by charles the moderator
I received the following this morning,
Dear Mr Rotter
I am part of the enquiry team who are investigating the theft of data from the UEA in Norwich last year.
As part of the investigation we would like to speak to everyone who has made any requests for information relating to the CRU at the UEA.
Records indicate that you made such a request last year and as a result I would like to discuss this and any other knowledge you may have with you at a convenient time.
Please can you contact me (I would suggest initially by e mail) leaving a contact number so that we can have a chat.
Kind regards
Sean Baker
Sean Baker
Detective Constable
Joint Major Investigation Team
Norfolk Constabulary
Lowestoft Police Station
Old Nelson Street
Lowestoft
Suffolk
NR32 1PE
Tel: xxx
Mobile: xxxx
This e-mail carries a disclaimer [this was a dead link. Put here for reference. ~ ctm]
Go here to view Norfolk Constabulary Disclaimer
I responded within a few hours with this:
I can be reached at xxx. I work nights so please don’t call before noon PST. I’m in San Francisco. Between noon and 1 PM is the best time to contact me.
I have previously posted my entire involvement with the CRU leaked emails and files online here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/13/climategate%E2%80%94the-ctm-story/
I’m not sure what else you would like to know. I’ll see if I can cover it in advance.
1. I have never received any money for my volunteer services at wattsupwiththat.com
2. I met Steve McIntyre once for dinner two years ago when he was in town for AGU. I paid for the dinner.
3. I read Climate Audit.
4. [personal info]
5. [personal info]
6. [personal info]
7. I am 51, turning 52 next month.
I understand that you are diligently performing your investigation, and I’m not sure how well you understand the perspective from this side of the fence.
The multiple FOI’s were submitted in response to Phil Jones’s obstruction of the scientific process of verification and replication. Had he behaved as any scientist should, no FOI requests would have been required and it would have been ten minutes work to respond to the original request. The CRU began moving the goal posts, making up more and more unbelievable reasons why they should not give data to perceived critics, thus causing the subsequent FOI’s and escalation, in which I participated. It seems likely that soon after Steve McIntyre’s appeal was denied, someone at the University of East Anglia, disgusted by what he or she witnessed, subsequently leaked the files. I have no knowledge or direct evidence that this is the case, but it is the explanation that makes the most sense.
If you would like more information on the escalation of FOI requests and the obstruction by CRU, as confirmed by your own ICO, I can dig up the relevant threads.
Tell them to pound sand.
Robert of Ottawa (16:35:06) :
Said:-
”
Clue Game!
It was Jones, in the washroom, with his portable!
”
Hilarious. I can just see Christopher Monckton turning this into another one of his celebrated board games… after he’s finished pursuing them all through the courts of course.
Kevin is right.
It’s none of their business, you don’t have to justify or prove yourself right.
Just tell them to sincerely fo.
wws – “The UK cannot use actions outside of its jurisdiction as part of a complaint inside it’s jurisdiction…” Not true. A recent example in January 2010 – Regina vs Simon Guy SHEPPARD and Stephen WHITTLE was tried in London about material on a site hosted in Torrance, California. The material was agreed to be legal in Torrance, but that was not a defense in the UK.
People in Norfolk who have webbed feet etc. tend to have a cryptic note on their health record which is just ‘NFN’.
This stands for ‘Normal for Norfolk’.
They could always have CTM extradited… with extraordinary rendition…
Reviewing some of the comments from others contacted by DC Baker, particularly Ghengis, one possibility does suggest itself. The British authorities may have already identified the “leaker” and are now trying to assemble some sort of conspiracy to commit prosecution. Prosecutors love conspiracy laws because their general vagueness allows them enormous flexibility. Many defendants charged with things like conspiracy to commit blatant mopery have found themselves in the joint even when the blatant mopery could not be proven.
If the person they suspect of leaking the information has posted comments to blogs in the past, any interaction you might have had with him in moderation replies could conceivably entangle you in such a scenario. Your email reply was already a case of TMI, but I would strongly caution against further interaction with this guy.
In the unlikely event that the British authorities do come after you, I recommend changing your name to Mohammed and fleeing to Vancouver. The Canadian have a deserved reputation for protecting asylum seekers with Islamic surnames from extradition efforts of international authorities.
BTW, it’s always prudent to remember what the T-shirt said “Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there trying to get you.”
James Chamberlain (13:14:02) :
#Si
scientific notation
@Phil. “the hacking into RC to upload the data there, which many surmise resulted from a password found among the CRU posts, if so there’s your ‘follow-on’.”
Well then, then the person really didn’t hack into anything. 0_o
Just because something is illegal in one country doesn’t necessarily make it so from another, and international agreements are just that agreements not necessarily law.
You’re just jumping through hoops by over simplifying to reach a preconceived assumption of truth.
At least some Brits have the right attitude: click
Veronica (England) On the other hand, if the leaked e-mails and the HARRY_READ_ME file are anything to go on, CRU may well have committed offences; I wonder whether they will be labelled Fraud, Deception, Misuse of Public Funds, or my favourite “Obtaining Money with Menaces”.
one of mine is,
I do believe that they received research grants from the USG, and may fall under this jurisdiction.
My gut feeling is that they’ve spent months on this, and need something to
justify the expense, so they’re “Intel gathering” – making a list of names of
er,… let’s say “potential domestic extremists” (they can drop the “potential”
later) and their international contacts.
We know what our Glorious Leader thinks of us, so we know which way the wind
blows.
Just as changes to the diagnosis of autism created an apparent “autism epidemic”,
so liberal use of the term “extremism” can create an apparent surge in extremism,
which justifies over-arching police powers to contain. (Which raises tension in
society, in a neatly self-fulfilling-prophecy kind of way.)
Charles:
They won’t believe a word you tell them.
They think you are a Rotter! (Heh, heh, heh…they are right on that judgement. Probably the BEST Rotter they’ve ever met.)
Max
Curiousgeorge (16:24:49) :
Let me get this straight. You are a US Citizen, being investigated by a a local British Constable?
What about moi? What about moi? This is getting beyond ridiculous. I sent my FOI request for confidentiality agreements in at the same time as CTM and received a reply. But what have I heard from PC Plod of Norfolk. Nothing, zero, zip, zilch, bugger all. Most of us down here in Oz do probably retain strands of convict code in our DNA, so they have probably just stamped my file “GUILTY” and pressed on with the more difficult cases.
It is disappointing to be left out nevertheless.
Roger Knights (00:39:06) :
aMINO aCIDS iN mETEORITES (23:59:15) :
I would like to date a climate model. hehe
On second thought, make that a climactic model.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
You mean drama? I’ve had enough drama with women.
Or did you mean something else??
For goodness’ sake join the dots! Just cos we’re all sceptics here hasn’t stopped a streak of paranoia running through this. Some of you sound like Mann. The very last thing anyone in the AGW camp wants from any of the rash of investigations breaking out all over the place is any action at all. Least of all anything that might result in a trial – a process involving forensic logic, a process foreign to them, but which they rightly suspect they will find disagreeable. And if the email is from an impersonator, so what? Presumably you have little to say that you haven’t said here, and in any case an impersonator would have difficulty making use of any information you give him in any of the relevant jurisdictions, since however indifferent they may be to scientific malfeasance (and that remains to be seen), the police disapprove deeply of people who impersonate them.
@aMINO aCIDS iN mETEORITES
“I would like to date a climate model. hehe”
Here you go: The future of Obama’s climate change agenda, straight from Chicago, the one and only…. Kelly Bundy, “Weather Bunny”:
I believe in your integrity Charles. We all knew this game could get ugly. I prepared myself a long time ago to face whatever may come. I would be curious to know what Jello’s view on this would be. Has any body here ever heard Jello’s band “Lard” doing a song called “Drug Raid At 4:00am”. Pretty hard core, but very funny in a demented way. After the police have torn the house apart and abused all the residence, the final line is “oops, sorry, wrong house.” Classic stuff. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Very frustrating that the constabulary seem to be investigating in the completely wrong direction.
Phil, why would they have to “hack into RC” to upload a file? Wouldn’t it just have been a file sent by email like it was for everyone else? It is so funny when they try to make themselves out to be the victims all the time. Pathetic.
The advice above: “do not talk to cops” is correct. All your communications with them should be in written form, as this is, with copies retained so they can’t twist your words.
If there is ever any need to have an actual conversation with cops, have an attorney present, as well as your own recording equipment, as Ezra Levant did with the “Human Rights Commission” Commissar investigating him for offending someone. Have the attorney let the cop know that because you have nothing to hide, you’re planning on putting the interview up on YouTube (Don’t tell him, but you can still bleep out any personal information you don’t want the whole world to hear when you do that part). He will have no prayer of testilying that you said something you didn’t say, or selectively remembering just the right snippets of what you said to misrepresent the meaning.
If he refuses to interview you under these circumstances, your attorney should inform him that you will therefore have to invoke your right to remain silent, as anything you say can and will be used against you in court.
davidmhoffer (08:35:45) :
“Genghis: The conversation centered around which websites organized the FOI requests and when. My BS meter just went into the red zone”
That certainly rang loud alarm bells with me – the use of the word websites, rather than idividual scientists – and like David Wendt I fear ‘Conspiracy’ is what they are after here. A couple of other things int he thread also got my ‘red alert’ meter in overdrive, esp the mention of that the new unit against ‘domestic extremists’ is involved. Gordon Brown and his ministers have been making threatening noises about going after ‘deniers’ whom they consider to be ‘extremists’ (and ‘right wing’, therefore in his terms ‘enemies of the state’!)
So yes, maybe this is a fishing expedition – but with possibly sinister outcomes, and it’s probably best to employ extreme caution as advised by all those posting who have legal experience. The endgame might be, if they can implicate any website under the catch-all ‘conspiracy’ laws, they could move to close it down, which might prove a problem for any British-run site; not sure they could touch Anthony though
This is “Brave New Britain”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/13/environmental-protesters-arrests-nottinghamshire
After making a similar FOI request last summer, I was contacted by Norfolk Constabulary about six weeks ago and, after a short e-mail correspondence, interviewed for about an hour over the telephone. They wanted to know what I thought about the general AGW issue, what my connections were with other skeptics, what my political affiliations were, and all sorts of background stuff. After having recently read on the Bishop Hill blog about the involvement of the UK’s Domestic Extremism Unit with this investigation, I asked the officer about this and he mentioned that he himself was from Special Branch, and that both Special Branch and the Domestic Extremism Unit had been helping out with the investigation “because of the shortage of manpower within the Norfolk Constabulary” (who, to be fair, are indeed a small rural force unaccustomed to this level of publicity).
I felt bemused by all of this rather than threatened, but I was nevertheless very surprised that the police were following this line of investigation.
It’s a feeble joke-attempt. Here’s what I got by googling for define climactic: “consisting of or causing a climax.”