From the there’s “nothing to see here and my lawyer says so too” department, we have news that Dr. Michael Mann really doesn’t want those UVA emails to get sunlight. From ATI:
‘Hockey Stick’ Creator Michael Mann Seeks Court’s Help to Ensure No Inquiry, No ‘Exoneration’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Contact: Paul Chesser, Executive Director, paul.chesser@atinstitute.org
Dr. Michael Mann, lead author of the discredited “hockey stick” graph that was once hailed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the “smoking gun” of the catastrophic man-made global warming theory, has asked to intervene in American Tradition Institute’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that seeks certain records produced by Mann and others while he was at the University of Virginia, for the purpose of keeping them hidden from the taxpayer.
Specifically over the weekend ATI’s Environmental Law Center received service from two Pennsylvania attorneys who seek the court’s permission to argue for Dr. Mann to intervene in ATI’s case. The attorneys also filed a motion to stay production of documents still withheld by UVA, which are to be provided to ATI’s lawyers in roughly two weeks under a protective order that UVA voluntarily agreed to in May. Dr. Mann’s lawyers also desire a hearing in mid-September, in an effort to further delay UVA’s scheduled production of records under the order.
Dr. Mann’s argument, distilled, is that the court must bend the rules to allow him to block implementation of a transparency law, so as to shield his sensibilities from offense once the taxpayer – on whose dime he subsists – sees the methods he employed to advance the global warming theory and related policies. ATI’s Environmental Law Center is not sympathetic.
“Dr. Mann’s late-hour tactics offer the spectacle of someone who relies on the media’s repeats of his untrue claims of having been ‘investigated’ and ‘exonerated’ – that is, when he’s not sputtering ad hominem and conspiracy theories to change the subject,” said Christopher Horner, director of litigation for ATI’s Environmental Law Center. “Mann has tried whatever means possible to ensure he remains free of any serious scrutiny, and this just appears to be his last gasp.”
Dr. Mann’s move is therefore gratifying, and ATI will agree to his out-of-state lawyers’ motion to appear. But ATI will ask the court to uphold Virginia’s abundantly clear law, that Dr. Mann has no interest in records that are purely the property of the taxpayer.
ATI will present to the court how Dr. Mann understood, as an unambiguous and agreed-upon condition of his employment, that he had no expectation of privacy when he used UVA’s public email system. ATI therefore looks forward to seeing if, given the opportunity, UVA will defend the idea that any of its own policies be upheld in court. Since Dr. Mann has no property interest in the taxpayer-owned records sought by ATI, he has no standing and therefore should not be entered in the case. Dr. Mann wants, after the fact, for UVA to throw out policies he accepted as a condition of living off of taxpayer dollars, in order to cover up public information and to evade scrutiny.
To the extent Dr. Mann, the university, or their obstructionist backers like Union of Concerned Scientists continue to argue he has been “cleared” or “exonerated,” or that any substantive investigation has taken place, those pleadings are undermined by their persistent efforts to squelch inquiry. As a result, all the public sees is an effort to sweep Climategate revelations under the rug in order to preserve the biggest taxpayer-financed gravy train for science and academia in decades. Hence we see the Rasmussen Reports poll last month that showed a strong majority of the public believes scientists who study climate change have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs.
“Virginia’s courts do not brook conspiracy theories as the basis for intervention in run-of-the-mill Freedom of Information Act litigation,” said Dr. David Schnare, director of ATI’s Environmental Law Center. “Dr. Mann – having failed to prevail in the court of public opinion – cannot now strut into court, soap box in hand, and expect a warm welcome.”
See case documents, press releases, media coverage, commentary, broadcast interviews, etc. pertaining to ATI v. University of Virginia by clicking here: http://bit.ly/mLZLXC
For an interview with Environmental Law Center director Dr. David Schnare or director of litigation Christopher Horner, email paul.chesser@atinstitute.org or call (202)670-2680.
Follow ATI on Twitter: http://twitter.atinstitute.org
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Oh, fer cryin’ out loud. Wotta loser.
I wonder if he’s worried somethings about to hit the fan?
Entering at this stage has the look of desperation….perhaps there is something very entertaining in those emails after all.
The Mann doth protest too much, methinks.
Me thinks he doth protest too much.
Nothing to see here, so why bother releasing the
dataemails?Let’s flashback to the Washington Post op-ed written by Dr. Mann himself: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705484.html
“As a scientist, I shouldn’t have a stake in the upcoming midterm elections, but unfortunately, it seems that I — and indeed all my fellow climate scientists — do.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has threatened that, if he becomes chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he will launch what would be a hostile investigation of climate science. The focus would be on e-mails stolen from scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain last fall that climate-change deniers have falsely claimed demonstrate wrongdoing by scientists, including me. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) may do the same if he takes over a committee on climate change and energy security. ”
——–
It seems Mann can take some solace in the fact that Darrell Issa has bigger fish to fry, e.g. Operational Fast and Furious and Operation Gun Runner which goes from the ATF to Justice through the Attorney General into the White House. In other words, Issa doesn’t care — and has not launched any hostile investigations of climate science. All of this bluster in the op-ed was just a bunch of political bs.
I just posted this over at Bishop Hill:
How is he going to get around this, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s responsible use policy for state employees (his employment at the Univ. of Virginia made Mann a state employee from 1999 to 2005):
Policy: 1.75 – Use of Electronic Communications And Social Media
Effective Date: 8/1/01
Revision Date: 3/17/11
USE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND
SOCIAL MEDIA
Application: All state employees, including employees of agencies exempt from coverage
of the Virginia Personnel Act.
NOTE: Agencies may also require consultants, contract personnel, or other non-employees
such as volunteers or interns to abide by this policy.
Agencies have the following responsibilities and requirements related to this policy.
A. Monitor Usage
No user shall have any expectation of privacy in any message, file, image or data
created, sent, retrieved, received, or posted in the use of the Commonwealth’s equipment
and/or access. Agencies have a right to monitor any and all aspects of electronic
communications and social media usage. Such monitoring may occur at any time,
without notice, and without the user’s permission.
In addition, except for exemptions under the Act, electronic records may be subject to
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and, therefore, available for public distribution.
http://www.dhrm.state.va.us/hrpolicy/pol175UseOfInternet.pdf
It just encourages the belief that he’s got something to hide.
If you have nothing to hide you nothing to fear from public dis-closer , lets hope Mann has plenty to hide and that is why his playing this game because its one his going to lose.
Supreme Court Tells AT&T It Has No Right to Privacy
http://dataprivacy.foxrothschild.com/2011/03/articles/right-to-privacy/supreme-court-tells-att-it-has-no-right-to-privacy/
It’s an ongoing issue . . . read more round-about it!
I believe Steve McIntyre over a Climate Audit said recently that rather than going after the individuals in the CAGW scare, we should focus instead on the institutions and bodies that enable and protect those individuals. Perhaps we should move away from Mann and focus on his enablers within the University of Virginia.
Sorry Michael if your looking for help from your mates there out painting clouds black.
When Sarah Palin had her emails released the press and liberal organizations scrambled to find some kind of dirt that might have been in the emails. After extensively searching Palin’s emails the liberals all looked like fools when they could find nothing that would tarnish the reputation of Palin. Now, Michael Mann has the opportunity to do the same thing to the climate skeptic community. If Mann has not falsified any data and he has been completely honest with his work then releasing the emails will make Ken Cuccinelli and the climate skeptics look foolish. It appears to me that Mann is trying to hide something by blocking the release of the emails.
There’s definitely oil under the surface.
So Dr. Mann is paying these lawyers out of his own pocket?
No one can accuse him of being humble. The arrogance is rank.
It seems it might get harder to “hide the decline”.
I guess he’s trying to protect his interests in the libel case he has taken out against Tim Ball…
What on earth does he think he will gain by doing this?
The terms he agreed to state clearly no privacy and subject to FoI requests.
You cannot fail but come to the conclusion that there is something he (and most likely “The Team”) REALLY do not want the rest of us to see.
It does look like this could be the end game.
I have no doubt that one way or another these emails and the data used by Mann and Co. to perpetuate the AGW fraud will never see the light of day. The only question is, is how much it is going to cost Mann and Co. including the UVA to keep these documents under wraps, or if necessary, destroy them.
Mann is an embarrassment to Science. He should return to a job better suited to his qualifications, i.e. dog feces collection.
He ducks like a quack.
Why should he want them released? We’re only going to try and find something wrong with them.
🙂
The truth shall set you free… 😉