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.
bill (16:08:28) :
“A strange dept to attack The CRU”
As some of us have speculated, this could just by a CYA move. Also possibly worth noting it that”
SRS is to DOE as CRU is to the Met office.
Sorry for the misspelling. I had to transcribe the email as there is no way to send a copy of it off-site, at least I don’t have that ability. Oh,and I was tired.
As a woman, I am personally offended that Richard Black thinks we’re all stupid enough to believe in AGW.
I work at a site similiar to the Savannah River Site (SRS). SRS is under Environmental Management (EM) and not the Office of Science. SRS’s mission does not include research into climate change, their mission is to remediate nuclear waste sites. So, it is significant that the letter went to them. That tells me that SRS likely provided the contracting officers to approve the grants to UEA CRU. They probably did this at the direction of either EM HQ or in cooperation with a national lab.
It is also significant that the IG’s office is involved. The IG’s office has more cases than they can handle and usually go for the best cases to win. I would suspect the IG’s office is involved because of the Senator’s letter. The IG’s office will likely be interested in determining whether the grant was properly awarded, whether the grant was fulfilled and met it’s scope and whether any laws (False Claims Act, Anti-kickback laws, Fraud) were violated in relation to the awarding of the grant.
To answer a couple questions. The litigation hold will not interfere with regular FOIA requests and I would not worry about shredders. I have worked with individuals throughout DOE and there is no nefarious plot. I did not receive a similiar hold because it is likely confined to SRS. The original commenter mentioned 8000 people receiving the email, that included the contractors at the site for SRNS who would have nothing to do with the grant, they are only interested in the cleanup of the site. There are probably only about 400 government employees at their site.
The silence on the US DOE Litigation Hold Notice by virtually the entire news media of the planet is the Deer in the Headlight Moment. Totally predictable when you take into consideration the nature of the human psyche. It’s sort of like coming face to face with the creator God and having an instant awakening. You immediately know what is coming next but don’t want to face it.
Wait for it. Wait for it.
Slightly OT: Nice piece about Seth Borenstein freezing in Copenhagen.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/12/15/journalists-freeze-waiting-get-global-warming-conference
People citing my earlier post about $3 million in two years missed my somewhat later amendment. On that one contract Dr. Jones received about $2,500,000 over 10 years…. Dr. Jones himself, however, in one of the e-mails also cited somewhere above, talks about 25 years of funding. I offered the two links as illustrations of why the DOE might be concerned about climate-gate, not evidence about how much they collected. That needs a bit more research than the 15 minutes I gave it.
As for those who suggested that Anthony was too quick to post this thread, I e-mailed him confirmation of the DOE employment of the people mentioned in the e-mail at about 2 A.M…. he already had it. Lesson: Anthony checks first, unlike some main-stream media outlets…
Michael (14:04:41) :
fFreddy (13:55:56) :
Mark T (15:10:36) :
Can I just say ” pwned “?
.
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Larry
I can’t read this whole queue of comments – stiff neck – but I just want to say that no one should think the Democrat DOE is necessarily after the wrong doers.
Breitbart got a subpoenae in NY yesterday just for example.
Rueters just posted a story showing that the MAJORITY no longer believes global warming to be a problem….
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BE5NO20091215?feedType=RSS&feedName=lifestyleMolt&rpc=22&sp=true
Great comments there by the way….
I don’t think this DOE litigation hold notice necessarily means that much will follow. It’s just SOP after Inhofe’s letter. But, although it’s not a sufficient condition for getting to the bottom of things, it’s a necessary one, so I’m glad for that, just as I’m glad for the couple of other investigatory moves that have been made. They’re necessary conditions.
These investigations will be subject to intense public scrutiny, which will make a successful whitewash hard. The investigators’ need to fish through the e-mails (which will be done by independent contractors) means that if something really fishy turns up it will be hard to conceal it.
If there is a second semi-scandalous revelation of bullying and willful deafness to opposition views, etc., it’ll go into Watergate mode, where each release from the tapes increased suspicion about what else lay hidden beneath the rock, and pressure built for a complete clean-breast. This process could start slowly but accelerate.
Well… got linked to this from another blog I read. Guess some of you folks don’t get outside much, maybe the others don’t either. Something is happening out here. I don’t know what it is for sure and don’t think anyone else has a clue either. Do we need to do anything about it. Yeah, I think we do for the kids at least. What should be done is the question because you have to know what’s really happening to take action. I do know that with over 6 billion on this mud ball our resources are becoming limited anyway so conservation of resources and sustainability sound good to me. Adapt is the word I was looking for, adapt or die. Need to move on, got work to do…
eavdrepus (07:15:29) :
“…adapt or die. Need to move on, got work to do…”
the work is probably trolling skeptic/realist sites and insulting people who generally have far better qualifications than he does. What “eavedrepus” offers is a truly lame neo-Malthusian, Club of Rome-style argument about huge populations and limited resources. We heard this sort of garbage back in the 60’s and 70’s when the world population was half what it is now. The problem is not the lack of resources but the lack of infrastructure…. and corruption… “…for the kids at least…” in a country like Sudan, for example, the median age is about 19, children under the age of 15 represent more than 40% of the population (people over 65 represent about 3%) and life expectancy is about 52.
In the US the median age is almost 37, children under age 15 represent a tad over 20% of the population (people over 65 represent 12% now and that is going to increase to nearly 24% on the next decade or so) and life expectancy is 78. The US population, like most of Western Europe and Japan is in decline now, and those “kids” have a huge elderly population to support. “Sustainability” of the sort proposed in Copenhagen means abject poverty for our kids and shorter, more brutish lives for their parents. I’m sure the whole world will be better off when we live like they do in the Sudan.
bushy (09:48:13) :Two things said Imus which we all agree on: Al is a “fat moron” and, before, now there is a doubt who is the devil.! 🙂
These warmer guys can do anything to get a few more bucks!
>>Rueters just posted a story showing that the MAJORITY
>>no longer believes global warming to be a problem….
Well, it was a bit stupid of the Liberal-Marxist Left to hang their political banner from a mast as fickle and as changeable as weather/climate.
A wheel was bound to come off this loony bandwagon sometime, but in the end they appear to be losing three at once.
Vincent (13:05:36) :
” If the US government determines Jones or Wigley possibly committed crimes as contractor. . .”
Here’s another “if” that nobody has considered. What if the actors in this drama are eventually exonerated of all accusations? That’s right. It will be open season on sceptics once again as the full fury and might of all these players – the media machine, NGO’s, politicians, and the scientists themselves – will be unleashed.
Make no mistake, the media will quickly paint all sceptics as villains of the drama. They will show how they were right all along – nothing to see here. They will show how sceptics have run a vindictive campaign of harassment against a small group of honest and diligent scientists all based on lies.
This is the worst case scenario, but It is entirely possible. Let us be carefull of what we wish for.
There are two issues here: (1) criminal liability of individuals, and (2) the science of AGW. By far the more important of these issues is the science, or lack thereof, of AGW. By the time criminal trials, if any, are completed, I believe independent of the outcomes of those trials, the science supporting CAGW via man’s emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere will have been completely discredited. If true, then exactly how will the media paint “sceptics” as “villains”? So to me the only way villainy can be made to stick against skeptics is if (a) the majority of criminal prosecutions, if any, exonerate the accused, and (b) AGW science as practiced by the CRU team is proven to be correct. If both the former (which I believe this is a 50/50 bet) and the latter (which I believe is a 1000 to 1 bet) happen, then you’re right, we skeptics will be the villains. To slow down the destruction of western economies, I gladly take the risk. Bring on the civil and criminal lawsuits where appropriate.
I’d like to thank Anthony for doing such relevant research for all of us, and also the guy who linked to my Hegelian dialectic tutorial. I came her via my statcounter, and I’d never have seen it if he hadn’t. I didn’t read them all, but I’m inspired to see so many intelligent comments, witness so much hope, and such clear ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong. Everyone here seems to agree that Lying is wrong, but from people who hold positions of authority and influence, it’s beyond wrong, it’s criminal. Exposing liars who have the power to change laws that govern indivudals around the globe is the right thing do. Not that I trust the courts to deliver justice, I can see how this can all be turned around into the liars favor. But I trust the sentiments I hear. No matter how it turns out, you people exist, and that’s good news to me. “Balls! Hang ’em High!”
To the Hegel expert who called my site unreliable, I’d like to point out that yes, I am an unaccredited nobody, I’m not a sceintist, but my thesis on global communitarian evolution has been online for over six years. I don’t make predictions, I don’t believe in aliens and I don’t rely on Ike or Jones or anyone like that. My work on Hegel has been visted by tens of thousands of academic institutions, including many of the George Washington University professors I wrote it for in 2002. Almost 5000 visitors have answered a poll on Part I and told us why they went looking for the Hegelian dialectic. How many people have read your thesis on Hegel? Please provide a link.
Nope, no troll here just a working man giving his opinion. Probably a mistake for me to do that here.
Egg-cell-ant, looking forward to this!
eavdrepus (07:15:29) :
Well said.
No the talks failed everyone will go back to ignoring the environment – the world is big – we are small – therefore we canhave no effect.
Oil – no problem tar sands – tonnes of it – takes mega amounts of energy to extract – but we must drive gas guzzlerrs – no such thing as peak oil.
A very sad result for the world.
Are you angry about this obvious RICO Act fraud and the national media’s complicity in the cover-up, misinformation, reframing and misdirection of the issue and the related “carbon derivatives” market Obama’s Administration is spinning up? Take responsibility and take action. STOP all donations to the political party(s) responsible for this fraud. STOP donations to all environmental groups which funded this Global Warming propaganda campaign with our money, especially The Environmental Defense Fund. They have violated the public trust. KEEP donations local, close to home. MAKE donations to Oklahoma’s Senator Inhofe, the only politician to stand firmly against this obvious government/media coordinated information operation (propaganda) targeted at its own people. People that government leaders and employees are sworn to protect. WRITE your state and federal representatives demanding wall to wall investigations of government sponsored propaganda campaigns and demand indictments of those responsible. WRITE your state and federal Attorneys General demanding Al Gore and others conducting Global Warming/Climate Change racketeering and mail fraud operations be brought to justice, indicted, tried, convicted and jailed. Carbon is the stuff of life. He (Obama) who controls carbon, especially CO2, controls the world. Think of the consequences if you do nothing! For one, the UK is becoming the poster child for George Orwell’s “1984” and the US government’s sponsorship of this worldwide Global Warming propaganda campaign puts it in a class with the failed Soviet Union’s relentless violation of the basic human right to truthful government generated information. Given ClimateGate’s burgeoning revelations of outrageous government misconduct and massive covert misinformation, what are the chances that this Administration’s National Health Care sales campaign is anywhere near the truth?
This event of a month ago has utterly disappeared from news and those blogs I pay attention to (WUWT is on my short list). Has anyone heard anything about where this stands?