UPDATE: Andrew Revkin responds with an update on Dot Earth, which I repeat here. He now agrees that privacy expectations were not justified in the UEA Climategate emails. Perhaps now we’ll see some discussions of them, with publications of selected Climategate emails, on Dot Earth in the future.
– Anthony
==============================================================
From the NYT Dot Earth Blog, Monday, Nov 29th, 2010:
[Nov. 29, 3:41 p.m. | Updated In the last couple of days, some conservative commentators have compared the treatment of the East Anglia climate files in this post with the dissemination of Wikileaks files by The Times and charged that a gross double standard exists.
I’ll note two things about my coverage of the unauthorized distribution of the climate files:
First, while I initially did not publish the contents of the climate files and e-mails (at the request of Times lawyers, considering the uncertain provenance and authenticity of the materials at the time), I did (from the start) provide links to the caches of material set up elsewhere on the Web.
Second, in the rush on the day the files were distributed across the Web, I called them “private” when, in fact, I should have said their senders had presumed they were private. As I’ve said off and on since then, given that much of the research discussed in the exchanges was done using taxpayers’ money, any expectation of privacy wasn’t justified.]
=========================================================
The NYT published details in 2005 about US efforts to eavesdrop on Al Qaeda, and is publishing info from the stolen Wikileaks Iraq messages, but they they wouldn’t publish the ClimateGate emails.
Mr. Revkin, your selective bias, and the bias of your newspaper (and your Dot Earth Blog) is screaming loudly for all to hear.
From Powerline blog:
The New York Times is participating in the dissemination of the stolen State Department cables that have been made available to it in one way or another via WikiLeaks. My friend Steve Hayward recalls that only last year the New York Times ostentatiously declined to publish or post any of the Climategate e-mails because they had been illegally obtained.
Surely readers will recall Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s inspiring statement of principle:
“The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”
Interested readers may want to compare and contrast Revkin’s statement of principle with the editorial note posted by the Times on the WikiLeaks documents this afternoon. Today the Times cites the availability of the documents elsewhere and the public interest in their revelations as supporting their publication by the Times. Both factors applied in roughly equal measure to the Climategate emails.
Without belaboring the point, let us note simply that the two statements are logically irreconcilable. Perhaps something other than principle and logic were at work then, or are at work now. Given the Times’s outrageous behavior during the Bush administration, the same observation applies to the Times’s protestations of good faith.
==========
h/t to WUWT reader “rk”
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Actions speak louder than words. Perhaps it is time to publish a a list of NYT advertisers who are accessories in these crimes.
The mainstream and much of the (fake) alternative press are totally controlled entities. You will read what the powerful want you to read. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is leaked. If something is revealed, it is meant to be revealed. There are honest blogs and websites that try to get truth or alternative opinions closer to truth to the people. Seemingly, however, people still want to rely on the established (controlled) sources.
Yes, I can. If I don’t assert my rights over those who take my money to perform a public service, I lose them. So yes, as a taxpayer and voting citizen, I am the “boss” of those being paid by my taxes. If I, as a citizen, succumb to the thinking that I have no power over what these people do, civilization will (not might), WILL descend into fascism. You’re essentially making the same argument on the wikileaks issue and being able to see what people are doing in your name, but you can’t see it here for some reason.
And none of that has any relevance whatsoever. NYT took a stand on the climate gate e-mails, a clearly explained (as quoted) and principled stand. Then they violated that very same stand on the wikileaks issue. You can say the “point of difference” is outside of what I stated, and make an obfuscation argument if you choose. However, they made a stand, explained that stand, then violated that stand when it suited them. That is hypocrisy. That is Anthony’s point and it is well made.
sharper00
Alarmists and the NYT say the CRU emails were private because they wanted to protect their science “buddies” from being accused of a being part of a whole bunch of dodgy activities. Whereas skeptics want to shine a strong light into their “private” space to expose their dodgy activities. This has undoubtably been achieved and the our world is going to be a better place because of this exposure. There has been a public good done.
They are acting more like revolutionaries than a news company when they continue to offend their customers with propaganda rather than present the news as expected. They have not realized the movie industry is the only industry that can insult their customers and get away with it because they do it with style, glamour and humor. And there is little alternative.
Why would anyone, want to pay money and time for news that is not news.
There is a major difference between the diplomatic cables and the emails. The cables were marked Secret. So, this is actually beyond hypocrisy into some new form of self contradiction. Anyone care to make up a new word to describe it?
[Reply: “treachery.”]
sharper00 says:
November 29, 2010 at 8:08 am
Can you prove that the climategate emails were “illegally obtained”? Are you the thief? That is the only way you could absolutely know they were “illegally obtained”.
And can you categorically prove that the material posted by wikileaks is “legally obtained”?
I thought not in both cases.
Tim says:
November 29, 2010 at 3:58 am
Why are we all still so astonished that the majority of large MSM is a cleverly disguised (or even blatant) government/corporate propaganda tool?
Tim, you are correct ! Plus . . .
The connection between CAGW alarmism can be tied directly to an un-holy alliance of Big Government/Taxes, Big Business/Corporate carbon trading scam, ECOlogical fundamentalists/funding, Big Science/funding. Keep in mind Big MSM is all owned by Big Business interests, so this articles information on the N.Y.T. bias is of no surprise. What is somewhat surprising is that the blogosphere and a few independent media could take on this un-holy cabal and win (maybe) !!!
Note: here in Canada the state owned CBC/media(MSM) toes the CAGW line because it’s a holy liberal/eco cause and the provincial governments wish the fear to be propogated so as to cash in on WINDfall taxes.
sharper00
Why are you so hung up on this private email thing? In my and I suspect any business all employees work sent emails are open to observation by the owners. Effectively the UK tax payers are the owners of their tax paid science institutions and so their employees emails should be open to observation by the owners. The facility offered by the FOI act provides for this public observation.
If the NYT [hopefully] goes belly-up, the only thing I would miss is the crossword puzzles.
troller00, standard diversionary strawman argument: where did anyone say they had a right to see “any and all emails”?
Nowhere.
They had a right to the public documents properly requested under FOI, which were not tendered, which was noncompliance with FOI, but not determined to be so until after the statute had expired.
You’re every bit entitled to your own opinions, r00. Not your own facts.
You are presenting your opinions as facts, which is why so many are “disagreeing” with you.
Actually, they are correcting you, but I’m sure it feels much much better to see it at unreasonable “disagreement”.
Or you are wilfully clinging to it, which may be why some are coming to the OPINION that you are yess, acting like a tr0ll.
Have a nice day!
NYT……..Weathermen above ground?
And I am sorry to rain microwaves on the tinfoil hat parade, but the government can’t just stop whatever they want to whenever they want to. Wikileaks and the founder, embattled by rape charges (also supposedly set-up by the CIA), are not in the continental US, and Pfc. Bradley Manning stole the documents and provided them to Wikileaks. Hence the court martial of said Private. Unless this is just layers of psy-op stuff. Yeah, that’s it.
sharper00:
Thankyou for your post at November 29, 2010 at 8:55 am which refuses to anser my clear point that was:
“So, please explain how you think the release of State Secrets that places lives at risk is or could be in the public interest in this case.
If you fail to provide this explanation then your comment at November 29, 2010 at 2:26 am is demonstrated to be the hypocritical nonsense which it appears to be at face value.”
Thank you. It is rare for a hypocrite to admit his hypocrisy as clearly your response does.
Richard
The NYT (pronounced ‘nit’) knows that it can safely publish in violation of national security laws. Their creature, Osamabama, is not going to bite the hand that fed his campaign. The needle on my propaganda meter long ago responded to NYT AGW coverage by wrapping itself around the right hand peg.
The question editors are asking themselves, obviously, is “Will this leak have the political effect we want?”
sharper00 says: November 29, 2010 at 2:26 am
One situation is private emails between individuals the other is secret but official records of government policy. You can claim there are reasons for or against one being released over the other but the idea that basic logic prohibits one opinion on one situation and a different opinion on the other is ridiculous especially given the general implication in this post and this site in general that the “Climategate” release is “good” but the wikileaks one is “bad”.
——————————————————————————–
Sharper00: I don’t see that the emails are private. We are discussing government funded activity here. The whole matter was subject to FOI which was being frustrated by these people’s efforts.
Douglas
Dave F says:
November 29, 2010 at 9:52 am
There is a major difference between the diplomatic cables and the emails. The cables were marked Secret. So, this is actually beyond hypocrisy into some new form of self contradiction. Anyone care to make up a new word to describe it?
[Reply: “treachery.”]
=====================================================
Just thought I’d second that. While I don’t believe any legal action should be pursued against the NYT,(they are protected) it is important that we call it for what it is…..treachery.
I am sorry to rain on your mindkontrolled parade, but what the government can’t control is an independent internet.(Which they are going after.) All else is just part of the package of control by the powerful. Wikileaks is transparent if you stop and think about it.
“They failed to comply with FOI by saying they were going to delete emails which could be subject to an FOI request. You (or anyone) doesn’t have an automatic right to see any and all emails as suggested here nor is there any guarantee that even specifically requested information will be made available. ”
Sigh, yet again, another strawman. Would you please tell me how deleting emails serves any purpose in science? Then lets take the logical second step.
These two situations are identical.
Public employees (funded by the taxpayer) send out communications that are supposed to be private. NYT publishes one that was obtained (illegally?) but not the other?
You then digress to how some people do not think this is relevant? What is relevant about what diplomats think about a particular leader and about calling one batman and the other Robin? Most of those communications changed nothing, put lives at risk and put simply are just fuel for the fires of foreign leaders.
We are talking relevance here right? Well the climate-gate emails would have been read more then wikileaks ever would have. A group of scientists hatching a conspiracy to break the law…yes I think that would have been front page news and I think people would have cared about that versus the batman and robin quotes. Subversion of the peer-review process…yes that would have been relevant as the cap and trade under consideration would have no longer had solid science to back it.
And we still to this day here people saying “the science is settled” by those scientists who covered up their incompetence in science illegally in some cases. I think whether we want to admit it or not, both sets of documents should have been published and it should have been up to the public what they cared about.
This entire episode is now a new game for me. Now my goal is to find how many people I can convince that the NYT is a rag and go from there.
Having somewhat of difficulties in following all these comments… Hypocrisy is the ‘name-of-the-game’, the ‘core fuel’ for the AGW-[pim*s] and its proponents are worldwide – we have them here in Sweden ‘en masse’ from the top and down… sic(k)!
The xxx’s number of words here [and there] tend to go into hair-splitting topics/ remarks type, thus evaiding the core of the subject [which obviously is the only ‘effort’ left ‘they’ can mobilize…]
The Climate Scam [ http://www.theclimatescam.se ] is ‘our’ [kind of] WUWT and – although not as prominent/’large’ – it is truly worth while having a look into. And, BTW, there are also some types [aka ‘sharper00’, ‘Louise’…] there as well.
Red/bottom line is still and will stay being the ‘core fuel’; hypocrisy covering up for the damned lies, frauds, deceptions, $$$$, greed, power, …
Karl Marx and your ilk, incl. M. Strong, Al Gore, Monbiot, Revkin and the rest: Just forget yourselves – the sooner you do, the better for all and everyone on Terra Firma.
Brgds from the Bestcoast of Sweden!
//TJ
Relax; Revkin was move to an opinion section. I believe it happened after climategate. I also wonder if there aren’t libel considerations – England having a reputation as being a place where it is easy to prove libel. Of course the N.Y. Times doesn’t explain one way or the other but Revkin has been saying recently that “the lawyers” have barred the Times from quoting the emails directly – that they can only link to places where the emails can be looked up.
Clearly Revkin has a green point of view and isn’t inclined to cast a skeptical eye on his scientific sources who he feels collegial toward. None the less the Times does now label his Dot Earth column as opinion.
At 7:27 am this morning I posted the following here at WUWT:
————————————————————————————————–
Ross Douthat had a column in the NYT today on hyper-partisanship among pundits and politicians. I posted the following comment, which is now in moderation:
“And then there is the New York Times. They released the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. Over the weekend, they decided to release raw State Department cables and give them prominent front page coverage, thus adversely impacting American foreign policy and possibly national security. Before that there were the reports of widespread telephone intercepts on American citizens who may have been communicating with terrorist suspects. But when the emails of the scientists working for the IPCC were released to the world just before the Copenhagen conference last year, the Times decided that the privacy of the scientists had been invaded and the documents illegally obtained. Therefore, no publication.
“One might expect partisanship from politicians, but it shouldn’t infect news coverage.”
——————————————————————————————–
They didn’t publish the post. I guess they are emulating RealClimate by censoring opinions with which they don’t agree. The important thing to remember about liberals in this day and age is that they are no longer liberal.
This latest escapade of diplomatic wires published is being called “cablegate” and is being compared to climategate.
It all began with a U.S. program called Net Centric Diplomacy which first appears in the news in 2006 with the naming of one of the top 20 finalists bidding for the contract. Only two articles mention it – one in January and one in March of 2006.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22net-centric+diplomacy%22&sa=N&tbs=nws:1,cd_min:2005,cd_max:2007,cdr:1
Interestingly the program doesn’t appear in the news again until July, 2010.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22net-centric+diplomacy%22&sa=N&tbs=nws:1,cd_min:2005,cd_max:2007,cdr:1#q=%22net-centric+diplomacy%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DfLzTOvrNIKC8gbyuunlCw&ved=0CBoQpwU&source=lnt&tbs=nws:1%2Ccdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2008%2Ccd_max%3A10%2F30%2F2010&fp=6c786525ecdfe8a6
This was to facilitate instant sharing of information between diplomats and military – Dept. of State and Dept. of Defense respectively on a secure internet protocol named SIPRnet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet
It was up to individual diplomats to decide whether or not their cables were to go over SIPRnet or via more secure means with only sender and recipient being privy to it. It was to used only for communication classed secret or below. So if any diplomats put embarrasing information out on this network you can go straight to those clowns who did it who should have known full well that anyone in the military with secret clearance could be granted access to the searchable archive of diplomatic wires including low ranking teenagers like Private First Class Bradley Manning stationed in Iraq with access to SIPRnet granted as part of his job.
http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/86195/20101127/wikileaks-secret-documents-how-bradley-manning-us-army-diplomacy.htm
When Net Centric Diplomacy went online I cannot determine. All I could find reported was a competition among potential information systems contractors where there were 20 finalists still competing in March 2006. It probably didn’t go online before Obama’s
coronationinauguration but it may have.Ultimately the buck stops with Obama as he is both commander-in-chief of the military where the leak occurred and he is also our highest ranking diplomat who can hire and fire any other diplomat including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Ironically this is a major fulfillment of Obama’s campaign promise to make government more transparent. One is left to wonder whether he did it intentionally.
In any case it’s rollicking good fun just like Climategate was to see what the head clowns in charge (HCIC) are saying to each other when they think no one else is listening.
Secrets are much harder to keep in the information age. Welcome to the information age, clowns.
sharper00 says:
November 29, 2010 at 9:01 am
@Theo Goodwin
“Some people are attempting to argue that the wikileaks content is secret whereas the climategate emails are actually public. They’re clearly private emails. Private doesn’t preclude their release under the relevant FOI statutes.”
You have created this idea, all in your mind, because you systematically equivocate on the word ‘private’. For example, in a post above you write:
“One situation is private emails between individuals the other is secret but official records of government policy.”
Replace ‘private’ with ‘secret but official records of climategater policy’ in your sentence above. I argue that the climategate emails are “official records of climategater policy.” Then you have to tack on the word ‘secret’ to make those records seem parallel to government records that are classified secret. Yet the tacking on is illegitimate. Climategaters are not a government and have no legal right to designate anything as government secrets. Therefore, making available the government records breaks tons of laws that have no application to the climategate emails at all. How is it that you cannot see this difference? Once you see this point and recognize, as all Americans of good will must, that revealing these US government secrets causes huge harm to the US, then surely you can understand that the NYT has gone to the mat against America even though they bent over backwards to soften criticism of climategaters. How can you not see that difference?