It appears that poorly crafted law is going to mean no prosecutions for any of the CRU collaborators in the now famous leaked emails and documents. This from The Bishop Hill blog:
I’ve just come off the phone to the investigations office at the Information Commissioner’s office. I had made a request for information to UEA that, while only peripherally related to Climategate, has now turned up some interesting new information.
My original request was from a couple of years ago, asking for any correspondence between the CRU’s Mike Hulme and the BBC in relation to a body called the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (see here for some background on this story). The original response from UEA was that all Prof Hulme’s emails prior to 2005 had been lost, an admission that appears rather embarrassing in the light of CRU’s suggestion that they had lost some of their original temperature data.
However, when the Climategate emails were released I noticed several email from Mike Hulme predating 2005, which appeared to contradict the earlier assertion that all such emails had been lost. Intrigued, I wrote to the Information Commissioner asking that this be investigated and today I had my response.
First off, I was told that while there appeared to be a problem, I needed to be clear that there would be no prosecutions under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, regardless of the final outcome of the investigation. Although withholding or destroying information is a criminal offence under the terms of the Act, apparently no prosecutions can be brought for offences committed more than six months prior. As anyone who has made a UK FoI request knows, it can take six months to exhaust the internal review process before the ICO even becomes involved. The ICO can then take another six months before starting his investigation.
But there’s and interesting theory being proposed.
It seems quite clear that civil servants are able to withhold and destroy information without any consequences and it’s interesting to ponder how such a dramatic flaw can have found its way into the terms of the Act. Of course we in the UK are used to poorly drafted laws finding their way onto the statute books, but we might also consider the thought that Sir Humphrey might have knowingly inserted this crucial error, in order to ensure that when push came to shove he could keep things quiet without any concerns that he might find himself in hot water.
Conspiracy theory? Perhaps, but you have to admit, it’s a possibility.
I’m sure the collective of CRU is breathing a sigh of relief knowing this, however there may be other unforeseen repercussions coming from the investigation, and UEA may have other rules for professional conduct that may apply.
Stay tuned.
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We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various allegations have been fully investigated by an independent body. More details
Submitted by Mike Haseler – Deadline to sign up by: 24 February 2010 – Signatures: 3,017
More details from petition creator
The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is a “leading centre” for the investigation of “manmade global warming” and government policy relies on the integrity of these statistics. Several claims have been made: that data was “cherry picked” to make the 20th century temperature rise look exceptional in historical terms; emails suggest the unit has colluded in “tricks” to “hide the decline” in a high profile scientific journal, and this unit has colluded in active, secret and highly political campaigning through the website “realclimate”.
The preparation of climate statistics require many judgements: stations move & sites become surrounded by urban sprawl (urban heating) & a judgement must be made of the size of the offset to apply to the global temperature record. The University accepts most emails are genuine so it appears the Unit has been acting in a highly partisan way incompatible with that of a neutral body preparing and interpreting government data. We call on the PM to suspend all further use of the climate research unit until all pertinent allegations have been investigated and any action (if any) has been taken.
You must be a British citizen or resident to sign the petition.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/
D. Patterson.
Thanks. Signed. Help for an old medic much appreciated.
Forget about FOI crimes, that is the least of the crimes the CRU are guilty of.
Who cares about that?
How about conspiracy to commit AGW fraud?
Deliberately manipulating data to falsely show “Global Warming” in order to obtain millions of pounds in tax payers money, funding them to then further manipulate data in order to receive yet more tax payers money and on and on, over how many decades?
These are the charges I am interested in and I don’t intend to be distracted by FOI loopholes!
Looks like British MPs are going to probe the CRU though…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/26/parliament_cru/
Dr Watkins has the right idea. Conspiracy carries no limitation. But who will do the investigation? A formal complaint backed with evidence would have to be made to Norfolk Constabulary who would promptly groan at what this will do to their budget. Sorry folks, it all comes down to cash. A small force like Norfolk just doesn’t have the money to do this investigation. We have to look at other agencies; we could always look at the Data Protection Agency but they too are cash strapped and only go for easy targets. How about the agency that deals with FOI? Well do you believe that this is truly independent? Remember there are no elected officials to this organisation. The positions are all in the gift of govt. Just face it. You are in beauraucratic Britain. There are no independant public officials who will take up your case. You have sleep walked into the 4th Reich and we get the govt. we deserve.
If you really want to go after these conmen, it means hard cash on the table and hiring some pretty sharp lawyers who are willing to stick their necks out. Anyone out there willing to organise a fighting fund, employ the investigators to get the evidence (and believe me, they don’t come cheap; never mind the lawyers)?
We can blog this till the cows come home. Nothing will be done until we have a serious change at Westminster and that doesn’t mean voting for a party whose leader has a windmill on his roof. Cromwell, where are you now?
I think the most likely outcome as a result of the Climategate disclosures is a requirement that many papers published by the CRU group may be affixed with an asterisk * “Not Valid for Citation as a Scientific Work.”
@John McCutcheon
“Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood”, I trust.
Poorly crafted law? Shouldn’t that read “well crafted”.
On the other hand:
Climate Fraud May Lead to Criminal Charges
http://mensnewsdaily.com/sexandmetro/2010/02/25/climate-fraud-may-lead-to-criminal-charges/
Suit Against EPA May Lead to Criminal Prosecution in Climategate
http://mensnewsdaily.com/sexandmetro/2010/02/21/suit-against-epa-may-lead-to-criminal-prosecution-in-climategate/