that in your first link, there was no death threat against a person. There were two consecutive threats that were akin to extortion [don’t do X in the future, or else]. Also, the perpetrator had a significant personal financial loss at stake [£50k – …unlikely that exists in the Jones “threat”]. The defendant entered into a plea bargain for a misdemeanor charge of making a threat to damage property [a racehorse]. The idiot who made the threats deserved the sentence for the dropped blackmail charge, but the sentence was excessive for simply making two threats against personal property.
I bet the charge was so high because it involved a prestigious sporting event, attended by the wealthy classes in the UK. The court made an example of him, because the victim was special.
The second link was for bullying, not for the single death threat against an individual. It’s probably important that the victim was a minor, there was a pattern of physical, psychological, and verbal abuse over the prior 4 years, and the perpetrator had been previously convicted of physical battery against the victim.
The death threat was not privately e-mailed, either, it was published on facebook so the perpetrator’s associates to enjoy the victim’s misery. [The associates jovially came to court and laughed with the perpetrator. I don’t think they helped her case.]
Those facts are much different from anything I could imagine vis-a-vis CRU / Jones, where a taxpayer probably read about some alleged corruption, came to the conclusion that the whole country’s been had, and immediately sent off a misguided e-mail.
jim,
“If I told my nextdoor neighbor face-to-face, “One of these I’m going to sneak into your bedroom and blow your head off,” he’d have no recourse in the criminal justice system.”
This is completely incorrect, at least in England/Wales. If you did that and the neighbor called the police you would arrested and cautioned even if no-one could prove you said it, so that the issue would be on police records. If you admitted it, or the Police decided you did it, you would face criminal trial for threatening behavior.
But all this talk of death threats- I would like to see a copy of a death threat email please? Sounds like a load of BS to me.
Puggs:
I agree that a police report and warning are normally the proper response to alleged threatening behavior [followed by a restraining order in civil court – as I stated, above.]
The common law generally requires a threat to be ‘imminent’ in order for criminal liability to exist. This is why I used the phrase “One of these [days]” – which is indefinite.
“I’m coming over after supper on Thursday to bash your brains in,” would be something else, entirely. That threat is specific and imminent enough.
Of course, the UK has been subject to creeping socialism, so I don’t know how the elements of the crime of ‘threatening behavior’ have evolved over time in the UK.
I fall back on my desire that Jones not receive more protection than anybody else from a similar “threat” – which it sounds like we agree is probably not credible or exists only in Jones’ minid.
I think what is more interesting then what has been said by the UK authorities is what has not been said. First let me preface this by I do not have any knowelege of the how the UK handles jurisdiction for different crimes, I am basing this off what happens in the US.
Notice that it has now been almost 2 full months and there has been no statements from the “team” members of CRU outside of Phils first couple of statements. We have a lot from the RC bunch but nothing from the CRU group. So that begs the question of why not? Perhaps because it hasn’t been determined to be an outside hack but an internal affair, so they are still under official investigation. That then begs its own question why don’t they know yet? or if they do why haven’t announced either way?
Now this is where questions of jurisdiction come into play. For something like this in the US the local police would not be investigating an external hack job the FBI would. The local police would assist but only in local matters, but once it was established that it was not internal the FBI takes the lead. So far it appears the Norfolk Constabulary are still the lead investigators; so any claim to an outside hack job, especially from some foriegn group, just doens’t have leg one to stand on yet, especially if the the UK operates close to how the US does. The local cops wouldn’t be that involved anymore, it would then shift to UK governemental agencies and based on the direction of investigation who would lead: Scotland Yard, MI5 or even Europol.
So this would tend to narrow the options down to either they don’t know if it was an inside/outside job yet (which after this length of time seems doubtful) or it was an inside job which leaves the investigation in the hands of the local cops. If the people at CRU had been cleared by the police I’m sure it would have leaked out by now. So I get the impression they are looking for an internal leak not an outside hack.
You said:
“Now this is where questions of jurisdiction come into play. For something like this in the US … especially if the the UK operates close to how the US does. The local cops wouldn’t be that involved anymore, it would then shift to UK governemental agencies and based on the direction of investigation who would lead: Scotland Yard, MI5 or even Europol.”
Don’t forget, the UK doesn’t operate close to how the US does. We have a federal system, they don’t. We have this local / federal divide in law enforcement because we have sovereign member states with full police power, as well a national government that lacks general police power – but has a few powers it can enforce.
The UK doesn’t have competing dual sovereignties, or limited national police power.
I don’t think you can extrapolate US standard operating procedure to this case in the UK.
Re: boballab (Jan 12 04:46),
In Canada certainly you are expected not to comment on current investigations so as not to prejudice the investigation or any subsequent trial. It is a much stronger custom than in the USA — and can land you in the clink if you have been asked not to comment by the investigating police authorities, or if a judge has issued an order. Since nobody is talking as you pointed out it’s difficult to say what is happening — whether there have been gag orders etc.
In the UK a Govt employee would not be making statements during an ongoing investigation. The police are structured regionally and are held partially to account by local police boards which includes local officals and polititians and partially by the Home Office which is a central Govt dept (the same one that used the MET police force to arrest Damien Green as detailed earlier). As such the regional police forces have some autonomy but also a local police force in a rural area eg the one covering Norfolk and the CRU will not have much expertise in cybercrime, hence why they may have asked for help. The NDET has some spare time on their hands as they have recently been successful in eliminating the activities of animal protestors who had been gaining the upper hand at one time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4221427.stm
Today is january 12.
It’s been four days since a new thread has been posted.
What could be possibly cooking in the kitchen?
Re: P Gosselin (Jan 12 05:13),
nuh..thing
here you go guys
http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/12/peer-to-peer-review-part-iii-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement/#more-2402
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 12 14:46),
The problem is that there seems to be a lock on the ‘peer-reviewed’, big name, news organizations.
I was surprised, again. I thought as soon as the story broke, it was going to be Front Page on my newspaper. (It was available in time).
I realize the mistake. Seth didn’t read it. He knows (not).
Sorry for the crosspost, but I finally remembered my favorit post of last summer. It is well worth another read considering how simmilar the 2 leaks are and how Mosh’s advice was taken quite literally.
The Mole returneth…
So how come this Patrick guy gets all the inside scoop and ClimateAudit gets only a tease?
From NETCUs web page:
http://www.netcu.org.uk/media/article.jsp?id=561&chkx=9780a3ca51cb136b9a337a5375654c33
“Date: 11 January 2010
Statement on UEA computer hacking investigation
The National Domestic Extremism Unit has been assisting Norfolk Constabulary with the investigation into the allegations of computer hacking at UEA, since it was launched in November 2009.
At present we have two police officers assisting Norfolk with their investigation, and we have also provided computer forensic expertise.
While this is not strictly a domestic extremism matter, as a national police unit, we had the expertise and resource to assist with this investigation, as well as good background knowledge of climate change issues, in relation to criminal investigations.”
—-
“Not strictly a domestic extremism matter”, “good background knowledge of climate change issues”?
Oh I get it — they’re the PC Police.
What’s the matter Steve, afraid the chickens might come home to roost over you role in this criminal affair?
Maybe you’ll think twice next time before splashing the contents of STOLEN emails all over your blog. It’s about time people like you are held accountable for your actions
I think you’ll find that whether or not the emails were ‘stolen’ is irrelevant.
Possession of copies of these emails are a purely copyright issue as they do not contain any criminal material – i.e. material that has been legislated to be of criminal nature and for which there is a penalty for possession.
If the ‘owners’ were in the least interested in a civil remedy they’d have issued a take-down notice under the relevant law (US?). They haven’t even though they are clearly aware of their presence. Nothing will happen because it’s all a bit embarrassing to UEA and to be seen to be issuing take-down notices would make it even more embarrassing.
Both CA and WUWT should be prosecuted for slander and defamation for their role in this affair once UEACRU have been exonerated by any official investigation
I think you’ll find truth is a very handy defence in such cases.
Plus your caveat “once UEACRU have been exonerated by any official investigation” may well be a hindrance in any plan to sue.
I was interviewed by the Norfolk Constabulary last Friday and was asked at length about Freedom of Information inquiries. Obviously, the FOI requests were reported and documented on the blog on a contemporary basis. While it seems odd that police in the UK are investigating the submission of FOI requests, climate scientists and the University of East Anglia have made some pretty inflammatory allegations and obviously have enough influence to get their inflammatory allegations looked at. The officer in question assured me of their independence from the university and other officials. I don’t see any harm in readers answering and I encourage readers to do so if asked.
If they learned as much from you as the readers of this blog have, the outlook’s good.
If the investigation is focused on who leaked the emails or even, who is interested in obtaining CRU data and analysis, or who would find the leaked information valuable or useful, Steve M is an obvious point of inquiry, as are posters to this blog or anybody who might be reading it. At what point they are wasting their time is for the investigators to determine. We have no idea what aspect the Norfolk Constabulary has been assigned to. Could get pretty boring for them pretty fast.
Seems like the focus for the University of East Anglia should be much more on getting their own house in order.
I’d just like to remind everyone who receives inquiries from the Norfolk Police of a few basic facts.
– The fact you have been contacted means you are already a suspect.
– The Police are seeking evidence of a crime and will use everything you say to build a case that can be prosecuted.
– The Police have no interest in you as a person, nor the merits of your activism. Their only interest is in whether what you say can be used to prosecute you or someone else
– Casual comments in ‘informal’ interviews can have as much weight as formal statements when tested in court.
– Failure to cooperate is not evidence of guilt. However, it may raise Police interest in you.
– Being helpful and talking a lot helps the Police case. What you say will be used in evidence. What you don’t say can’t be used – unless you are being prosecuted in the UK and then only if you have been formally cautioned
– Contradictions between what you say at an earlier stage and what you may say later, if the matter progresses, will be used as evidence against you
– Many prosecutions succeed because the suspect talks too much at the early stages in an attempt to explain their way out. Half truths are used as of evidence of guilt
My advice for anyone who is contacted by the Police is to
– Positively confirm the person you are dealing with is who they say they are
– Say as little as possible. Saying nothing is often a good option
– Whatever you do say must be accurate
This advice applies equally if you are guilty or innocent.
Re: jerry (Jan 20 16:15),
Excuse me? That cannot be true.
Would you please tell us who you are and the nature of your experience in this area in the UK. Thanks.
Well actually, I’m an Australian based professional computer forensic expert witness. Australia has very similar laws to the UK and many of the Police I work with are ex-UK
I work primarily in criminal cases involving computer and communications crimes.
Jerry, If that is how the police in Australia operate, I’m glad I don’t live there!
In the UK police often interview witnesses about a crime without the least suspicion of the person they are interviewing. Your comment is quite paranoid actually- it wasn’t you was it? 🙂 Hmmm climate skeptic and “professional computer forensic expert witness” a dangerous combination…
Also – your statements can be used as part of a criminal investigation by the police, and can be used in a prosecution against you in a local court where you are tried by a judge,even when you have not been cautioned – a policeman can give a statement in court such as “Mr Jerry shouted that he was about to burn down the pub”. However, statements like these are not usually allowed to be used as evidence in your own prosecution in trial by jury.
My final comment- It would be a good thing if they found the whistleblower. The guy/gal would be a hero! The worst that could happen to them is they lose their job, and I dont think they would be out of work for long.
Australia is not much different to other places as regards Policing.
The problem is that most people who live on the right side of the law don’t understand the process and are shocked when exposed to it. Actually this helps get convictions because most people automatically do all the ‘wrong’ things when interviewed. It’s only hardened criminals who know what to do or not do.
As an example, here is the process and techniques used in Canada to get convictions, and I should point out that Canada has a Charter of Rights that far exceeds the rights available in the UK, USA, or Australia
http://cryptome.org/convict-guilty.zip
(it’s a long read, but fascinating in my line of work)
Jerry, The post today regarding the inquiry into the emails got me thinking. Perhaps others have been here and gone already, but I am a bit slow.
I don’t mean to suggest that the Constables or the NDET are currently investigating the behavior of the gentlemen from EAU, CRU or Penn State. Nor am I alleging that Jones, Mann, et al did anything illegal. But it sure smells funny and if the Constables are looking for evidence of a conspiracy I suggest they review the “can you delete” exchange between Jones and Mann.
Jones – “Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?…Keith will too…Caspar to do likewise.”
Mann – “I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP.”
So if it was illegal for them to delete emails then it would potentially be illegal for them to conspire to delete them. And while Mann now denies deleting emails, that denial is irrelevant as it relates to “conspiracy.”
DGJ
Actually, you may be right. It is illegal to delete material under the FOI and telling other people to do the same would be a conspiracy.
From the FOI act of 2000
77.
Offence of altering etc. records with intent to prevent disclosure.
— (1) Where—
(a)
a request for information has been made to a public authority, and
(b)
under section 1 of this Act or section 7 of the M1 Data Protection Act 1998, the applicant would have been entitled (subject to payment of any fee) to communication of any information in accordance with that section,
any person to whom this subsection applies is guilty of an offence if he alters, defaces, blocks, erases, destroys or conceals any record held by the public authority, with the intention of preventing the disclosure by that authority of all, or any part, of the information to the communication of which the applicant would have been entitled.
Further to the above, the Police will be investigating the primary ‘hack’ crime – under whatever the relevant UK law is, but they will also be investigating evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
Section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 provides:
“…if a person agrees with any other person or persons that a course of conduct shall be pursued which, if the agreement is carried out in accordance with their intentions, either –
(a) will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties to the agreement, or
(b) would do so but for the existence of facts which render the commission of the offence or any of the offences impossible, [added by S.5 Criminal Attempts Act 1981]
he is guilty of conspiracy to commit the offence or offences in question.”
So basically, even if you didn’t actually do the ‘hack’ but were in some way a prior party to the hack by others then you will be prosecuted, if necessary after extradition to the UK.
I’m perfectly willing to talk to the Norfolk Constanulary and tell them all that I know. Which of course is nothing they wouldn’t know themselves if they read Climate Audit and WUWT.
I have made a legal FOI request that was not successful. I have nothing to hide but I believe scientists at CRU do.
I hope the police in their investigations come to the same conclusion but I doubt that they will.
But stranger things have happened.
Jerry:
Thanks for the information. I am no lawyer and given the rather obtuse legal language in this Section of the Act it would be helpful if a lawyer could clarify its actual application. More specifically if A talks to B solely about the benefits of making public information previously kept private and B subsequently obtains that information by unlawful means is that sufficient for A to be charged with conspiracy?
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that for conspiracy to be proved both parties must agree on a specific criminal activity.
In your example, it seems to me that there was no agreement to act criminally.
Regarding the emails, there are several possible crimes that could have occurred, not just ‘hacking’. I confess ignorance of specific UK law here, but potentially a whistleblower may have unlawfully released information to a third party.
The crime is the unlawful release. The conspiracy occurs when the conspirator receives the unlawful material having agreed to do so earlier.
I see that the UK Data protection Act has provisions for criminal prosecutions in certain cases of unlawful release.
“It is a criminal offence to knowingly or recklessly obtain, disclose or procure the disclosure of personal information, without the consent of the data controller.”
One question to be answered is do the emails constitute “personal information”? I’m guessing not as the emails don’t seem to be in the same class as medical or bank account details.
Request for information from Norfolk Constabulary:
I am in the US and I received one as well. Since I guessed that other more well known individuals also received the same email – I checked on what they had done. Simply answering questions appears to be the general response.
I did not, however, make an FOIA request. I had merely sent a polite email to a specific person at UEA suggesting that the data be released as a way of ending what was becoming a bit of a circus.
I responded to the Detective’s email accordingly – but I have yet to speak to anyone. It does not seem to me to be a very useful strategy to determine who leaked the emails but then perhaps they have a different agenda.
Verification of emails? – checking the integrity of the leaked/stolen files and/or other emails on site? This would allow them to prove or disprove legitimacy. Oh, to be a webcam on the wall…..
I want information from the CRU Team too. Will I have to ‘talk to the police’?
Jail Bharo! 🙂
Moving from the extremists to the establishment, from the BBC just now:
I thought that this quote might raise a smile if not genuine hopes:
Not as complex as climate data but in the right area:
I’ve not talked to Tim for over ten years but the framework and right mindsets are increasingly in place. Any suggestions for how an email should go?
Here’s the BBC business/IT man Rory Cellan-Jones on how this thing originally got momentum last year:
Well done Tim. And I was just thinking that both he and Rory are in that large and reasonably interesting set of people I’ve met just once. (Gordon hasn’t yet had the privilege.)
I believe the timing is very good for what we all want to see with climate data – and then source code (and hopefully the earliest web publishing of papers, using something like http://arXiv.org). Just in case people missed this in the early hours London time. How I spotted the story then I have no idea. It’s been linked from the BBC front page from this morning but that’s not how I found it originally. That part’s murky. And sorry to interrupt this thread except it seems very in line with what Boudu‘s just said to the Norfolk constabulary. All great stuff.
It took a while to get through moderation but it’s more likely UK politicians and civil servants will read my comment on Rory’s blog than here I guess. The best I could think of at the time. But it feels like a good day.
I submitted a 3 FOIA requests back last summer, but have not been contacted by the Norfolk Constabulary.
So either they are not contacting everyone with recent FOIAs, or they just haven’t gotten around to me yet.
Well, just got off the phone with a Detective Constable from Norfolk. Had a nice, friendly 25 minute chat. He wanted to know basic stuff like name, address and ISP and then some detail and opinion about the issue. He did say he found the mischievous mass FOI requests for confidentiality agreements from Climate Audit readers most amusing.
I explained what had lead up to those requests being made and said that I thought CRU was using the existence of agreements as a reason to deny Steve the data he’d requested. As they couldn’t provide details of those agreements multiple FOI requests for the agreements were made by readers here as we suspected it was a ruse. My request was never fulfilled.
The question of timing came up. I said it was convenient that the FOI2009.zip file was leaked a few weeks prior to Copenhagen but I didn’t see anything sinister in it. I was more inclined to think that as the file was posted on the web the day after Steve’s earlier FOI requests had been denied it is likely that someone with a conscience at CRU released the file with an altruistic motive.
I said I don’t think there is a conspiracy among Climate Scientists, in fact I don’t believe in conspiracy theories – they expect too much of flawed individuals – all that is needed is a blind conviction that what you are doing is right and the rest follows.
I said that my view was that science should be open and transparent especially on an issue with such huge ramifications. CRU and other climate scientists take the view that they are right and we should be happy to take their word for it whatever the cost.
I suggested reading Climate Audit and WUWT and the Skeptics Handbook for more information.
Very helpful and a great example why it was right to follow Steve’s advice for not go the pessimistic, say-nothing route. I’m going to take it that after speaking to Steve they began to change their minds. If by the time he spoke to you the DC was inclined to view the mass FOI requests for confidentiality agreements ‘most amusing’ that says to me the game is up. For the UEA/AGW spin machine I mean. (I won’t mention the F word.)
You got to say that to a good old British copper? Fantastic. I said PC Plod would come through in the end. Again, very well done.
Yes, I’ve done a few to CRU but I’ve not heard anything from NDET either. Is it only overseas people they are telephoning?
The guy who phone me was from Norfolk Constabulary not NDET.
Boudu (Jan 22 06:24), that’s interesting. Some people have definitely been contacted by NDET. It’s possible it’s the same people of course, but just signing themselves as Norfolk Constabulary now.
Or maybe the local plod get to do the donkey work and NDET get to steam in like the Sweeney.
‘We’re the National Domestic Extremist Team and we haven’t had our breakfast yet !’
Here we are 4 months since the ‘miracle’ and 3 months into the police investigation and the silence is deafening. John Quiggin in Australia has his knickers in a knot about the emails and making interesting allegations.
When will Norfolk police and NDET inform the public as to the results, if any, of their investigation ? Or have the national security officials told them to keep quiet in light of recent security concerns expressed in certain quarters ?
There is a conspiracy among many of the Climate Scientists. The released emails are clear evidence of it. When a group of scientists suppress data that disagrees and then even make up data to support their theory, that is a conspiracy. They are just like other religious extremists who believe the ends justify the means. Anyone who violates the public trust in this manner should go to jail and be held accountable. If they are in the US, they can then call me 888BAILMAN
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