UPDATE: I’ve confirmed this document, see below the “read more” line.
It appears bigger things are brewing related to CRU’s Climategate.
WUWT commenter J.C. writes in comments:
I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. I’ve been following the Climategate scandal since its inception. The first time many of my coworkers had heard of the situation was when I asked them about it.
Well, well, well.
Look what was waiting in every single email Inbox on Monday morning:
______________________________________________
“December 14, 2009
DOE Litigation Hold Notice
DOE-SR has received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to “global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.”
As a reminder, this Litigation Hold preservation obligation supersedes any existing statutory or regulatory document retention period or destructive schedule. The determination of what information may be potentially relevant is based upon content and substance and generally does not depend on the type of medium on which the information exists. The information requested may exist in various forms, including paper records, hand-written notes, telephone log entries, email, and other electronic communication (including voicemail), word processing documents (including drafts, spreadsheets, databases, and calendars), telephone logs, electronic address books, PDAs (like Palm Pilots and Blackberries), internet usage files, systems manuals, and network access information in their original format. All ESI should be preserved in its originally-created, or “native” format, along with related metadata. Relevant backup tapes and all indexes for those tapes should also be preserved. Further, information that is reasonably accessible must nonetheless be preserved, because such sources will, at the very least, need to be identified and, under compelling circumstances, may need to be produced.
If you have any doubts as to whether specific information is responsive, err on the side of preserving that information.
Any employee who has information covered by this Litigation Hold is requested to contact Madeline Screven, Paralegal, SRNS Office of General Council, 5-4634, for additional instructions.
Michael L. Wamsted
Associate General Council”
_______________________________________________
Everyone on-site who has an email account received this letter. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 8000 people. How about that? And this is the first official mention of the entire subject that I have seen.
DOE-SR = Department of Energy Savannah River
SRNS = Savannah River Nuclear Solutions
SRR = Savannah River Remediation
NOTE: Some commenters raised some doubts about the authenticity of this email.
I checked out a couple of things before I posted this. The IP address of J.C. comes from the correct location in South Carolina, Aiken, and the name Michael L. Wamsted does work for DOE at the SRS in SC in legal. See http://phonebook.doe.gov/
Also the existence of the paralegal “Madeline Screven” listed in the email (whom I believe composed it) is listed in the DOE phonebook search of “Screven” and is listed in the same building as Wamsted.
The “Council -vs- Counsel” spelling error could be something as simple as a spell checker substituting the wrong word, or just a dumb mistake when composing email where the spell checker would not flag “council” as it is spelled correctly. Heck, I misspell “meteorologist” sometimes in correspondence, dropping an “o”. I have had a situation sometimes where “metrologist” (also valid) gets substituted on spell check. Spelling mistakes, compounded with spell checker substitution errors – they happen. I have one computer (the one I’m typing on) that always switches the word “because” to “becuase” in spell checks for some odd reason, and I can’t figure out how to correct it. So I live with it and try to manually fix it when I notice it. There is another spelling error “Climate Research Unit at he University”. Which is a mistake I make from time to time, missing the “t” on the. Spell checkers don’t catch that one, since “he” is a correctly spelled word.
If the IP had not come from Aiken, SC where Savannah River Site and lab is, I would be highly suspect of it. But the IP address in Aiken and the names check out. Aiken is right next to SRS.
See the doc and map for directions here: http://www.srs.gov/general/about/directions_aiken.pdf
The language used also checks out, it has been reviewed by an attorney who frequents WUWT and he raised no red flags. Steve McIntyre points out that Dr. Jones got funding from DOE (of which SRS is part of). The different pieces connect pretty well and I don’t have a reason to doubt this memo sent via email today. – Anthony
======================
UPDATE: 12/15/12:36 PST
I called SRS Legal office just now and spoke with Madeline Screven, who is listed as a paralegal in the letter I posted. I found her telephone number via the DOE phonebook.
When I called, she fully identified herself in her greeting to me, I explained who I was, giving my full name. She asked if I was “on or off site” referring to SRS. I explained I’m off-site.
My question: “Do you have a litigation hold notice related to the Climate Research Unit.”
Her answer: “Yes we do”
Confirmed.
Henrik Svensmark video is still on front page at Drudge
Is there an update on him?
Vorlath (05:48:36) : Forget about CO2 (BTW the gas you exhale), it´s all a LIE!
@ur momisugly TFN Johnson (02:00:08) :
Never mind all this: whatsupwiththe sun? Sunspot number now 28 (14 yesterday, 13 the day before, zero a week ago).
——–
The single sunspot has re-intensified a bit. The cosmic ray counts from Oulu are still running very high. Not quite as high as yesterday, but higher than the 30 day average.
Looks like the author of this e-mail knows there can be conflict.
“See details at Anthony’s.
[Update: As mentioned by a reader below, in email 1120676865.txt, Jones says:.
“Neville,
Mike’s response could do with a little work, but as you say he’s got the tone
almost dead on. I hope I don’t get a call from congress ! I’m hoping that no-one
there realizes I have a US DoE grant and have had this (with Tom W.) for the last 25
years. I’ll send on one other email received for interest.
Cheers
Phil””
This is posted on Climateaudit
Maybe the CRU can cut expenses and split rent with ACORN.
Bob Meyer,
I also worked on DoD contracts. The email memo “request” is just that from what I can ascertain. “Please” is not a mandate. “Shall” would be the correct word if this were binding.
I suspect this is not an official notice with any legal consequence, and originates from some outside source in another government capacity, possibly political.
It doesn’t pass the smell test IMO.
@Mailman
The DOE is not making demands of a UK university, they are making demands to the employees at the DOE run SRS that they do not destroy, alter or lose any data, records or correspondence they had with the CRU.
astoneri’
“Obama wants to tar and feather further the reputation of George Bush by getting this obvious failed attempt at pushing the world to turn over their sovereignty to the United Nations”
What planet have you been living on for the last two years?
As far as I can see, the penalty is a Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar, and a few billion dollars…
photon without a Higgs (21:56:46) :
tokyoboy (20:39:17) :
As a poor non-English native, it’s hard for me to grasp the meaning of “litigation hold”
All the things listed could be used in a court of law.
________________________________________
Well, to *maybe* over-explain a bit.
Litigation hold is the first step in the discovery process for a legal proceeding. It’s notice not to delete/destroy in many cases on penalty of civil or even criminal charges. This piece casts the widest net, and as it pertains to e-mail (at least in the private sector) a general notification of this sort would be accompanied by a list of specific players (probably the ones responsible for managing the grant to CRU) that have already had their mail snapshotted and will be journaled (a copy of every piece of mail is saved off) until the end of the proceedings.
The next step will be the Discovery phase. This is where the specific criteria are established (specific date ranges, keywords, recipients, etc) and then the IT guys and the lawyers get to spend hours upon hours gathering this data, documenting chain of custody, and sending it off for review. Restores of mail as well as any compliance journaling not already in place *are in scope* for these activities, so if it’s out there anywhere and fits in the discovery criteria these guys have to get it. If they don’t, they could be in trouble. All of this stuff is very serious business.
Those are the two steps I know. What happens once it gets to the lawyers, maybe someone else could speak to that
Full front page in one of the U.K’smajor daily papers, The Daily Express in bold 1 1/2″ Caps “100 REASONS WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS NATURAL” followed by a full inside page headed “There’s little we can do about Global Warming’. At least something is warming up!
All recipients of the above legal request please take your whistles and start blowing!
It’s over buddies…time to run and save your own skin!
This is litigation notice is being sent out because the coal industries, oil industries, and any other industry that will be directly effected by the EPA “findings” are about to launch a massive lawsuit against the EPA. I would even venture to guess that they will all team up. It is going to be a show down of massive proportions, after decades of being sued by the “greens” the lawyers know all the tactics they are going to use, and in turn will be able to use them against the “greens”.
Also remember that the reason why this e-mail go out is because a reader of WUWT submitted the e-mail. I’m 99% sure NASA, NOAA, etc all got the same thing. It will take a few years for it to be all settled and done with, but the “scientist” that have spewed this garbage for years are about to go down in flames.
Get the popcorn out because this is going to be fun.
Right. There are a lot of chickens being counted here, but most have not yet hatched, and many may not.
Even if Copenhagen falls apart, and Obambi comes home with yet another mess o’ pottage, a la the Olympics meeting, the ‘global warming’/’climate change’ juggernaut is not going to stop in its tracks.
The estimable Senator Inhofe was on Fox News Sunday two days ago (across the my Congressman, the egregious Ed Markey), but the best Sen. Inhofe could do was to predict that Crap and Tax was dead in the Senate. We waited in vain for him to speak up and say, “It’s a hoax. There hasn’t been any warming to speak of, and if there were any, CO2 didn’t cause it. CO2 is not a problem, and never has been. You’ve been duped by a combination of greed, groupthink, leftwing ideology, and false science.”
Repeat: he did not say that. You will know the ‘climate change’ juggernaut has been stopped when prominent figures (not just Sen. Inhofe and Gov. Palin) have the guts to stand up on national television and admit they were taken in by a massive hoax.
/Mr Lynn
One more shot at travesty… East/West
Anyone guilty of creating a travesty, has lost face.
Apologies if this has been spelled out before, but it is likely that the terms of the DOE grant to Jones obliged him to release data under the terms of American FOI legislation, which would be the reason for him to “worry” that anyone would find out about it.
“lknsrg927h3tg3w (07:31:18) :
“because” to “becuase”
Does your spell checker have a local dictionary of words you have told it to accept? One possibility is that somehow, accidentally, the spell checker was told that “becuase” is a valid word. If you can find it in the local dictionary and remove it, that might fix the problem.”
I work in Information Technology, so my recommendation is for Anthony to reboot his computer several times. That may solve the problem. If not, it’s worse than I thought.
An appropriate word of caution. This may very well represent the beginning of a effort to circle the wagons, in anticipation of arrows from Congressional hearings, FOIA requests, private investigations, and lawsuits. You can expect the other agencies like NASA and NOAA to follow suit.
This administration, and the government science agencies from long before this administration, have a lot invested in ‘climate change’, and some kind of ‘carbon’ tax is an essential building block of administration funding of its planned vast expansion of government (if they don’t get that—or even if they do!—expect them to go after a VAT). They’re not going to give up without a fight.
/Mr Lynn
Today in Strasbourg – The price we’re paying for Copenhagen:
Anthony, Roger Pielke posted something on real polution: soot.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/news-release-on-soot-effects-on-climate-in-the-himalayas-its-larger-than-the-forcing-from-the-human-input-of-co2/
My humble opinion, is that those that wish to “Do something about the environment” and “fairness in the world” could be convinced to do some real good by fighting soot and dung fires.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE50L5YO20090122
CO2 seems pretty high minded in comparison.. Who’s with me? Come on! Don’t leave me hanging…
*****
JonesII (08:17:18) :
All recipients of the above legal request please take your whistles and start blowing!
It’s over buddies…time to run and save your own skin!
***********
Prisoner’s dilemma on a massive scale 🙂
Michael Mann Should Not Be Investigated by Penn State
http://volokh.com/
This house of cards is about to be blown over by one of those super-enhanced, global warming induced, mega hurricanes.
I wonder who the first to come out with their hands up will be?
I think Richard Blacks latest post at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/12/cop15_questions_about_sex.html deserves a barrage of complaints. He really is getting desperate.
Jim (08:40:20) : Hope some whistling to be heard here at WUWT and keep feeding new posts. In the meantime BIG CORN will benefit because of the big popcorn sales 🙂
Piers Corbyn says:
Lets get real! The only gainers out of any deal at Copenhagen are carbon traders whose deals make productive workers redundant –
eg in Redcar North UK (link below) and various dodgy regimes, silly green projects, self-serving ‘scientists’ & the likes of Al Gore.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6798052/What-links-the-Copenhagen-conference-with-the-steelworks-closing-in-Redcar.html
The losers are most of the world through the misery and ruin these policies will cause – burning of food as biofuels – rising food and
energy prices – increased death of children in developing countries – holding back world development – loss of state intervention and
jobs in the UK to pay for hand-outs to dodgy regimes – and so on. The world needs to take precautions AGAINST such ruin.