Reader “just the facts” writes in comments:
Here is an example of Phil Jones trying to avoid a FOIA request, but he apparently struggles with the implementation…:
2577.txt
“date: Thu Sep 25 15:24:48 2008
from: Phil Jones
subject: Re: CONFIDENTIAL: Response
to: “Mitchell, John FB (Chief Scientist)”
John,
I’ve called Jo to say I’m happy with their response.
I’ll also delete this email after I’ve sent it.
We’ve had a request for all our internal UEA emails that have any bearing on the subject, so apologies for brevity.
See you in November!
Cheers
Phil”
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=2577.txt&search=CONFIDENTIAL%3A+Response
I wonder why Phil planned to delete this email. Here is the response from Jo that Phil was happy with:
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=5122.txt&search=CONFIDENTIAL%3A+Response
The Daily Mail covered this issue in 2010, i.e.
“Professor John Mitchell, the Met Office’s Director of Climate Science, shared responsibility for the most worrying headline in the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning IPCC report – that the Earth is now hotter than at any time in the past 1,300 years.
And he approved the inclusion in the report of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, showing centuries of level or declining temperatures until a steep 20th Century rise.”
“Some of the FOI requests made to them came from the same person who has made requests to the Met Office.
He is David Holland, an electrical engineer familiar with advanced statistics who has written several papers questioning orthodox thinking on global warming.
The Met Office’s first response to Mr Holland was a claim that Prof Mitchell’s records had been ‘deleted’ from its computers.
Later, officials admitted they did exist after all, but could not be disclosed because they were ‘personal’, and had nothing to do with the professor’s Met Office job.
Finally, they conceded that this too was misleading because Prof Mitchell had been paid by the Met Office for his IPCC work and had received Government expenses to travel to IPCC meetings.
Why all the cloak and dagger stuff if this is all settled science…?
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It would be interesting to try a FOI request on research not related to AGW. I willing to bet that all the “Cloak And Dagger” issues only happens when the work isn’t properly performed and questionable.
Because there is a lot of money and people’s personal celebrity status at stake. Tyndall Centre’s success is directly related to what those engaged in “The Cause” present. If CRU were to say “we were all wrong, CO2 has some but possibly a negligible impact on temperature changes we are seeing” then thousands of bureaucrats lose their jobs and thousands in academic “centers” do as well in addition to losing billions of dollars of government funds that pour into those various “centers” in countries around the world. Climatology loses its luster, they are no longer celebrities, no more trips to Tahiti for “vital” conferences and no more TV interviews. It goes back to the academic drudge work you might find in the geology department.
Why all the cloak and dagger stuff if this is all settled science?
Substitute “Conspiracy” for “Cloak” and “Obstruction” for “Dagger” and you’ll be closer to the truth.
I agree with Crosspatch, and add the real possibility of prison time and the loss of pensions.
^^^ What he said ^^^
I used to work for a local government authority not too far away from East Anglia and attended a seminar on implementation of the Data Protection and FOI Acts. The Local Authority’s lawyers conducted the seminar and it was plain from their approach that the standard attitude towards FOI requests – regardless of subject – was anything but cop-operative. This wasn’t just bravado talking at the seminar, it was consistently implicit in all of the responses to questions about dealing with requests for information. Basically there was an unofficial policy of sandbagging . . . . It was easy to get the impression that this wasn’t just the local approach. I suspect that many public authorities and bodies have a “this is our information and we’re keeping it” ethos, and this attitude might very well be at work in the CRU and similar places elsewhere in the UK – except where Chief Officers have a more principled approach or the law has been brought to bear effectively . . . though in such places there might still be unofficial deletion policies . . . . Human’s have many motivations for secrecy . . sometimes it’s all about control, or creating the impression of privilege etc . .
Don’t you mean:
Why all the cloak and dagger stuff, if this is supposed to be science ?
I must learn to spell co-operative the new way . . and throwing apostrophes where they’re not supposed to go . . .
. . I give up . .!
Isn’t this rather alarming?
Met office receives an FOI request. As a public body it has the obligation to respond. It runs its response past someone who is not part of the MET office? That person then states that he is deleting his reply approving the MET’s response, apparently because his own organisation has had an FOI request for emails held by his organisation in respect of the same subject matter.
So is it accurate to suggest that Jones deletes as a means (in his mind) of:
a) concealing the fact that he has commented on the response to the FOI request received by the MET, an organisation to which he has no connecion in the context of its own dealings with FOI: and
b) to conceal within his own organisation that he ever had such email contact with the MET?
Would some not describe this as dishonest?
Start with the fact that people treat their company emails as private and confidential (even though they are not) and add to it the fact that some climate scientists are engaged in what is effectively political science. That pretty much explains it.
If there is a “puppet master” in all of this, it appears to be Hulme.
The flat temp plateau since 2001 makes them nervous and feel to have to resort to cloak and dagger style……. especially, (not to forget), the millenium achievement, the TAR and SRES reports of 2001, in which the “cream” of 40 institutes participated, predicted steep temp increases and not one single institute predicted flat rates to come….
their credibility is at stake…….therefore gatekeeping, collusion, info suppression and sharpening of knifes…..
Given Prof Jones is a) a Prof, and b) in charge of all of this data he doesn’t seem to know much about data does he ?
crosspatch says:
November 26, 2011 at 11:28 am
Well said.
It’s hard to get a grasp on what is more important to the team – research funds or “the cause”.
Part of the problem is one of culture. The British have a very deep seated culture of official secrecy. While they did pass a FOIA, that they treat it the way that they do is pretty understandable given their bureaucratic culture.
I would guess that much of this behind the scenes, inside baseball talk has now migrated to very unofficial correspondence using personal email accounts and private mailing lists and other fora. (such as in the US we had “Journolist” where various journalists coordinated their support for one political party, which was actually a predecessor of one called Townhouse which was also exposed).
Opps, meant Townhouse was a predecessor of Journolist.
It has already reached the ‘tipping point’. When someone in power, with the required courage, gives it a nudge, down it comes. Maybe the nudge is behind the AES-256 password, or maybe that will be revealed after the nudge happens. And these phonies will then be consigned to the dustbin of history…to atone for the wasteful sham that they maintained.
It’s easy to understand how Professor Jones would be reticent to respond to FOI requests. He’s a scientist, not a PR person. His work is available on line and and in Journals. Many of the requests are repetitive and unnecessary. The world needs Dr Jones and his colleagues doing what they do best ie conducting research in an effort to clarify the world’s emerging climate crisis.
Hugh Pepper:
Your comments are really beyond parody. Are you sure you’re not a secret skeptic trying to make honest warmists look bad?
Hugh Pepper, when scientists take government money to perform research, they are legally obligated to respond to FOI requests. Their work is paid for by the tax payers, and therefore have a legal (and moral) obligation to make their work available to the public. They know this before they accept the funds. If they don’t want to deal with FOI requests and all that, then they shouldn’t accept government grants. Accepting government grants and then failing to respond to FOI requests isn’t just wrong, it’s illegal.
[Using multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Hugh Pepper says:
November 26, 2011 at 12:36 pm
It’s easy to understand how Professor Jones would be reticent to respond to FOI requests. He’s a scientist, not a PR person. His work is available on line and and in Journals. Many of the requests are repetitive and unnecessary. The world needs Dr Jones and his colleagues doing what they do best ie conducting research in an effort to clarify the world’s emerging climate crisis.
________________________________
OH Bull
The world need the scientific method brought back into “Vogue” instead of this kindergarten post-normal scientology type crap.
Scientist are human and they lie and cheat and make mistakes just like the next person. Open publication of the methods and the data so the results can be validated by another is part of the scientific method for that exact reason.
If it is hidden and can not be replicated it ain’t science. Pseudo-science to prop up propaganda is what these buffoons are doing not science.
You DO NOT toss your data if it is important enough to write a peer reviewed paper about. It should be archived in one form or another so the data is available to other scientists.
The fact that these guys tossed the data, data that is SO IMPORTANT that the results demand that we as an entire species are supposed to completely change our economies and life styles, is just a wee bit more than I can swallow.
JUST the fact the data got dumped is enough to tell me this stinks. It reminds me of the dog ate my homework excuse of a little boy.
jim hogg says:
November 26, 2011 at 11:46 am
I used to work for a local government authority not too far away from East Anglia and attended a seminar on implementation of the Data Protection and FOI Acts. The Local Authority’s lawyers conducted the seminar and it was plain from their approach that the standard attitude towards FOI requests – regardless of subject – was anything but cop-operative…..
_________________________________
I am not at all surprised.
Why did citizens want FOI Acts in the first place???
Because of the waste, bureaucratic bumbling, graft, kickbacks, back scratching, lying, cheating…. and all the other reasons why we have protection for whistle blowers too.
Here is a really great example of the type of stuff that goes on when bureaucrats can hide in the dark.
SHIELDING THE GIANT: USDA’s “Don’t Look, Don’t Know” Policy for Beef Inspection
This investigative report, is part of an ongoing series on corporate and government accountability… http://www.whistleblower.org/storage/documents/Shielding_the_Giant_Final_PDF.pdf
People became ill and died but it was all swept under the rug and even to this day, despite a Congressional Investigation, no one has been brought to account. That is the type of thing that is being hidden and that is why bureaucrats will do everything they can to avoid FOI Acts.