Anderson Cooper had a segment on Penn State secrecy last night, with his contributor Drew Griffin expressing extreme frustration at Penn State’s stonewalling of information that would be routine at other institutions. Several years ago, Penn State lobbied for (and got) an exemption from Pennsylvania FOI legislation. (Given the exemptions in the state FOI legislation, I’m not sure that simply removing Penn State’s exemption would accomplish everything that people think it would, but that’s another story.)
In a panel segment that was on air last night (not in the online clip), one of the contributors described Penn State as “arrogant”, “imperious”.
Climate Audit 
72 Comments
By the time they’ve finished paying lawyers and victims they’ll have sufficient money to fund a little league hockey team.
snip – you’ve already said this re Spanier on a few occasions. Not relevant to the point.
PR firm must have googling under control. Nothing about this development if you google “Penn State.
When PSU got its exemption from disclosure laws in 2007, here is what Spanier said (from CNN):
“Nobody would argue the point that the public has a right to know how public funds are spent,” Spanier said at the time. “But these proposals will fundamentally change the way we operate, the way our trustees govern and the way the university administers their policies.”
In hindsight, that sure looks like a red flag.
“Nobody would argue the point that the public has a right to know how public funds are spent,” Spanier said at the time. “But these proposals will fundamentally change the way we operate, the way our trustees govern and the way the university administers their policies.”
Let’s hope so! The way he and Penn St operated certainly belongs high on any list of things that need to fundamentally change.
Steve , sorry for the OT. I have a climate auditing question.
I have found what looks like clear proof of Jones’ “cooling buckets” adjustment being grossly over done and probably 5y too late.
Looking at second time differential is revealing because ….- snip — in dT/dt and d2T/dt2
It seems Jones’ adjustment was neither. It also flags B-est treatment of circa 1990 as anomalous
The fact the these records do generally agree apart from these significant deviations is encouraging, though not entirely unexpected since they are largely using the same data.
I would like to do the same analysis on “pre-bucket” hadSST2. Do you have such a copy of hadSST monthly?
Best regards.
Steve- interesting graphic. All hadSST is post-bucket adjustment. I’ve down estimates in the past of the amount but they are just estimates. You should place your code and results online so that people can look at your calculation easily.
Looking at second time differential is revealing because ….- snip — in dT/dt and d2T/dt2
It seems Jones’ adjustment was neither. It also flags B-est treatment of circa 1990 as anomalous
What was snipped and what does “neither” reply to?
Should I know exactly why a second derivative w/ an obvious cycle is interesting?
The censors scalpel did make the post a little confusing (though it was primarily just a data request to Steve).
The point is the 1945-50 section where the blue line ( had SST2) deviates grossly from tendencies in the other records.
It is hard to see how SST could be showing very rapid acceleration without the land temperatures reflecting this in some way. This period is where M.O. Hadley are applying Phil Jones’ adjustment for a difference in temperatures supposedly caused by Americans using buckets or some such.
This plot shows that adjustment, if justified at all, is being grossly miscalculated.
Steve, the calculation is pretty simple. Just the differentials found by subtracting successive points in the monthly data. Done twice to get 2nd diff.
A 24 month gaussian is applied when plotting to remove enough short term noise to see the cycles.
I will post a script but I wanted to find older pre-bucket version to clearly show the effect of Jones’ trick rather than just implying it by comparison to other data.
It’s unfortunate this is not one you have had cause to download before. I was hoping this was in your archive.
Another interesting feature is what happens in B-est around 1990. This is what results in them loosing half the magnitude of the 1998 El Nino. This indicates that something is wrong with their ‘scalpel’ technique.
Rather than it having cunningly got right what other records got wrong.
I call this the 1998 mastectomy. (Careful with that scalpel doctor!)
Like you, I wanted to run their code but the size of the arrays seems to require Fortran libs with 64 bit indices. Hopefully they will provide a more manageable format soon.
Re 1990 feature – it is possible that around the time of a WMO meeting, some countries changed the method of calculating Tmean. Often, before 1990, it was half the sum of Tmax and Tmin obtained from a daily reading of a max-min glass thermometer. After this date, there were more instances of (for example) taking the daily averages of a number of readings each day, from thermistor or thermocouple devices. See, e.g. http://www.bom.gov.au/amm/docs/2004/trewin.pdf
Yes, having briefly looked at the code it does not seem to be doing anything to deal with T-obs changes that directly relates to the different method.
It seems that they just use their ‘scalpel’ To split individual records when they see a discontinuity (or where metadata suggests a change).
While this removes the step change from the record, the ensemble looses one cooler/hotter record and gains a hotter/cooler one at the time of the snip.
I don’t think this can correctly deal with T-obs changes.
Clearly B-est has a problem if it is truncating the 1998 event that is so clear in all other records, be they terrestrial measurement or remote sensing.
I think looking at second differential is useful in seeing where the method is behaving anomalously.
OK, that almost worked, at least it doesn’t seem to have made a mess of it. Here’s the gaussian filter;
#!/bin/awk -f
# pass input through 3 sigma gaussian filter where sigma, if not given, is 2 da$
# usage : ./gauss.awk filename
# optional scale_factor simply scales the output
# use OFMT=”%6.4f”
# sigma can be compared to the period of the -3dB point of the filter
# result is centred, ie not shift. dataset shortened by half window each end
# check whether data is continuous !!
BEGIN { OFMT=”%6.4f”
# ARGV[1]=filename; argv[0] is script name, hence ARGC>=1
pi= 3.14159265359811668006
if ( ARGC >3 ) {scaleby=ARGV[3];ARGV[3]=””} else {scaleby=1};
if ( ARGC >2 ) {sigma=ARGV[2];ARGV[2]=””} else {sigma=2};
print “filtering “ARGV[1]” with gaussian of sigma= “,sigma
root2pi_sigma=sqrt(2*pi)*sigma;
two_sig_sqr=2.0*sigma*sigma;
gw=3*sigma-1; # gauss is approx zero at 3 sigma, use 3 sig window
# eg. window=2*gw-1 – 5 pts for sigma=1; 11pts for sig=2; 3 sig=17
# calculate normalised gaussian coeffs
for (tot_wt=j=0;j<=gw;j++) {tot_wt+=gwt[-j]=gwt[j]=exp(-j*j/two_sig_sqr)/ roo$
tot_wt=2*tot_wt-gwt[0];
tot_wt/=scaleby;
for (j=-gw;jgsfile;
ln=-1;
}
{
xdata[++ln]=$1;
ydata[ln]=$2;
if (ln>2*gw)
{
gauss=0
for (j=-2*gw;j> gsfile;
}
else
{
# print $1,$2;
}
}
END {
print “#gausssian window width = “gw+gw+1″,done”
print “#output file = “gsfile
}
[/source code]
Crap, here we go. The day WordPress allows a preview….
Ignore that attempt at posting gaussian. diff.awk looks OK.
(Steve, please snip that last one got mangled)
OK , let’s if I can get WP to play nice today. Here’s the diff script:
#!/bin/awk -f
# calculate two-point numerical differential from points ‘step’ apart
# use OFMT = “%6.4f”
# [usage] ./diff.awk filename
# default step=1
# result is logged at the mid point of the x interval, avoiding adding a shift
# check whether data is continuous !!
BEGIN { OFMT = “%6.4f”
# ARGV[1]=fn; argv[0] is script name, hence ARGC>=1
ln=-1;
if ( ARGC >2 ) {step=ARGV[2];ARGV[2]=””} else {step=1};
print “#diffing “ARGV[1]” with step = “,step
split(ARGV[1],fn,”.”);
basename=fn[1]
diff_file=basename”-diff”step”.dat”;
print “# “,diff_file >diff_file;
}
($0 !~ /^#/)&&($0 != “”){
xdata[++ln]=$1;
ydata[ln]=$2;
if (ln>step)
{
xdiff=(xdata[ln]-xdata[ln-step]);
ydiff=(ydata[ln]-ydata[ln-step])/step;
print NR,xdata[ln]+xdiff/2,xdiff,ydiff/xdiff
print xdata[ln]-xdiff/2,ydiff/xdiff >> diff_file;
}
else
{
}
}
END {
print “#diff width = “step”, last xdiff=”xdiff” , done.”
print “#output file = “diff_file
}
[/source code]
Steve, this one can go. I reposted with the correct formatting below.
Sorry for need to intervene.
The main bash script it held up in moderation. Hopefully that will also format correctly.
hmm, RTFM, let’s try again: gaussian.awk
#!/bin/awk -f # pass input through 3 sigma gaussian filter where sigma, if not given, is 2 da$ # usage : ./gauss.awk filename <sigma=2> <scale_factor=1> # optional scale_factor simply scales the output # use OFMT="%6.4f" # sigma can be compared to the period of the -3dB point of the filter # result is centred, ie not shift. dataset shortened by half window each end # check whether data is continuous !! BEGIN { OFMT="%6.4f" # ARGV[1]=filename; argv[0] is script name, hence ARGC>=1 pi= 3.14159265359811668006 if ( ARGC >3 ) {scaleby=ARGV[3];ARGV[3]=""} else {scaleby=1}; if ( ARGC >2 ) {sigma=ARGV[2];ARGV[2]=""} else {sigma=2}; print "filtering "ARGV[1]" with gaussian of sigma= ",sigma root2pi_sigma=sqrt(2*pi)*sigma; two_sig_sqr=2.0*sigma*sigma; gw=3*sigma-1; # gauss is approx zero at 3 sigma, use 3 sig window # eg. window=2*gw-1 - 5 pts for sigma=1; 11pts for sig=2; 3 sig=17 # calculate normalised gaussian coeffs for (tot_wt=j=0;j<=gw;j++) {tot_wt+=gwt[-j]=gwt[j]=exp(-j*j/two_sig_sqr)/ roo$ tot_wt=2*tot_wt-gwt[0]; tot_wt/=scaleby; for (j=-gw;j<=gw;j++) {gwt[j]/=tot_wt}; # strip off last .xxx part of file name # improve this (doesn't work with paths like ../filename) split(ARGV[1],fn,"."); basename=fn[1] gsfile=basename"-gauss"sigma".dat"; print "# ",gsfile >gsfile; ln=-1; } { xdata[++ln]=$1; ydata[ln]=$2; if (ln>2*gw) { gauss=0 for (j=-2*gw;j<=0;j++) {gauss+=ydata[ln+j]*gwt[j+gw]} print NR,xdata[ln-gw],gauss print xdata[ln-gw],gauss >> gsfile; } else { # print $1,$2; } } END { print "#gausssian window width = "gw+gw+1",done" print "#output file = "gsfile }someone just pointed out a copy/paste error in gauss.awk as shown above. Line 26 ends in “roo$” and gives an error in awk.
Here is the non-truncated version of line 26.
# calculate normalised gaussian coeffs for (tot_wt=j=0;j<=gw;j++) {tot_wt+=gwt[-j]=gwt[j]=exp(-j*j/two_sig_sqr)/ root2pi_sigma};I’ll repost diff.awk since diplaying this properly makes it a lot easier to copy the code accurately.
#!/bin/awk -f # calculate two-point numerical differential from points 'step' apart # use OFMT = "%6.4f" # [usage] ./diff.awk filename <step> # default step=1 # result is logged at the mid point of the x interval, avoiding adding a shift # check whether data is continuous !! BEGIN { OFMT = "%6.4f" # ARGV[1]=fn; argv[0] is script name, hence ARGC>=1 ln=-1; if ( ARGC >2 ) {step=ARGV[2];ARGV[2]=""} else {step=1}; print "#diffing "ARGV[1]" with step = ",step split(ARGV[1],fn,"."); basename=fn[1] diff_file=basename"-diff"step".dat"; print "# ",diff_file >diff_file; } ($0 !~ /^#/)&&($0 != ""){ xdata[++ln]=$1; ydata[ln]=$2; if (ln>step) { xdiff=(xdata[ln]-xdata[ln-step]); ydiff=(ydata[ln]-ydata[ln-step])/step; print NR,xdata[ln]+xdiff/2,xdiff,ydiff/xdiff print xdata[ln]-xdiff/2,ydiff/xdiff >> diff_file; } else { } } END { print "#diff width = "step", last xdiff="xdiff" , done." print "#output file = "diff_file }A simple one to reformat the different monthly formats into one month per line with a floating point date.
#!/bin/awk -f # parse monthly data format: " yyyy mm temp " to two colums : f.p. date, temp # Crutem3, BEST , etc climate data # log f.p. data at mid month ($2-0.5) else dec=12 becomes new year # use OFMT = "%6.4f" BEGIN{ FS=" "; OFMT = "%6.4f"} ($0 !~ /^#/) && ($0 !~ /^%/) && ($0 != "") && ($0 !~ /^:blank:$/) { print $1+($2-0.5)/12.0 ,$3 }BTW this one is called : parse-12m.awk
This bash script relies on the three previous ones. It should retrieve and process B-est, hadcrut, hadsst2 and crutem3, to give gaussian filtered second diffs.
Each segment between the breaks can be run separately if prefered.
It should be turnkey unless there’s some copy paste errors.
#!/bin/bash
# ==================================================================
# bash script for processing SST,CRUT and B-est for d2T/dt2 analysis
# ==================================================================
# ==================================
# Berkeley Earth project
wget http://berkeleyearth.org/downloads/analysis-data.zip
unzip -o analysis-data.zip
# gives Full_Database_Average_summary.txt and Full_Database_Average_complete.txt
# run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only
# and remove % and # comments in header and blank lines
# truncate file at apparently spurious April 2010 (rem two data lines)
DATA=’tmp.dat’
BASE=Full_Database_Average_complete && SRC=”${BASE}.txt”
./parse-12m.awk $SRC> “${BASE}.dat” && SRC=”${BASE}.dat” \
&& `wc -l $SRC | awk ‘{print “head -n “, $1-2 , $2 }’` >$DATA \
&& cp $DATA $SRC \
&& ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \
&& ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \
&& ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24
# ==================================
# HadCRUT3
# parse 12 months per line to one month per line : yyyy mm temp
# and skip lines with supplementary error data
# run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only
# truncate file at end of real data, delete zeros as NaN (rem 3 data lines)
DATA=’tmp.dat’
BASE=hadcrut3gl
wget http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/$BASE.txt \
&& awk ‘ {i=2; while ((i $BASE.split.txt \
&& ./parse-12m.awk $BASE.split.txt> ${BASE}-monthly.dat \
&& `wc -l hadcrut3gl-monthly.dat | awk ‘{print “head -n “, $1-3 , $2 }’` > $DATA \
&& BASE=hadCRUt3-monthly && SRC=”${BASE}.dat” \
&& cp $DATA $SRC \
&& ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \
&& ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \
&& ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24
# =========================
# same for hadSST2
# parse 12 months per line to one month per line : yyyy mm temp
# and skip lines with supplementary error data
# run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only
# truncate file at end of real data, delete zeros as NaN (rem 11 data lines)
DATA=’tmp.dat’
BASE=hadsst2gl
wget http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/$BASE.txt \
&& awk ‘ {i=2; while ((i $BASE.split.txt \
&& ./parse-12m.awk $BASE.split.txt> ${BASE}-monthly.dat \
&& `wc -l ${BASE}-monthly.dat | awk ‘{print “head -n “, $1-11 , $2 }’` > $DATA \
&& BASE=hadSST2-monthly && SRC=”${BASE}.dat” \
&& cp $DATA $SRC \
&& ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \
&& ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \
&& ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24
# ================
# CRUtem3
# parse 12 months per line to one month per line : yyyy mm temp
# and skip lines with supplementary error data
# run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only
# truncate file at end of real data, delete zeros as NaN (rem 11 data lines)
DATA=’tmp.dat’
BASE=crutem3gl
wget http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/$BASE.txt \
&& awk ‘ {i=2; while ((i $BASE.split.txt \
&& ./parse-12m.awk $BASE.split.txt> ${BASE}-monthly.dat \
&& `wc -l ${BASE}-monthly.dat | awk ‘{print “head -n “, $1-11 , $2 }’` > $DATA \
&& BASE=CRUtem3-monthly && SRC=”${BASE}.dat” \
&& cp $DATA $SRC \
&& ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \
&& ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \
&& ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24
[\sourcecode]
This one is stuck in moderation. All will make more sense when it goes on line.
I too have a comment in moderation.
Happens pretty frequently it seems.
OK, let’s try and get the tags right again.
This version should keep Macists happy, it uses curl instead of wget. Otherwise the same.
#!/bin/bash # ================================================================== # bash script for processing SST,CRUT and B-est for d2T/dt2 analysis # ================================================================== # ================================== # Berkeley Earth project #wget http://berkeleyearth.org/downloads/analysis-data.zip curl -O http://berkeleyearth.org/downloads/analysis-data.zip unzip -o analysis-data.zip # gives Full_Database_Average_summary.txt and Full_Database_Average_complete.txt # run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only # and remove % and # comments in header and blank lines # truncate file at apparently spurious April 2010 (rem two data lines) DATA='tmp.dat' BASE=Full_Database_Average_complete && SRC="${BASE}.txt" ./parse-12m.awk $SRC> "${BASE}.dat" && SRC="${BASE}.dat" \ && `wc -l $SRC | awk '{print "head -n ", $1-2 , $2 }'` >$DATA \ && cp $DATA $SRC \ && ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \ && ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \ && ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24 # ================================== # HadCRUT3 # parse 12 months per line to one month per line : yyyy mm temp # and skip lines with supplementary error data # run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only # truncate file at end of real data, delete zeros as NaN (rem 3 data lines) DATA='tmp.dat' BASE=hadcrut3gl curl -O wget http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/$BASE.txt \ && awk ' {i=2; while ((i<=13)&&($14!="")) { print $1,i-1,$i;i++} }' $BASE.txt \ > $BASE.split.txt \ && ./parse-12m.awk $BASE.split.txt> ${BASE}-monthly.dat \ && `wc -l hadcrut3gl-monthly.dat | awk '{print "head -n ", $1-3 , $2 }'` > $DATA \ && BASE=hadCRUt3-monthly && SRC="${BASE}.dat" \ && cp $DATA $SRC \ && ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \ && ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \ && ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24 # ========================= # same for hadSST2 # parse 12 months per line to one month per line : yyyy mm temp # and skip lines with supplementary error data # run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only # truncate file at end of real data, delete zeros as NaN (rem 11 data lines) DATA='tmp.dat' BASE=hadsst2gl curl -O wget http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/$BASE.txt \ && awk ' {i=2; while ((i<=13)&&($14!="")) { print $1,i-1,$i;i++} }' $BASE.txt \ > $BASE.split.txt \ && ./parse-12m.awk $BASE.split.txt> ${BASE}-monthly.dat \ && `wc -l ${BASE}-monthly.dat | awk '{print "head -n ", $1-11 , $2 }'` > $DATA \ && BASE=hadSST2-monthly && SRC="${BASE}.dat" \ && cp $DATA $SRC \ && ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \ && ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \ && ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24 # ================ # CRUtem3 # parse 12 months per line to one month per line : yyyy mm temp # and skip lines with supplementary error data # run parse-12m.awk to give floating point date and temp only # truncate file at end of real data, delete zeros as NaN (rem 11 data lines) DATA='tmp.dat' BASE=crutem3gl curl -O http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/$BASE.txt \ && awk ' {i=2; while ((i<=13)&&($14!="")) { print $1,i-1,$i;i++} }' $BASE.txt \ > $BASE.split.txt \ && ./parse-12m.awk $BASE.split.txt> ${BASE}-monthly.dat \ && `wc -l ${BASE}-monthly.dat | awk '{print "head -n ", $1-11 , $2 }'` > $DATA \ && BASE=CRUtem3-monthly && SRC="${BASE}.dat" \ && cp $DATA $SRC \ && ./diff.awk $SRC 1 \ && ./diff.awk ${BASE}-diff1.dat 1 \ && ./gauss.awk ${BASE}-diff1-diff1.dat 24My graphic was produced with gnuplot . Running the above scripts to process the data and then running this from gnuplot command line should reproduce the graphic.
Otherwise use your favourite plotting software.
New allegations of another Penn State coverup of sexual molestation by a proffessor:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/victim-penn-state-officials-rejected-claims-university-professor/story?id=14960575
Here‘s yet another case involving a Penn State professor who left a tenured appointment for a non-tenured junior appointment. The facts in this case are especially disgusting. The commenter says that the facts strongly suggest a cover-up by Penn State.
This get worse the close one looks!
Perhaps a statistical analysis should be applied here too. Is the number of professors / ex-professors of Penn State involved in serious child abuse representative of the national average of people in similar positions?
I sincerely hope not, but to be objective we have to ask.
And if significantly higher, how is it that PSU has developed such a concentration?
A case disgusting beyond words. Steve, I do salute you for bringing these things to the light.
This is the detailed argument that Penn State must have been involved in a cover up in the past, after Kyle was convicted by a court in California and sent to prison for over thirty years in May 11. The author is “a professional author and a professor emerita” according to the blog’s About page.
Dan Abrams, the ABC News Legal Analyst, points out that if it can be shown that there is a pattern of the university ignoring complaints of such a serious nature this is classic grounds for a civil case brought by the victims. There seems to be deep trouble for Penn State ahead. …
Richard – I hope you are correct but I don’t think anything will change. Even if the same players were involved, most people will view the Sandusky case and the Mann inquiry as entirely separate issues. Besides, everyone knows the “science is settled.” Any honest attempt to go back and review the inquiry will be met with howls of indignation. Anyone that points out any link will be criticized as equating Mann with a child molester. I have already read comments at other sites that essentially say this already. Steve’s assessment of the culture at Penn State as it relates to the two cases has been twisted into equating Mann and Sandusky. Lazy thinking at best.
Me too. But it’s a disgraceful ploy. That’s why I made a point of affirming Steve’s decision to bring these things to the light. As far as I’m concerned it’s deeply relevant as well as tragic.
I don’t feel like cowering because people might lie about what I’m saying. There’s a simple way to deal with this in one-to-one conversation, which is what I tend to go back to in such situations and that’s to ask: do the latest revelations about Penn State and the way allegations of wrongdoing have been dealt with increase or decrease your confidence in previous inquiries carried out by the leadership there? This has nothing to do with sliming Professor Mann but everything to do with the credibility of the regime within which he’s been working. Seen one way he and many others have become victims of this.
As I think you mentioned (or intimated) earlier, Steve, if the powers that be at PSU are willing to engage in such willful abrogation of their moral responsibility in such abhorrent matters, their behaviours in the Mann “enquiries” (in hindsight) were almost a foregone conclusion. Even the Spanier inspired(?) excuses are the same.
Spanier’s successor’s possible allegiances do not give one a high level of confidence that he is a new broom who will sweep clean. Consider: Newly appointed President Erickson’s (undated) service as “head of the Department of Geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences” and his (also undated) service as “chair of the Academic Leadership Council, which provides advice and counsel to the president on academic matters”.
Source
Erickson’s previous position was that of “executive vice president and provost”. I find it difficult to believe that in such a position he would have been kept out of the loop during the course of the Mann
whitewashesenquiries.Source
Another potential Penn State person: Karl Goeke, referenced with Neisworth here: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/FBC-PENNSTATE-PROFESSOR_6604813/FBC-PENNSTATE-PROFESSOR_6604813/ was publishing with Neisworth with a Penn State address here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005791675900191
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/
Anderson Cooper continues his investigative reporting on Penn State.
Penn St. faculty wants independent investigation
Fresh eyes: The Penn State inquiry needs outside perspective
Even if Penn State was not exempt from the law, it still could not release employee information, which would include emails and other conversations. This is true for any government employee even if the state has the open records laws. Idaho is open records but they had to go to court to be able to release information (records, evaluations, emails, face-to-face meeting information,etc.) on a former employee that shot and killed a student. So, even if Penn State was not exempt, they would not have gotten any information – only that the person had worked there, what their position was, their salary, and other basic information that is released yearly anyway.
>>
(records, evaluations, emails, face-to-face meeting information,etc.)
>>
I think you are confounding very different things here. Employer records, evaluations etc are rightly protected information.
Emails sent from govt research accounts (as opposed to a persion’s private account) are FIOA-able, they are not “private” however much some people wish they were.
I am not confounding different things. What the media wants is emails, conversations between employees which IS protected. Here is, in fact, the exemption for ALL agencies under the PaFOIC – “(16) A record of an agency relating to or resulting in a criminal investigation, including:” Here is the website if you would like to see it yourself (http://www.openrecordspa.org/rtk.html#708). As I stated, I also know this because NONE of the emails, conversations, etc. were allowed to be released from the U of Idaho PROFESSOR until a court order said they could and all those emails were from the school email address. I don’t know what you consider a government research account, but I do not believe university emails are considered this type as many people at universities do not participate in research (including the athletic department – not sure when any of them ever did any government research!). These are considered personal as students and professors exchange information about classes, grades, problems, etc. in emails as well as faculty exchange information about departmental meetings, faculty searches, etc. that are all confidential and not related to research whatsoever.
This is probably relevant under Exceptions as well:
This week’s Sports Illustrated has a series of articles. Those familiar with SI understand that, while focused on sports, there is often broader meaning in the stories, especially the weekly features. These articles refer multple times to the Penn State culture as being “insular” and the University being “isolated”.
Examples:
Lots of luck to academics trying to argue that Universities are somehow “special” and their “important work” needs to be shielded from rules that apply to everyone else.
“transparency as the Unversity moves forward.”
Oh , I like PR. It’s behind us, let’s move forward.
I think they may find a little “transparency” may be required of them with regards to the past as well.
“naming of an ethics officer” . Who will dare rape babies in the future if they know there is a “named” ethics officer on campus.
Let ’em have it Leroy!
“Second Mile” records missing…
More on Penn State’s culture of secrecy –
http://www.centredaily.com/2011/11/20/2993037/spotlight-shines-on-penn-state.html
To quote
When one then adds the stories (noted above) of other former Penn State professors Kyle and Neisworth to those of Lasaga and Sandusky, there really is a huge case for concern about the accountability of this university.
Some very telling quotes in this article, IMHO, particularly (my bold added):
and:
Obstruction of justice
Conspiracy
It looks like Louis Freeh (former FBI director) is being tapped to head the PSU inquiry into the allegations, and extending it back to 1975.
I guess it’s a good thing that this scandal did NOT involve academic misconduct, because then it would have been shoved under the rug internally for sure 😦
http://files.sinwt.ru/download.php?file=25FOIA2011.zip
Err wow!
Thank you !!
@mosh, where’s your ‘all your base’ youtube link!!
3334 is interesting for Steve I would have thought:
date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:22:15 +0100
from: “Palmer Dave Mr
subject: McIntyre EIR request (FOI_09-44; EIR_09-03) – Draft response
to: “Jones Philip Prof , “Mcgarvie Michael Mr
Phil/Michael,
A draft response along the lines discussed yesterday. I would expect an almost immediate
appeal of this decision by Mr. McIntyre.
Phil, as your concern is the publication of the requested information, I wonder if a
possible alternative is to release it but place conditions on it’s use. This will ONLY
work if UEA has some rights in the data itself or in the database. ‘Copyright’ in the
contents of a database would require some personal creative input by ourselves to the data
or database that would render it different from preceding external versions and
‘original’.
However, even if the contents aren’t ‘original’, there is a ‘database right’ where the
contents of the database are assembled as the result of substantial investment in
obtaining, verifying, or presenting it’s contents. It is the framework, not the contents,
that attracts the rights. These rights exist for 15 years from the completion of the
database BUT any substantial change to contents will ‘renew’ the database rights for
another 15 years. The owner of database rights has the right to prevent the extraction or
reuse of all or a substantial portion of the database.
There is ‘fair dealing’ in database rights to the extent that anyone has a right to extract
& reuse an insubstantial portion of the database (not really defined in law but it’s very
small) for any purpose, or where the portion is substantial, extract and use data for
non-commercial research or private study. What can’t be done is re-issuing this information
to the public under a different guise.
The upshot of all of this is that, if we have a ‘database right’ in this information, then
we can release it BUT insist on our exclusive right to re-use the information – BUT the
issue is actually ‘enforcing’ those rights…… more difficult in practice than in law or
theory….
Just thought I would proffer this as an option in place of the refusal and the inevitable
appeal.
Cheers, Dave
<>
____________________________
David Palmer
Information Policy & Compliance Manager
University of East Anglia
Attachment Converted: “c:\eudora\attach\Response_letter_DRAFT2.doc”
Checked for viruses, malware, comes out clean.
It looks as if another miracle has happened
Yep, I scanned it too. Clean as far as I can see. It’s the real deal! 🙂
Re: foia (Nov 22 04:09) (that’s nice to include!)
The last date I can find for an email (using regex search) is 13 Nov 09, on which there are two:
1046.txt
date: Fri Nov 13 08:32:28 2009
from: Phil Jones
subject: Re: Land/Ocean
to: Tom Wigley
4027.txt
date: Fri Nov 13 08:22:13 2009
from: Phil Jones
subject: Re: [Fwd: Your Submission]
to: Tom Wigley
Initial hand search, so prone to error. But it looks from this to be a further selection from the same archive taken from CRU, the first selection being released on another .ru server on 17 Nov 09.
Richard: One of the items in the docs folder is dated today!
‘statement.doc’
But all the ‘last modified’ dates have been set to 01-01-2011
Yep, I’ve been searching inside the emails, using TextMate’s regex search so far.
And yet, reading on:
Doesn’t sound like today’s draft in Word somehow!
Good point. Strange that today’s date appears on the text of the document itself.
Attempts to ‘clean’ Word to cover one’s traces can have unintended side-effects.
The date at the top of statement.doc is a script, it will just insert your current system date when you open the file.
I have to say that the start of the README.txt:
and the timing in 2011 suggest strongly to me a motive to ‘derail Durban’, for the very best of reasons I might add, just as FOIA in 2009 is now best seen as a opportunistic act to take the wind out of Copenhagen.
Assuming this lot are proved genuine, I should of course add. It seems more likely second time around … but it’s not yet proven.
Not proven for sure, but it my opinion from the content is that these are the real deal. The link was also dropped at the Air Vent.
I wonder if this is from Anonymous? They often include social justice causes as part of their hacking justifications.
The readme.txt implies causes larger than just a disgruntled or sympathetic worker on the inside.
The Furies aroused
By the usual suspect.
It’s for the children.
==========
I’m trying to download the files, but I’m running into a security code that needes input ….. Can anyone help in this regard?
[RomanM: The “security code” should be just to the left of the box in which you are supposed to enter it. It is apparently there to prevent bots from downloading files.]
Thanks…. doesn’t appear to be working for me…. 😦
Well, its working now….. probably just too many downloading at once….. thanks again! 🙂
The link isn’t working at all for me.
Michael Mann does not belong at Penn State, he belongs in the State Penn
Mann has sued people for saying that – be very careful.
Interesting to see that Penn State has been purchasing several .xxx domain names. You can’t make that stuff up.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/30/penn-state-buys-adult-domain-names-to-block-usage/
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[…] climategate dossier here. See notice from “FOIA” here and subsequent comments as well as discussion at Jeff Id […]
[…] Audit Nov 22, 2011 at 4:09 AM | Permalink (Canada, Eastern = 09:09 […]
[…] https://climateaudit.org/2011/11/16/anderson-cooper-on-penn-state-secrecy/ […]
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[…] November 21st to 23rd inclusive. At 4:09 am on November 22, someone calling themselves FOIA made a comment on McIntyre’s blog. It consisted solely of a link to a zip file posted online at a Russian web […]