The UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has made a letter available (here Summers_UEA_ICO_20100129 PDF) that in British terms could only be described as “gobsmacking”.
UEA is apparently trying to make the mere mention of a crime committed disappear.
This is ICO’s response to UEA’s Brian Summers, who wrote a letter to the ICO asking them to withdraw claims about the ICO’s position on a violation of the FOI law pertaining to CRU’s conduct.
…the ICO has been alerted by the complainant and by information already in the public domain via the media, to a potential offence under section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act. The prima facie evidence from the published emails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence…In the event, the matter cannot be taken forward because of the statutory time limit.
It makes clear that the UEA staff committed an offense by deleting emails subject to an FOI and were only saved from prosecution because the offense was timed out under the legislation, due to it’s built in statute of limitations.
In my email exchange with Jonathan Leake he points out to me that:
It’s fairly self explanatory except that in Point 4, Graham Smith, the commissioner refers to errors in The Times report without specifying them. I actually don’t know what he is referring to because although I initiated and researched this article it was Webster who wrote it as it was eventually appearing in The Times – his title.
Leake also mentions that “Webster does not accept that there were any errors in his article.”
Meanwhile, Bishop Hill reports that:
Some explanation of the rather surprising statements on FoI made by Sir Edward Acton and his colleagues in their submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee has emerged. As noted in the previous post, Sir Edward said that no offence under the FoI had been established and that the evidence was prime facie in nature. Here is the exact quote for reference
On 22 January 2010, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) released a statement to a journalist, which was widely misinterpreted in the media as a finding by the ICO that UEA had breached Section 77 of the FOIA by withholding raw data. A subsequent letter to UEA from the ICO (29 January 2010) indicated that no breach of the law has been established; that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie; and that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges.
But there’s a problem, the word “private” has come up missing in Bishop Hill’s search:
And what about the statement that the information related to “private emails”. I’ve read and reread the document. I’ve put it through OCR and searched the text. The word “private” does not appear in the document.
Oh dear.
Having read enough govt bureaucracy-speak the ICO’s response letter seems to indicate pretty clearly:
– they ARE investigating, and/or, WILL investigate the relevant matters
– including those that have passed what we in the US call the statute of limitations
– but will restrict their resulting actions to that allowed under the law
It seems reasonble, in other words.
But as is typical with such matters, publicly disclosing facts, allegations, findings & so forth before everything has been sorted out & put into proper context will NOT be done. This is typical and proper for a number of reasons which are clearly not apparent to most of the readers of this blog, who would like every sordid detail, in or out of context, presented immediately. As a general rule, that results in bad outcomes.
Alan S (16:18:03) :
re: to DeNihilist (15:58:43) :
‘“My advice to Monckton: prepare to flee the pitchfork-and-torch-carrying mob.”
Can you say projection?’
You took the words right out of my mouth…er…fingers.
If, by some fluke of fate and nature, skeptics are proven wrong, the world will forgive the honest error.
If by our silence, we allow the Alarmists to foist economy- and freedom-killing taxes and regulations upon the free world, it won’t be us they’ll be coming after with pitchforks.
Irregardless of whether there is a statute of limitations for whatever they did in the past, going forward, they should no longer be allowed to deny FOI requests. They are acting as if the leaked files has relieved them of any obligation to release to the public their data, methods and code. I personally couldn’t care less about their personal correspondences, I just want to check their science.
Oh, but the lime in the white wash they produced by heating the carbonate in a kiln and expelling CO2…what goes around comes around.
Just use the law on conspiracy. It works.
Given that communicating is – by definition – conspiring, and that emails are – by definition – communication, I’m surprised that the ICO hasn’t gone down the route of “conspiring” or “aiding and abetting”.
Which I believe are at least either-way offences and not subject to the six-month limit.
A six month statute of limitation is equivalent to removing FOI from the books. It is absurd and could only exist as the creation of a desperate VR programmer.
Are we to believe that in the UK as long as you scheme to thwart laws using private e-mail you’re exempt from consequence?
>>>Earlier post: If somebody were to repeat that same FOI request now, it would have to be given a proper answer… won’t anybody do it?
Why not, indeed? Perhaps someone with standing will…
“A subsequent letter to UEA from the ICO (29 January 2010) indicated that no breach of the law has been established; that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie; and that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges”
But surely [some of] the FOI requests at issue concerned primarlily temperature data sets and the code, not emails? So surely the fact that the evidence of an offence (ie an intention not to comply) was in the emails, is irrelevant? It’s not the emails which were being requested.
God talk about obfuscation…
Re: ““no more than prima facie”
I don’t know how old Sir Edward Acton is, but I suppose it’s possible he learned no Latin – certainly the case if he didn;t go to Public School and is under about 45! – so maybe he doesn’t know what the phrase means ;^)