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.
That is rather stunning. Keep in mind that the DOE oversees thousands of programs, and I would guess that Savannah River is not the only site to be informed. Oversight for the DOE in the Senate is conducted by the Committee for Energy and Natural Resources and includes Senator McCaion as a member. The Web site is here:
http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=About.Members
Now, what about NASA and NOAA?
And just WHAT litigation are they talking about? Has some one here not been sharing with the rest of us?
I don’t expect the DOE investigation to lead anywhere. Just ass covering.
It basically means that there is a reasonable expectation that litigation (lawsuits) on this issue might occur or they might need to satisfy freedom of information requests. They are putting a “hold” on normal document destruction cycles, and gathering all the possibly applicable data into a safe archive that will prevent its accidental or intentional destruction or alteration.
It is a basic step in legal due diligence they want to make sure they are protecting important information that at some time in the future a legal case suite or FOI request might require them to produce.
They are also telling their employees to harvest any and all data that might fit their description including things like personal phone logs, personal diary notes, and other non-computer based files that might include useful information.
Larry
Some thoughts:
1) Everyone lawyering up gets real expensive, real fast. Most people can not afford to hire a lawyer for an extended period of time. I have had to lawyer up before, and any month below $5,000 in legal fees was a good month. It is easy to burn $5K per month even with not motion filed or the like.
2) As a part of #1, people will throw themselves on the government mercy in exchange for immunity unless the organization pays the fees. A University handling of this will be critical. Now imaging that you have you 10 managers to meet to discuss the issue, each with a lawyer paid for by the university. Also university lawyers will be present and the internal council. Now, these meeting will cost $5 to $10K per hour. Adds up real fast.
3) Since we now all have lawyers, we can only safely talk with our lawyers present. So effectively communication, and all work are shut down.
4) These types of orders are a pain. I worked with a guy who had the FBI raid his office. The matter was resolved with not fines or penalties, but it was a horrible experience for him.
5) These orders will also apply to stuff you have at home related to work.
6) Things people don’t think about become important. Remember that 5 year old PC sitting in the closet, broken. You have to keep it til the entire matter blows over.
etc, etc.
Overall, a real pain.
crosspatch (20:38:16) : Global warming in discovery? But why DOE? Why not EPA or the Department of Commerce (parent department of NOAA)?
I suspect the penny is dropping on those agencies, too. It will not look good for EPA and NOAA to shred or delete anything now. The windows are opening. I don’t wish to make any comparison between the USA and GB, but we are death on state secrets over here.
INGSOC (20:38:45) : Of even greater import perhaps? (in reference to the emerging Copenhagen deadlock)
I don’t think so. Copenhagen was always destined to be a dog-and-pony show performed by UN Euro-clowns. The real buck stops in the USA because we’re the big dog.
Our problem here is the EPA. Congress and the Pres can and will make noises, but they haven’t got the cojones to pass cap-and-trade. The electorate would eat them alive, and they know it. The EPA, on the other hand, is a rogue agency that thinks it is above American-style justice.
They are in for a rude awakening. Legal eagles are descending for the kill and the carrion. You think Hoaxenhagen is deadlocked? Wait until you see the EPA turned into a comatose zombie agency by FOIA lawyers.
Watch who comes out of the closet on both the Right and the Left to defend the AGW crowd. Then you will know who is in on the Scam.
It might have something to do with …
… and …
tokyoboy (20:39:17)
I still find it difficult to understand what the now-famous “travesty” denotes, because the explanations in my dictionaries do not appear to nicely fit its nuance with which you are talking about this word out there.
I’m with you tokyoboy. The sense would have been better if he had used the word tragedy rather than travesty. It was ‘tragic’ (for them) that there was no warming. However, is farcical that it did not warm despite their predictions and that may have been the sense intended in the original comment
hotrod (21:02:34) or Larry:
Thanks so much.
Could you please go to my 2nd question: the meaning or nuance of the word “travesty”. I shall be much obliged to you if you could paraphrase the “and it is a travesy that we can’t.” part in the famous passage:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
Thank you again.
This aught to send everyone involved scurrying for cover.
” As a poor non-English native, it’s hard for me to grasp the meaning of “litigation hold”, and why DOE had to do this action. Could anyone teach me please?”
A litigation hold is a notice telling people not to destroy paperwork. After the notice, the destruction or loss of data would be a felony. If the litigation is a civil matter only, the judge would impose sanctions.
We can Crowdsource all the material in a few weeks for them and get to the bottom of all this Tom Foolery real quick.
Just like this;
“In addition to blogs, skeptics of global warming have used “crowdsourcing” to improve on the science supposedly done by professionals. Anthony Watts is a meteorologist who was surprised by how local conditions affect the reliability of the 1,200 U.S. weather stations. Along with more than 600 volunteers, he found that almost all the stations violate the government’s standards by being too close to heating vents or surrounded by asphalt.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574578012533089846.html
Let’s not be too over-confident. Given how well entrenched the global warming belief is – along with how much money has been spent on supporting this issue and how many reputations have been built on the topic – any “victory” is still a long way off.
My personal view is that twenty years of colder than average weather around the globe would be necessary to kill the belief. The first ten would be spent on obfuscation, and the next ten on people getting their heads around the idea that the whole warming issue was actually manufactured.
Nevertheless, I really never thought I’d see (supposed) scientists discussing how to “hide the decline”. But there it is.
The hammer has fallen.
I call BS.
If for no other reason than Counsel was not spelled correctly. You would think copy/paste from an actual email would have that correct at least.
Here’s your scoop New York Times, or are you going to let the Washington Post Scoop you again?
Just wondering if a Litigation Hold Notice supersedes a FOIA request?
Could this be a peremptory response to thwart nosy FOIA requests?
Sounds like they’re anticipating subpoenas from Congressional committees, if not from other places where formal inquiries have been initiated (e.g. at UPenn and in the UK).
Our brilliant government lawyers don’t know how to spell, though:
“Michael L. Wamsted, Associate General Council”
I expect he means ‘Counsel’.
/Mr Lynn
Pretty much there are two possible outcomes from this.
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 and wants as much distance as possible between him and the damage.
Obama still thinks things can be salvaged if they can collect all the information and sanitize it enough with black outs of ‘Top Secret’ information.
I vote for the first one, but do not put it past Obama to actually try the second, because he is just that blinded by ideology. Any way it goes, there will be a total whitewash of everything that could implicate Obama and his advisers as well as the whitewashing of as many other progressives as can be accomplished.
It would be nice to have some leaks of information that actually got the heads of conspiracy. Everyone may try to claim no conspiracy, but the truth is that this much damage to the scientific community could not have been without orchestration, even if the vast number of actors had no clue they were part of the fraud. Some people in the highest levels of the United States government must be part of the head of the beast. These traitors should be smoked out into the open to be removed from power and prosecuted to the most vengeful limits of the law.
STOP THE PRESSES!
DOE funded Jones for 25 years.
A last ditch effort to save face for the politicians who have been supporting this scam is to find a scapegoat meaning the current (U.S.) administration may not try too hard to avoid/delay, but with the Green money behind them I would expect they will at least try a delay tactic, but only a delay.
I was a contract Pilot for the DOE, DOD, and other related agencies in The Tri-Cities
in Washington-the Hanford area.I was privy to a lot of inside on the WPSS (Washington
Power Supply System or appropriately-“Whoops. “) debacle. Graft,greed corruption
and blackmail-all there.This is starting to look like that mess.If it is one half as bad,
there will blood on the sand…
Once the FOIA people get the the goods then the Feds _will_ step in…
Jerry (19:54:55) :
Ok, good. It’s about time!
Now how about NASA GISS?
James Hansen should be worried, very worried.
BTW it is Washington Public Power Supply System..