It seems that the world governments are escalating cliamtegate to the next level. Tallbloke a fellow recipient blog of the climategate emails, and linked on the right, was raided today in what seems to be a coordinated effort by Metropolitan Police, the Norfolk Constabulary and the Computer Crime division and the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division. His home was raided and computers were taken for ‘examination’.
Updates are coming shortly which will explain further. The same is coming to a blogger near you.
Perhaps this post should be titled – “The Empire Strikes Back”
UPDATE : Steve McIntyre’s initial reaction.
An interesting post at WUWT on the matter.
UPDATE: Tallbloke and I both received the following notification from the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division and forwarded by Ryan at WordPress. ClimateAudit is also mentioned yet I’m not certain that Steve Received notice. It seems that the larger paid blogs may not have received any notice. On pdf –WordPress Preservation Request-1
U.S. Department of Justice
Criminal Division
1301 New York Avenue, NW, 6th floor
Washington, DC 20005
PHONE: 202-353-2854
FAX: 202-514-6113
December 9, 2011
VIA ELECTRONIC MAILAutomattic Inc.
60 29th Street #343
San Francisco, CA 94110
Attn: law-enforcement@wordpress.com
Re: Request for Preservation of Records
Dear Automattic Inc.:
Pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 2703(f), this letter is a formal request for the preservation of all stored communications, records, and other evidence in your possession
regarding the following domain name(s) pending further legal process: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com, https://noconsensus.wordpress.com, and http://climateaudit.org (“the Accounts”) from 00:01 GMT Monday 21 November 2011 to 23:59 GMT Wednesday 23 November 2011.I request that you not disclose the existence of this request to the subscriber or any other person, other than as necessary to comply with this request. If compliance with this request might result in a permanent or temporary termination of service to the Accounts, or otherwise alert any user of the Accounts as to your actions to preserve the information described below, please contact me as soon as possible and before taking action.
READ THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE REST
the Air Vent 
Fast work Jeff. 🙂
WOW!
Warn Lucia, just in case….
Lost the post and can’t comment at my own blog.
Wow! I have been expecting some last ditch effort to save the crooks, but it won’t work.
Today NASA has belatedly started asking questions, . . .
Giving $1.4 M to Washington University to confirm or deny reports that silicon carbide (SiC) grains in the Murchison meteorite are “fall-out” particles from the supernova explosion that made our elements.
That question was answered 15 years ago by Kuroda and Myers using data from Washington University, but NASA, the US NAS, the UK’s RS, and the UN’s IPCC apparently didn’t want anyone to know that Earth’s heat source – the Sun – is not stable as claimed by world leaders and the UN’s IPCC, but violently unstable remains of a supernova that gave birth to the Solar Syatem five billion (5 Gyr) ago.
Here’s the story with links to data and observations:
Click to access NASA_finally_asks.pdf
Is someone pressuring WordPress?
Very strange.
I’ll spread this around.
I’ve started:
http://classicalvalues.com/2011/12/the-climate-police-are-out-in-force/
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3454
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3454
Jeff my last two comments are in the bit bucket.
Here is a link for a thread I started. The CV trackback was me.
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3454
Well that one hit the bit bucket too.
The post is accessible to me, not sure what the blockage is for you.
It worked after, first working, then dissappearing and, being re-written three times. I’m not worried about that now.
=====================================================================================================
The rest:
Read the letter to wordpress above. WordPress is a totally unconcerned recipient of 100% of the data and the police haven’t received it yet. Just why would they want our computers if ALL of the data they seek is available from wordpress.
You might say there is something missing in the WordPress record, but the only things missing would be email discussions with the evil dr. FOIA. Of course had I been having discussions with them/he/she, I would have requested a few email threads be completed.
Why are they investigating the bloggers on the fraud rather than the fraud itself? – no I don’t use that word very often.
Jeff @12 asks: “Why are they investigating the bloggers on the fraud rather than the fraud itself?”
Answer 1: NASA, the US NAS, the UK’s RS, and the UN’s IPCC apparently didn’t want anyone to know that Earth’s heat source – the Sun – is not stable as claimed by world leaders and the UN’s IPCC, but violently unstable remains of a supernova that gave birth to the Solar Syatem five billion (5 Gyr) ago.
Answer 2: Kill the messenger if you can’t kill the message.
Answer 3: The Golden rule. Who has the gold?
§ 2703. Required disclosure of customer communications or records
How Current is This?
(a) Contents of Wire or Electronic Communications in Electronic Storage.— A governmental entity may require the disclosure by a provider of electronic communication service of the contents of a wire or electronic communication, that is in electronic storage in an electronic communications system for one hundred and eighty days or less, only pursuant to a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (or, in the case of a State court, issued using State warrant procedures) by a court of competent jurisdiction. A governmental entity may require the disclosure by a provider of electronic communications services of the contents of a wire or electronic communication that has been in electronic storage in an electronic communications system for more than one hundred and eighty days by the means available under subsection (b) of this section.
(b) Contents of Wire or Electronic Communications in a Remote Computing Service.—
(1) A governmental entity may require a provider of remote computing service to disclose the contents of any wire or electronic communication to which this paragraph is made applicable by paragraph (2) of this subsection—
(A) without required notice to the subscriber or customer, if the governmental entity obtains a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (or, in the case of a State court, issued using State warrant procedures) by a court of competent jurisdiction; or
(B) with prior notice from the governmental entity to the subscriber or customer if the governmental entity—
(i) uses an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena; or
(ii) obtains a court order for such disclosure under subsection (d) of this section;
except that delayed notice may be given pursuant to section 2705 of this title.
(2) Paragraph (1) is applicable with respect to any wire or electronic communication that is held or maintained on that service—
(A) on behalf of, and received by means of electronic transmission from (or created by means of computer processing of communications received by means of electronic transmission from), a subscriber or customer of such remote computing service; and
(B) solely for the purpose of providing storage or computer processing services to such subscriber or customer, if the provider is not authorized to access the contents of any such communications for purposes of providing any services other than storage or computer processing.
(c) Records Concerning Electronic Communication Service or Remote Computing Service.—
(1) A governmental entity may require a provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service to disclose a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications) only when the governmental entity—
(A) obtains a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (or, in the case of a State court, issued using State warrant procedures) by a court of competent jurisdiction;
(B) obtains a court order for such disclosure under subsection (d) of this section;
(C) has the consent of the subscriber or customer to such disclosure;
(D) submits a formal written request relevant to a law enforcement investigation concerning telemarketing fraud for the name, address, and place of business of a subscriber or customer of such provider, which subscriber or customer is engaged in telemarketing (as such term is defined in section 2325 of this title); or
(E) seeks information under paragraph (2).
(2) A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall disclose to a governmental entity the—
(A) name;
(B) address;
(C) local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations;
(D) length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;
(E) telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and
(F) means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number),
of a subscriber to or customer of such service when the governmental entity uses an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena or any means available under paragraph (1).
(3) A governmental entity receiving records or information under this subsection is not required to provide notice to a subscriber or customer.
(d) Requirements for Court Order.— A court order for disclosure under subsection (b) or (c) may be issued by any court that is a court of competent jurisdiction and shall issue only if the governmental entity offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation. In the case of a State governmental authority, such a court order shall not issue if prohibited by the law of such State. A court issuing an order pursuant to this section, on a motion made promptly by the service provider, may quash or modify such order, if the information or records requested are unusually voluminous in nature or compliance with such order otherwise would cause an undue burden on such provider.
(e) No Cause of Action Against a Provider Disclosing Information Under This Chapter.— No cause of action shall lie in any court against any provider of wire or electronic communication service, its officers, employees, agents, or other specified persons for providing information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with the terms of a court order, warrant, subpoena, statutory authorization, or certification under this chapter.
(f) Requirement To Preserve Evidence.—
(1) In general.— A provider of wire or electronic communication services or a remote computing service, upon the request of a governmental entity, shall take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession pending the issuance of a court order or other process.
(2) Period of retention.— Records referred to in paragraph (1) shall be retained for a period of 90 days, which shall be extended for an additional 90-day period upon a renewed request by the governmental entity.
(g) Presence of Officer Not Required.— Notwithstanding section 3105 of this title, the presence of an officer shall not be required for service or execution of a search warrant issued in accordance with this chapter requiring disclosure by a provider of electronic communications service or remote computing service of the contents of communications or records or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service.
I would imagine any decent lawyer in the US could quash this rather quickly.
Mark
Under the guise of investigating terrorism, the police can and do get electronic records from providers like AT&T. No idea if they are labeling this that way.
Oh, I’m also suspecting someone in the justice department is getting worried about a password slip.
Mark
This Fraud is controlled from the highest levels. The Department of Energy is named in one of the emails as directing the science fraud. pg
The letter is dated Dec. 9. I assume by then, WordPress had provided the US Dept. Just. the requested information from your databases. WordPress informed you as a courtesy afterwards. Other records may have been obtained. Maybe gmail? Anyway, they are looking for something.
#15 That same thought came to my mind, Mark T.
“From 00:01 GMT Monday 21 November 2011 to 23:59 GMT Wednesday 23 November 2011.”
Besides all the grandiose, and appropriately concerned, statement about protecting privacy rights, how about noting this notice is fairly narrow, and what happened 21 Nov to 23 Nov?
Just got a warning saying IE has blocked cross-site scripting.
Did WordPress indicate that they had been served a warrant, and the government entity that executed the warrant?
Oops – this was the thread….
Obviously a higher priority for DoJ than gun running to Mexico.
The timing of all this suggests to me that the Brits went through the normal process of requesting US assistance on a subpoena issued in the UK. It does have to be a criminal matter to get DOJ assistance.
This is actually a very interesting turn of events. Jeff, I think you are going to make case law. The question is: are bloggers considered part of the press? In the US, members of the press are afforded rights under the constitution. So you won’t see the justice department raiding the New York Times after the NYT publishes state secrets obtained by the Anonymous hacker group (for example). It strikes me that TAV and CA have a wider readership than some local newspapers — so its hard to argue that you are not members of the press.
I can imagine that this is causing you a great deal of personal anxiety at the moment, but I suspect that this is going to be a very important case that will be followed by the national media and that freedom of speech groups will come to your aid.
A judge in a federal court ruled recently that a blogger wasn’t the press because the blogger had “no formal journalism education, was not affiliated with a recognized news outlet (whatever that is), and had no press credentials (whatever those are)”. Now I suggest that the various bloggers on this issue band together and form your own “news outlet” and find some sort of a way of “credentialing” each other. The part about the degree in journalism is just crazy, though, considering that when the constitutional protections for the press were enacted there were no news outlets, there were no credentials for press, and there was no such thing as a journalism degree. The first school of journalism was started by Robert E. Lee (yes, THAT Robert E. Lee) at William and Mary in Virginia.
My theory- they are desperate to find the password – they are terrified that the rest of the emails get out. Just a theory 🙂
First:
Jeff is going to get an Instalanche.
Second:
Different states have different shield laws and the one in Oregon that the judge ruled on didn’t specifically state bloggers in it (The case dealt with a confidential source). However as a Law Prof pointed out across the state line in Washington the law there clearly states that bloggers are considered “journalists” under that states shield law.
That was a federal court as far as I know. It would depend on what the rights are of journalists under the constitution, wouldn’t it? I mean, the judge could have ruled that the Montana law was unconstitutional. The federal judge is the one who set those criteria as far as I know, not the state court.
David Schnare,
The British police served a subpoena on a midnight raid at Tallbloke’s? Do you know how that works?
Suggest that anyone who thinks they may get a visit insure they have “offsite backup” of all important files to prevent too much disruption being caused by confiscation or ham handed treatment of equipment. It is the standard anyway so time to implement if you haven’t!!
Jeff, why wouldn’t they go after the fraudsters?? Because the fraudsters are collaborators of part of the power structure and you are helping to interfere with their agenda. Do you really believe the local police are driving these investigations?
@ 36
Here is the article:
also there is the case from California and the US 6th District Court which had this:
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/12/unlike_oregon_bloggers_are_jou.php
Yes, but if this ever makes it to the Supreme Court, I doubt such an argument would stand. Under that definition, Ben Franklin would not have been a member of the press. Yet there is no doubt that the framers considered Franklin to be a member of the press. The word ‘journalists’ does not appear in the constitution. The freedom is afforded to members of the press not to degreed journalists.
But this was in federal court.
“During the proceedings, U.S. District Judge, Marco Hernandez, ruled that Cox was not a journalist and, therefore, she is unable to claim the protections offered to mainstream reporters and news outlets.”
Maybe I am confused but how can a federal district court rule one way in one case and the opposite in a different case.
The political warmist movement is worried !
kendra ervin google plus profile: https://plus.google.com/105482764037919717609/posts
friends at harvard/stanford and other IP firms. I’d say 99% confident its her profile.
Freedom of the (printing) press. I believe it was just formalizing that free speech was still free if you wrote it down.
This has huge implications, gang. First, it means they’re scared as hell, and are pulling out all the stops to get at the source of the leaks. If the leaks really were meaningless and of no point, then this wouldn’t be happening. The Team is obviously deeply wounded, and is willing to do just about anything to protect the “cause”.
Second, we’re seeing the beginnings of a new police state. This is an unconscionable move. Our only recourse is the court system. And there are no guarantees there. They’ve been so packed with “living constitution” panty-wastes, there’s absolutely no way to count on constitutional protections from the pending tyranny.
Spread the news far and wide. The only antiseptic is lots of sunlight.
George you might want to research that federal case a bit more. From all evidence the “blogger” was a nutter posting obviously made up material all over the web. And the ruling that they were not a journalist was made more on that basis than that they were a “blogger”. That and her lawyer had a fool for a client. As in she was her own lawyer in Federal Court.
Well looks like the Gestapo (UK police) are at it again. Remember Paris 1789….
I think you are the author of your own misfortune…. to wit:
It seems that the world governments are escalating climategate to the next level. Tallbloke a fellow recipient blog of the climategate emails, and linked on the right, was raided today in what seems to be
Perhaps you should re-jig your page and link him on the left… there — you won’t be bothered again…
Glad to help.
@41
US District Courts cover different geographical areas and at least 1 District Court per state:
http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/UnderstandingtheFederalCourts/DistrictCourts.aspx
The District Court that the Cox case took place in only covers the state of Oregon:
There is two different District Courts in Washington State and four in California so that is how you can get different rulings out of District Courts and their rulings are only effective inside their own districts not nationwide.
The problem in this case was that the defendant tried to defend herself instead of getting a lawyer. If she gets a lawyer expect to see an appeal based on the 6th District Court Ruling which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will almost certainly take up since the 6th Circuit in California and the Oregon District Court are both in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals jurisdiction (Bad form to have two districts in your region with diametrically opposed rulings).
Now the thing about Federal to State is that just because a case is heard in Federal court it doesn’t mean the state laws do not apply. As long as there is no Federal Law that overrides what the state law says the Federal Court is not suppose to make it’s own law and over ride the state law. Since the state law of Oregon does not give “media” status to bloggers the Judge has some wiggle room (Their is no Federal law dealing with this outside of the First Amendment) since one of the things the 6th District case relied on was the California Shield Law:
http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case430.cfm
As you can see the 6th based its ruling not just on the First Amendment but also the California State law.
Well, I don’t personally believe that the medium constitutes protection. In other words, if she wrote up a PDF every day and mailed it to 50 people, she would certainly be “the press” because she was printing a “newspaper”. But because it is published on the Internet, she isn’t. I guess they seem to have ruled that because “anybody” can publish now, we need some other way to narrow down who is “press”.
I guess it depends on if you can afford a laser printer and paper to determine if you are “the press” because I honestly don’t believe that judges criteria would hold for an “ink on paper” publication.
The threat of having Climategate 3.0, 4.0, etc. appear before future international climate meetings may be irritating the powers that be. Perhaps the CRU scientists have warned that other embarrassing emails exist. Now there is obviously no hope that any such emails – assuming they exist – weren’t among those stolen.
It’s also possible that the police are closing in on the source of the emails and they are trying to shut down or intimidate likely channels by which the remaining emails could be disseminated.
Remember to do the …..
http://www.superantispyware.com/
SUPERAntiSpyware. Free Malware Remover. Remove Malware, Remove Spyware, Rootkits, Spyware, Adware, Worms, Parasites, Keyloggers, and other crappola.
when you eventually get the disks back.
in future use PGP or similar
If you have lived long enoygh you will notice human behavor repeating again and again. So what do you do, play the game or just let it go with the wind.
You got to smile and live another day.
People around the world have been moved by the emotion that man has caused global warming. Now people vote for governments that act on their emotions. Money makers job is to place the emotion into the beliefs of the people. Great spinner if you can market it work. Carbon trading scam is going to make trillions of dollars.
So can the cops really show up at your door and say “we want to copy your computer disks so we can go through them at our leisure and see if there might be something on them that interests us”? I thought they had to specify on the warrant exactly what they were looking for.
Dave Mears said: Freedom of the (printing) press. I believe it was just formalizing that free speech was still free if you wrote it down.
Mears is correct. The use of the term “the press” to mean news organizations was not common until after the time the Bill of Rights was ratified. Also, according to the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the institutional press has no special First Amendment rights: “We have consistently rejected the proposition that the institutional press has any constitutional privilege beyond that of other speakers.”
Matt Skaggs said
December 14, 2011 at 11:11 pm
David Schnare,
The British police served a subpoena on a midnight raid at Tallbloke’s? Do you know how that works?
See,,,,,
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_rights/legal_system/police_powers.htm#Powersofentry
Is the 7zip file just a bluff ?
This move seems to indicate that it does actually contain some stuff that would be very nasty for the AGW brethren and their backers.
I assume that there are many many people with the file archived in a safe place.
I suggest many copies be made and put in safe places.
Question is, do the stolen computers have email addresses of other bloggers on them, people who might have the file?
How much further are the brethren going to spread their claws?
AndyG55 said
December 15, 2011 at 4:27 am
How much further are the brethren going to spread their claws?
Did you mean “Cause”?
The 7zip file doesn’t have to be anything spectacular, just a mass “grab” of emails, maybe without redacted addressing, etc., etc. Way too much context for comfort, IOW!
Here’s an interesting angle!
As soon as I saw the notification of Jeff’s new thread about the Tallbloke raid I immediately copied it to Jo Nova here in Australia and then visited the web sites of all the major UK newspapers to see if they had any useful coverage.
There was no coverage. Nada.
I then posted a comment on a comments thread at the Guardian relating to a Guardian article discussing the powers and behaviour of the UK police during the recent riots there, asking why there had been no coverage by the Guardina ort any other UK newspapers of the recent Tallbloke police raid.
A perfectly relevant and reasonable query I thought?
Just out of idle curiousity I then left the web page of the readers comments thread open and went back to work, checking the comments thread it every 5 minutes or so to see if anyone else had any useful news to report (about the Tallbloke raid).
Exactly 18 minutes after I posted it, the Guardian’s ‘moderator’ pulled my post stating it breached the newspaper’s guidelines…….
Per the discussion of ‘is a web posting publishing’ perhaps one can site the UEA as precedent. (yes, I love irony…)
from email 773: http://dump.kurthbemis.com/climategate2/FOIA/mail/0773.txt
So a ‘prestigious’ University claims that putting things on a website is “published”… and suitable quality for addressing legal matters…
I suspect there are plenty of other examples, but this one has a certain charm about it 😉
Suddenly this is not so funny anymore.
I always thought it was typical immature behavior of the believers to blame skeptics for the failures of their AGW policies as well as their corruption.
Now, going after someone who simply received some documents and grabbing his computers to clone (place bugs in), it is no longer a cute display of [pseudo-religious fanaticism. I wonder if they are going to go after WUWT, CA, Curry, etc.?
It would really not be so hard to effectively shut down the skeptics. We are all on blogs, the press is too arrogant and corrupt to bother with us, and many, like Revkin, would probably cheer on shutting down skeptics. I wonder, if this goes into full corruption, if they will seek us out individually to ‘advise’ us to move on quietly, or see that we are sacked from our jobs, etc. ? I have, in dismissing the AGW believers as simple fanatics, possibly been naive about what even simple fanatics of a pseudo-religion might do when threatened.
AGW is now in a zombie phase: it is clearly an out of control social movement that is rapidly losing any veneer of science and is turning into a pure exercise of power- mindless but dangerous.
Let me see if I understand this…
The DOJ sends WordPress a letter asking that they store/preserve some information regarding a few of their clients. Then they ask that they not disclose this request to said clients or anyone else. Five days later the letter/request is on the web and being circulated widely?
Gotta give them credit for not being afraid of ‘the man’.
MrC
#73 I’m terrified of the DOJ. They are not your friend – or mine. Justice is simply a distraction inserted in the name to confuse you. WordPress had nothing to lose as the issues of disclosure are addressed in the law itself. My risk is that it somehow makes them madder, which seems fairly minor at the point where computers are being confiscated.
Their excuse for taking Tallblokes machines is so weak that it defies any credibility. Hopefully, that is an issue in taking McIntyre’s or my machines.
It does sound like damage control. But too little too late. The files are out there, and there is a dead man’s hand at the switch.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/15/climategate_police_action/
The story at the register says Donna Laframboise is also involved, which I think is not correct.
They have also outed Roger Tallbloke, though that was hardly a secret.
I speculate that involvement in the Climategate files my be the pretense used to shutdown bloggers and make future arrests.
Andrew
#80 PaulM: Thank you, I’ve left a comment at the story with a correction … hope it gets caught!
Wow,
Looks like the AGW cabal has finally launched their final salvo in their conspiracy to destroy capitalism and starve millions across the globe.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they trace back from “skeptical” blogs to imprison anyone who ever doubted anthropogenic climate change. Grab the children and head for the hills.
Don’t forget the keys to your bunkers, and for god’s sake, don’t forget your guns and ammo.
“Their excuse for taking Tallblokes machines is so weak that it defies any credibility.”
What was it?
84 – Oh, witty! Reckon you’d be as classy as Tallbloke if they knocked at yours?
“The detective- insprctor and his colleagues were polite, well mannered and did not over-react when I declined to give them my wordpress password. I politely explained that they had a warrant to search my house, not my head.”
(Tallbloke at CA)
Michael Mann has retweeted someone called Greg Laden:
“More Computers of Criminal Cyber-Thieves Seized tinyurl.com/6u47ezy ”
hmm. Sounds libellous to me.
HG:
That’s because it is. No damages though, because Mann has no credibility.
Wow, a letter from the US DOJ, under an administration that believes in AGW……. and that happens to have a guy currently right in the White House offices who was a participant in a 1998-era marginalization of AGW critics: “White House Involved in Warmist Smear Campaign” http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/white_house_involved_in_warmist_smear_campaign.html
Kendra Ervin is a Trial Attorney with the Dept. of Justice Criminal Division. IMO, She does not have the authority to initiate a criminal investigation. a Criminal Referral was submitted from higher up the food chain. More than likely, it originated from a Senator or Congressman.
“Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated. “This is a crime”- Sen. Barbara Boxer, 12-9-2009
“The message I have for climate deniers is this: you are endangering humankind. It is time for climate deniers to face reality, because the body of evidence is overwhelming and the world’s leading scientists agree.” Sen. Barbara Boxer, 12-5-2011
I’d say that Boxer was instrumental in filing the criminal complaint. She has the power and it serves her means.
Watch your back, Jeff.
HG – it cannot be libellous unless the remark would lower someone in public esteem. In my book, any expression of dislike from Mann raises the esteem in which I hold the target.
Grypo – under UK laws, the police could invoke anti-terrorism/national security legislation, which basically allows them to do anything they like, provided they get a warrant from a judge, for a period of – I believe 60 days – before they become accountable to that judge.
I know this will be unfashionable, but how about the idea they are just trying to find the poster “FOIA” and build a case on him?
I’m guessing these fools have not thought about the consequences of making all of this a legal matter. Discovery rules alone in the US would compel the release of the emails, including those from UVa, and any devastation they are attempting to avoid will be much, much worse, including massive lawsuits, perhaps even criminal charges for those coordinating the pursuit. Short-sightedness is a quality our politicians have in abundance.
Mark
Hi Jeff et al:
As world order and the AGW scam crumble, remember that Gandhi defeated the British Empire, . . .
Not by having more funds, weapons, or propaganda specialists, . . .
But by doing what is right and turning the results over to Fate!
In fact world leaders and leaders of the scientific community are as scared today as leaders of the British Empire were when they met an opponent that would not accept their arrogant, false view of reality.
If the Sun sneezes, farts or belches, they are all toast too. NASA is helping get out the message.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-curiosity-solar-storm.html
So, “Fear not, the Universe is in good hands!”
Click to access Fear_Not.pdf
Today, All is Well
Oliver K Manuel
Click to access NASA_finally_asks.pdf
Probably confused “noconsensus” with “nofrakkingconsensus”.
Under UK law, that would be. MM may have just stepped in it, since his twitters are followed in the UK (see: Ehrenfeld case).
Yeah, he’s suing Tim Ball for just such a thing (and not nearly as an inflammatory thing – a common joke, either). I’m hoping Tim uses this in his defense.
Mark
Sad.
An aspect worth considering:
According to common assumptions, the Climategate breach took place at the UEA in Britain. So, if that’s true, why are we seeing the USDoJ in the act? Britain is well able to investigate criminal activity that takes place on it’s own soil. In fact, they have considerably more leeway than US police. So again, why is the DoJ making requests? There is a continuity problem in this.
Duster,
Because WordPress is the best blog platform in the world – and it is US based
If you’re in the US, you should be intensely interested in the SOPA law currently before congress.
I don’t hear a lot about it in the climate blogs, but basically, the law allows for the instant closing down on internet sites by yanking the DNS records.
The process to get a site pulled would be about as difficult as the process to get TallBlokes house entered and computers confiscated.
It’s being sold to you as protection for copyrighted material, but realistically, I can see how republishing leaked emails could be interpreted to fall under this. This would mean this site, (and climate audit, and wattsupwiththat.com) could conceivably be shut down without any court proceedings, or findings of guilt on the part of the blog owner,
This isn’t tin-hat stuff, it’s in front of Congress today, now, here.
Get yourself educated on SOPA and get involved in the fight now.
see here for more details : http://americancensorship.org/
Ok, so the link in my above comment is more preaching to the converted. For the uninitiated, here’ s a better rundown.
You can read more about the SOPA act here in Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
From the linked page, here’s some quotes:
“The bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement”
“After delivering a court order, the U.S. Attorney-General (AG) could require US-directed Internet service providers, ad networks such as Google and payment processors such as PayPal or Visa to suspend doing business with sites found to infringe on federal criminal intellectual property laws and take “technically feasible and reasonable measures” to prevent access to the infringing site. The AG could also bar search engines from displaying links to the sites.”
“.. under SOPA, culpability for distributing copyright material is extended to those who aid the initial poster of said material.”
Roughly the way it works is this:
1. Big Important Person is upset about Copyrighted Content appearing on a site (purpotedly movies, music, books, but anything really) made by Small Blogger
2. Big Important Person gets court order under SOPA law
3. Big Important Person delivers order to Google, WordPress, PayPal, etc
4. Big Internet Companies yank site in order to get their immunity privelege
5. Big Internet Providers also get notice and pull the DNS records that link the address (ie domain) to the server of the site
6. Small Blogger now has no site.
7. Small Blogger has not (a) been convicted of anything (b) found guilty of anything (c)
8. Small Blogger can now fight for the legal right to re-establish their site. Refer to (7)
Now, in the climategate instance:
‘Big Important Person’ is whomever is behind the current DoJ requests to WordPress,
‘Copyrighted Content’ is obviously the emails and any other data (ie code in the cg1 release) After all, this has been Mann’s defense for most of the time since CG1.
‘Small Blogger’ is Jeff Id or Steve McIntyre or Anthony Watts or Tallbloke (note the international reach of the provisions)
Their only crime would be to allow the FOIA link to remain online and/or talk about the contents of the emails in posts.
Note that they only have to convince a court of the problem – in the same way they only had to get a warrant to search Tallblokes house.
Even if eventually found to be not-guilty, the site disappears for a long time.
Don’t take if from me that this is bad, take it from Sergey Brin from Google:
https://plus.google.com/109813896768294978296/posts/Dt6FoRv6hXJ#109813896768294978296/posts/Dt6FoRv6hXJ
Every large internet company is against this bill, including Google, Yahoo, Wikimedia, etc etc.
The only people that are for it are the lobbyists for the RIAA and MPAA, and their pet politicians.
It might only be about stolen movies and music at this point, but once the laws are there….. Patriot Act, anyone?
Brc–
The law blogs discuss that issue a lot. Climate blogs not so much. But it is important.
Gee Whiz
Hi Jeff – this all should be laughable were it not real.
I was appalled a few years ago when I received a personal email from David Axelrod telling me all about Obamacare. I don’t know how he got my email addy – at that time I had never visited a gov site. I supposed one of my academic friends turned me in. At the time, I just dismissed it as bad politics by the administration. I thought it was a silly attempt at coersion. I laughed.
I’m not laughing now.
Like all the other extremists who existed before Obamarama and his buddies (the particular political brands don’t matter), the CAGW crowd has no choice but to search and destroy any perceived enemy, by any means necessary
I’m really astonished by these latest moves, though – how far will it go?
Keep on a’bloggin’
Page.
Ding Dong Merrily on High…(Or the Empire strikes back, if you prefer?)…
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/211/
I have won a small victory here:
http://tallbloke.wodrdpress.com/2011/12/16/leo-hickman-factual-inaccuracy/
Leo Hickman, author of the Guarian article which stated Jeff and I were directly told to preserve records on our own computers, has had the article amended not once, but twice after I threatened to get legal about it.
The wording has been changed to make it clear it was WordPress.com which was required to hold records, and a footnote has been added clarifying the error and change.
Tallbloke,
Your link isn’t working for me. I did find the article anyway. Thanks for the work.
Tallbloke inserted an extraneous “d” in his link in #116.
The intended link is http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/leo-hickman-factual-inaccuracy/
It would be really interesting to know on what grounds the Judge granted this warrant and what legal grounds th police had for taking the property?
It’s called a fishing trip and a midnight raid on an innocent persons home is obscene.
So time to put one’s money where one’s mouth is. Tallbloke a donation is on it way tomorrow.
Thanks Stacey. Tomorrow we have paperwork on it’s way to Norwich requirng the police to produce copies of the affidavit the detective inspector swore. That should tell us a bit more about the grounds they thought they had for entering my home and seizing my property.
They had better be good or it will chew up some of the fighting fund dealing with it.
TB
They had to know that WP held the records, otherwise why enlist the help of the DOJ to get the records frozen
Maybe they decided to raid your place after the DOJ informed them they could not get a warrant to search the records.
In other words, they knew that WP had the records, but could not get a US judge to sign a warrant. So they went fishing.
Steven–
If they raided because they couldn’t get records from WP, they likely won’t get them. I doubt if Roger exports his WP records and stores them at home! (Of course, I could be wrong. . .)
122 Tallbloke – I reread your post on the visit but didn’t see details of the time of the visit and how long they stayed. Please can you fill in those details? Apologies if I’ve missed it elsewhere. Best wishes.
They are investigating the theft. Even journalists don’t have the right to hack other people’s private systems. Ask Rupert Murdoch.
Ed @ 127
The emails are all subject to FOI as they are at a university funded from public research. No private emails unrelated to the topic at hand have been released, even though they, too, are subject to FOI requests. Anyone leaking evidence of misbehaviour in publicly funded institutions is protected strongly under UK whistleblower law.
The police have not charged anyone. I think you’ll find they don’t throw around the word ‘theft’ like you do.
Meanwhile, the emails provide evidence of breaking the law as far as FOI is concerned in terms of planned evasion, deletion of emails and conspiring to deny FOI requests on data and methods that should be public knowledge anyway. The emails also provide corroborating evidence for the fact that the people behind both the ‘hockey stick’ graphs have engaged in unethical behaviour and have behaved as activists rather than scientists while authoring and editing the IPCC reports, which my government is using as justification for extra taxation. While the defenders of the AGW scare simultaneously say that the emails mean nothing and yet proclaim that a great crime has been committed and salivate over the prospect of someone being thrown in jail for the terrible deed of releasing to the public how little climate scientist think of their own work.
I wonder, Ed, if you were so vindictive against the Wikileaks cable releases?
An fhirinne in aghaidh an tsaoil — Truth in the face of the world
Lets consider not why power would foster untruth to stay in power but what happens geologically to Earth when our galaxy is saturated with energy which disappears in a non locality when the capacitor (the galaxy ) is overloaded.
My best guess is that in the past when our Earth first experienced compression then passed to expansion, the resulting Earth was far different from ours. I believe the intelligence was committed to keeping the effects of the expansion and minimizing the effects of a return to what we know as normal, our expanded heliosphere.
Perhaps that state became unstable (an axial tilt?) and the surviving intelligence then opted to maximize the compressed state and avoid expansion. This may be a demo purpose of the pyramid on the Equator, to accept nutrinos slowly and to allow exiting slowly to even out the heating of the Earth’s core.
I have tried to think of sci fi type events that would allow a river in the sky, and to fit Egyptian mythology that says the sky, Nut had to be separated from Ged the earth.
And that Maat moisture was created by the breath of the creative principal Atun which itself appeared as a rift in Nun, a void of nothingness. This scenario certainly fits the mythology.
Of course, it accepts intelligence (our smarter selves) here on Earth which we humans are strangely reluctant to see despite our claim of ‘searching the universe for signs of intelligent life.’ And it also disposes of the claim that the gas cloud in which we are enwrapped has somehow violated the gas laws and become thinner and weaker. I see the tumbling of the solar sail as proof the energy is still the same as in the past, and that the fact we didn’t expand 5,000 y ago ( and possibly partially 10,000 y a) due to some tinkering with Earth’s periodic neutrino-generated core heating.
Further I am curious as to the effects of the energy on water. It would appear that the greater the energy input, the more water wants to take leave of gravity. Is it possible that our planet was a ice ball with a water interior? Scientists, how can neutrino repulsion be responsible for a river of water in the sky? An ocean of water in the sky? Why does science identify water as a stand alone entity in space? Is it water or neutrino?
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Very descriptive blog, I liked that bit. Will there
be a part 2?