Chris Horner of the American Tradition Institute writes in with this:
So the American Association for the Advancement of Science, thoroughly rattled by the American Tradition Institute’s FOIA requests of UVa and NASA — and even more so by the litigation forced by the institutions’ respective stonewalling — issued a board statement comparing FOIA requests of climate scientists with death threats. Really.
Naturally this caught the eye of the New York Times, which had a young lady contact us for comment. Right off the bat it was clear she, too, had been rattled by the horrors of our outrageous efforts to …see certain records the taxpayer has paid for and which are expressly covered by transparency laws.
Her stance was sympathetic to AAS’s to the point of temper.
She first reaffirmed a fancy for the apparently absolute truth that a FOIA request for climate scientists’ records is indeed no different than death threats allegedly made in Australia against scientists — sadly, if that’s true, they are now treated to what ‘skeptics’ have experienced for years, as I have detailed.
Well, actually, her disinterest in Greenpeace having created this little cottage practice indicated that this is true only for certain climate scientists’ records. Not the ones whose records Greenpeace is asking her for…that’s just transparency, good-government type stuff.
She continued by wondering, as such, do we condone death threats (really?) and, if not, why would we then also issue a FOIA?
Why that is particularly amusing, as opposed to sad, is that she was shocked by my assertion that Big Science/Big Academia’s objection to having laws that obviously cover their own actually applied to their own was of a part with Hollywood objecting to laws being applied to Roman Polanski. Apparently, by saying this, I was accusing Michael Mann of some heinous crime. Or something.
So see the below as I sent to her and, given the above, I expect you will not see in the story. Surely because it will be too busy explaining the tyranny of Greenpeace broadly filing similar requests. ATI’s statement is here.
—–Original Message—–From: chornerlaw@aol.com
To: fostej@nytimes.com
Sent: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 1:14 pm
Subject: AAAS release citing ATI transparency efforts
Dear Joanna,I’m told you called ATI for comment. Below is my response per an earlier inquiry.Best,Christopher C. Horner Senior Fellow Competitive Enterprise Institute 1899 L St, NW 12th Floor Washington, DC, 20036 +1.202.331.2260 (O)…Several points:I noticed no relation between our initiative and the Board’s rhetoric until they mentioned us somewhat incongruously.The notion that application of laws expressly covering academics [is] an ‘attack’ on academics is substantively identical to Hollywood apologists calling application of other laws to Roman Polanski an attack on Polanski. They rather lost the plot somewhere along the way.The failure to mention the group that invented this series of requests, Greenpeace, informs a conclusion that this attempt at outrage is selective, and therefore either feigned or hypocritical. This is also new; their problem is quite plainly with the law(s), but it is a problem they have, over the decades of transparency and ethics laws applying to scientists subsisting on taxpayer revenue, heretofore forgotten to mention.Opposition to such laws applying to them is rather shocking. But then, maybe not so much when you also note their failure to comment on scientists being outed as advocating the flaunting of transparency laws.Finally, AAUP’s code of professional ethics indicates that efforts to manipulate the peer review process are impermissible. Given the overlap and for other reasons we assume this is something AAAS agrees with or at minimum accepts. But this, too, is insincere if such behavior is permissible — or at least, where just cause indicates further inquiry is warranted, it is to be ignored — if the party at issue is one who for various reasons the AAAS or AAUP et al. elevate or find sympathetic. In Mann’s case, if our review of his documents which belong to the taxpayer also happen to exonerate him from the suspicions that have arisen, we will be the first to do so.
==============================================================
Below is the ATI statement – Anthony
==============================================================
Statement from American Tradition Institute Environmental Law Center in Response to American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Misleading Accusations Against ATI Today
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Contacts:
Christopher Horner, director of litigation, chris.horner@atinstitute.org
Paul Chesser, executive director, paul.chesser@atinstitute.org
Today the board of directors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued a statement and press release that denounced “personal attacks,” “harassment,” “death threats,” and “legal challenges” toward climate scientists. AAAS’s press release specifically cited actions taken by American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center in its efforts to obtain records of Climategate scientist Dr. Michael Mann from the University of Virginia, and its efforts to obtain outside employment records of climate activist Dr. James Hansen from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration(NASA).
AAAS wrote, in part,
“we are concerned that establishing a practice of aggressive inquiry into the professional histories of scientists whose findings may bear on policy in ways that some find unpalatable could well have a chilling effect on the willingness of scientists to conduct research that intersects with policy-relevant scientific questions.”
Response to AAAS from ATI Environmental Law Center director of litigation Christopher Horner:
“I noticed no relation between our initiative and the AAAS Board’s rhetoric until they mentioned us somewhat incongruously.
“The notion that application of laws that expressly cover academics is an ‘attack’ on them is substantively identical to Hollywood apologists who call application of other laws to Roman Polanski an attack on Polanski. They lost the plot somewhere along the way.
“AAAS’s failure to mention the group that invented this series of requests, Greenpeace, informs our conclusion that this outrage is selective, and is therefore either feigned or hypocritical. Their problem is plainly with the laws, but it is a problem they have had over the decades: That transparency and ethics laws also apply to scientists who subsist on taxpayer revenue. This they also forgot to mention.
“Finally, the American Association of University Professors’ code of professional ethics indicates that efforts to manipulate the peer review process are impermissible. Given the overlap, and for other reasons, we assume AAAS agrees with these principles or at a minimum accepts them. But this, too, is insincere if such behavior is permitted or ignored where just cause indicates further inquiry is warranted, as long as the parties at issue are those whose views the AAAS or AAUP sympathize with. In Mann’s case, if our review of his documents which belong to the taxpayer also happen to exonerate him from the suspicions that have arisen, we will be the first to do so.”
For an interview with Christopher Horner, email chris.horner@atinstitute.org or paul.chesser@atinstitute.org or call (202)670-2680.
================================================================
Reaction is now coming in. Alana Goodman of Commentray Magazine writes in a piece titled
Contentions – Climate Change Skepticism Now Considered ‘Harassment’?
…
Of course, what the AAAS calls “personal information” actually appears to be public data. The group’s statement comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed against NASA by the conservative American Traditional Institute earlier this month, which is trying to force the agency to release information about scientist James Hansen.
And after years of watching climate change advocates demonizing global warming skeptics, it’s hard to have any sympathy for the AAAS on this issue. Not to mention, previously leaked emails have shown climate change scientists behaving in ways abusive to the public trust. Skeptics should absolutely work to expose any potential corruption in the global warming advocacy community — and the fact AAAS is so terrified of legal challenges is good reason to believe these skeptics might be onto something.
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Sounds like they have the Red AAAss
David Falkner says:
June 29, 2011 at 7:48 pm
“……………. It is not information stolen from a US Government computer marked secret and leaked to your paper by a rapist running a wiki website. I am really at a loss for words. It transcends hypocrisy. I hate to use ‘doublethink’ because Orwell is so over-quoted, but is there a better example of it?”
===================================================================
I find Orwell entirely apt when referring to alarmists and the complicit MSM.
They are totalitarian misanthropists, and I believe, exactly the sort Eric Arthur Blair forewarned us about.
This silliness of death threats is showing people that global warming is not real. It is a naked overplaying of their hand.
Re: David Appell, June 29,2011 @ur momisugly 6:44 pm
David,
You seem to forget the “death threats” Phil Jones got a year or so came from
vehement AGW supporters reacting to his “no significant warming” statement.
There seems to be no substance to the allegations of “death threats” coming out of
Australia, where the Government’s plan to impose an open-ended carbon tax on it’s
citizens and businesses. The Australian policy is based on converting Mike Mann’s
early research and it’s subsequent spawn into a political mansion of economic
controls with a scientific fascade.
Death threats and threats of violence are to be shunned, as are likening coal cars
on a railroad line to the “death trains” terminology as used by Jim Hansen.
@ur momisugly Nick Stokes; 7:37pm:
You are ignoring the obvious use of a rhetorical device with your nitpick.
“Reports of harassment, death threats, and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings…”
The FOIA requests are being equated in the sense that they have an equivalent effect, which may have been inappropriately articulated, but the association is definitely there. How would the FOIA inhibit the ‘free exchange of scientific findings’?
It would be interesting to see her response if she had been told, “Yes, we filed to see the data under an FOIA request. That’s because we feel that the scientists may be downplaying global warming to avoid panic, and things are really much worse than they are saying. The fate of the world could be at stake. We must know the truth to save it.”
I suspect it would short-circuit what few cerebral connections she may have.
New York Slimes. There is no lower standard in accuracy or reporting. Advocacy is their only function, which in itself is not illegal of course, however they describe themselves as a newspaper of record. That is a lie.
We were just beating them up the other day for another doozy …
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/nyt-2000-never-before-been-seen-by-humans/
Entire careers could be spent solely on correcting their errors, lampooning their leftist ideology, and criticizing their treason.
Good description: “All the news that is fit to wrap fish in” – Mark Levin
Nothing says coverup like a coverup.
If they didn’t hide their data and analysis, there would be no FOI requests and there it would be very simple to comply with them by simply pressing a button.
Science is not based on hiding your data. Only fake science is.
Are there patents in climate science? Is someone commercializing intellectual property in climate science? Are raw temperature records supposed to be secret? Are we not supposed to know what the temperature was in our city yesterday, 100 years ago?
The purpose of climate science is supposed to be about telling us the truth and the facts about the climate.
It is slamdunk case that we should send out 100 FOI requests for every climate science paper, interview and statement made where the data backing that up is not readily available to everyone who wants to see it.
Even to this day – we do not know what the real temperature record is. Shouldn’t that bother everyone concerned with this issue.
Hi David Appell. Howzit, bra? You are well I trust? We know death threats very well, having been on the receiving end on numerous occasions. Amongst other deplorable tactics from your camp. I would be very happy if you all just reveal the uncertainties to the public of the “science” behind AGW. That is a very basic component in most of the hard sciences, isn’t it? Not asking much, am I? It would be a great way to still the presently troubled waters. Nice chatting with you, buddy.
In reading the AAAS statement I did not see them “equating” FOIA requests to death threats. Apparently, however, the NYT reporter incorrectly concluded that if one “condones” FOIA requests they must also condone death threats. It is perplexing a reporter would consider FOIA requests to be inappropriate or abusive. This doesn’t give me a lot of faith in the media.
Furthermore, why does the AAAS consider a request for data to be a request for personal information? Is the AAAS only concerned when FOIA requests are initiated on the basis of suspected fraud by the researcher? Or, does this also apply to academics who request the data in order to replicate the resarch results but are denied and so ultimately file a FOIA request?
To quote the AAAS release: “The progress of science and protection of its integrity depend on both full transparency about the details of scientific methodology and the freedom to follow the pursuit of knowledge.” Brilliant! So, when will the AAAS begin to uphold this philosophy?
And even more evidence: several responses to my original comment are examples of what I’m talking about: excuses for the death threats, or jokes, or comments that include include the word “but” This is exactly my point — there is no BUT. The threats are inexcusable no matter what, regardless of what any scientist or journalist or blogger or filmmaker has ever said (or didn’t say). They are inexcusable and unacceptable, period. Examples:
Smokey @ur momisugly June 29, 2011 at 7:16 pm
“No one is saying that death threats are OK. But you seem to be painting all skeptics with a broad brush here. Don’t you recall the 10-10 video and similar alarmist propaganda, which approved killing kids for giving the “wrong” answers? Did you ‘clearly and loudly denounce’ those vicious ads?”
James Sexton @ur momisugly June 29, 2011 at 7:27 pm
“The fact is, given their penchant to invent killers out of thin air, it wouldn’t be beyond the pale to find that they’ve once again done the same.”
Amino Acids in Meteorites @ur momisugly June 29, 2011 at 8:06 pm
“This silliness of death threats is showing people that global warming is not real. It is a naked overplaying of their hand.”
R.S.Brown @ur momisugly June 29, 2011 at 8:20 pm
“There seems to be no substance to the allegations of “death threats” coming out of Australia, where the Government’s plan to impose an open-ended carbon tax on it’s citizens and businesses….. Death threats and threats of violence are to be shunned, as are likening coal cars
on a railroad line to the “death trains” terminology as used by Jim Hansen.”
It appears that the majority of board members at the AAAS have gone off their meds.
David Appell says:
Imagine receiving just one such email, let alone several or on a regular basis.
Yes, David, just “imagine” the AAAS’s paranoiacally, or at least diversionally imagined “death threats”, unsupported by any evidence, that’s the ticket and you fell for it! While you ignored the AAAS’s demonizing of legal, rational requests for information on the part of citizen sceptics, who are thereby made equivalent to rogue assasins; and who, by a connoted or suggested implication, are made to look like they deserve some kind of vigilante-like violent interdiction, almost precisely because a legal basis for handling their alleged infraction has otherwise not been established by the accusers, who apparently have not brought any such “death threats” to the attention of the authorities while they complain and obsess about them elsewhere in public!
This is a well-know propaganda tactic at the least, and at most betrays a paranoiac intimation that citizen sceptics deserve the same violent retribution the allegedly beleaguered AAAS and Climate Scientists imagine to be directed at them.
Just imagine yourself, David, what some people might then find it fitting to do, especially if also egged on by other demonizing propaganda tactics such as the “10 – 10” blow up simulation of anyone not towing the CO2 = CAGW line. Psychiatrists, and similarly other people such as family members or acquaintances, have actually been murdered as a result of their patients having incorporated them into the imagined “plot against them”. Still others can “take a hint”.
So, David, why don’t you condemn those kind of demonizing fabrications, diversions, and intimations for action instead of wasting your mind inappropriately on legal requests by non-violent citizens sceptics, exactly as the AAAS and the NYT reporter did, which, after all, is one of the main points of Christopher Horner’s response above?
David Appell says:
June 29, 2011 at 11:23 pm
And even more evidence: several responses to my original comment are examples of what I’m talking about: excuses for the death threats
Exactly what “death threats” on the part of scientific sceptics of CO2 = CAGW are you specifically referring to, David? And what would they have to do with scientific scepticism?
David Appell:
You seem to think that every time an action (already condemned by the majority of posters here) is brought up, we should be spending our time condemning that action and not address the context in which that action is exhumed. Your very first quote starts with a statement clearly saying that no one is condoning the death threats, which have previously been condemned. The topic of this post is not the death threats, but the self-victimizing tone of the AAAS statement. The statement released, in the important part, is thus:
“Reports of harassment, death threats, and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings…”
The inclusion of ‘legal challenges’ refers to the FOI and FOIA requests filed by people who have been stonewalled in direct violation, not only of the scientific method, but also of their respective countries’ laws. To assert that any data or information legally available under the so named “Freedom of Information Act” should not be freely available is absurd.
Furthermore, the ‘free exchange of scientific findings’ should be impeded only by the intervention of outside forces. The government funds institutions under the pretense that scientific knowledge is a public good. A public good is one that is non-excludable (can be consumed by anyone with the capability) and non-rivalous (does not diminish when consumed). To have to assert FOIA rights in order to apply the scientific method to scientific findings violates the spirit of the Keynesian economics that so many people these days seem to value. It also DIRECTLY impedes the ‘free exchange of scientific findings’.
Additionally, when evidence extrinsic to the scientific findings makes the scientific finding or process look suspect, the process deserves to be examined. The lack of trust in a process is the founding ideal for many government institutions (and rightfully so). The SEC was founded to protect investors from sham stocks. The PCAOB was later created to protect investors from sham audits. The FDA was created when FDR wondered if he was eating finger meat. The USDA was really founded with the purpose of diffusing agricultural knowledge to help secure our food supply.
FOIA was founded to make sure that taxpayer money was not used for shadowy purposes. This includes foreign espionage, domestic espionage, making political advantage, securing votes in public voting bodies, preventing bribery, forestalling corruption, and providing a general sense of clarity to the bumbly jumbly mess that is public process. To say that asserting the FOIA law to publicly funded research, funded under the auspices of that knowledge being a public good, is somehow preventing the ‘free exchange of scientific findings’ is so backwards that I lack a better term than Orwellian. Perhaps you should study the things that have been released because of the FOIA? Try “Operation Northwoods” for one example.
If you are really that concerned about incentives to do research, than I suggest that you examine the case of Nikolai Tesla. An innovator who did not have the graces of modern subsidy to his research.
I expect that you will publish a full retraction (or at least this comment with a link to this thread) on your blog, which currently paints a sadly cherry-picked picture of the full range of responses here to the death threats.
OK David,
David,
Cite a substantiated “death threat” not a rumor or inuendo coming from Australia
made by a sceptic over someone’s AGW position or sit on it.
Otherwise your line is an simply something trolls are using as an illusionary “Team”
enhanced talking point.
We await your link to the documentation…
I love comedy central, South Park, ManBearPig. I laughed so much it hurt and the one liners.
“Ah, But Mr Gore has no friend’s” said Carl, that’s why he came up with ManBearPig to make friends (and money).
David Appell, your lack of logic is staggering. Because sceptics decry death threats and give example of alarmists using the implications of death threats, you excoriate those sceptics them for mentioning death threats.
If you check out the ‘death threats’ alleged to have been made to scientists in Australia, one was conflated from remark in a conversation and the other was a piece of imaginative ‘remembering’. Neither was ever reported to the police. Both seem to have been conjured out of not very much by alarmist politicians who seem to regard talk of others making death threats as a useful political tool.
David Appell says:
June 29, 2011 at 6:44 pm
It is stunning to see essentially no condemnation of the death threats here, and instead exuses and accusations (always anonymous, of course) that they are “political stunts” or that scientists are “playing the victim.” Regardless of your position on climate science or FOIAs or anything else, threats against individuals are never, ever acceptable. Imagine receiving just one such email, let alone several or on a regular basis. I hope those found to be making such threats are prosecuted to the fullest extent before something deeply tragic happens, which is the path all of this is on. If skeptics are to retain any legitimacy whatsoever, such tactics need to be clearly and loudly denounced.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
The post is nothing to do with death threats per se. Of course nobody condones such incidents where they genuinely happen, but such cases are few and far between, as far as can be established. The recent reports of death threats in Australia have been shown to be a falsehood, but were condemned at the time they were discussed. But this whole thing is a side-issue to the discussion at hand, which is about the chutzpah of the AAAS (and others) in suggesting that use of a legal instrument (A FOIA request) is the same as a death threat.
If you want to read about death threats, google “greenpeace we know where you live” (without quotes). Come back when you’ve followed that up and I’ll give you some more things to search for.
Truth seeking FOIs issued to warmist “scientists” equate to death threats? Only an intellectual pygmy would believe such a thing.
Even Mann’s official hagiographer, David Appell, is here to do his Master’s bidding. Even at this distance, I can smell fear.
There can and should be no personalized threats of physical violence against Michael Mann personally. That would be totally outrageous and wrong.
But I reject utterly that perfectly valid and legal FOIA requests on Mann’s UVA emails constitutes, or can be equated to, “death threats”. The only threat is to Mann’s academic career should he be found to have engaged in a persistent pattern of serious research misconduct.
We already know that the original Hockey Stick was faked and that Mann deliberately withheld results of tests showing his reconstruction was not “robust to the removal of … dendroclimatic proxies” and that he lied to the NAS panel, amongst others, about calculating R2 tests that showed no statistical skill.
All of the confected outrage over the FOIA requests shows is that Mann is deeply worried about the content of those emails and that some in the AAAS leadership are worried that a major source of political capital in climate change hysteria might wither on the vine.
Reports of harassment, death threats, and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policymakers and the public.
But that’s exactly the purpose of the FOI requests, because the climate science cabal refuse this very openness.
On reading the AAAS statement I couldn’t help wondering if the AAAS Directors had actually read the Climategate emails regarding tampering with the “peer-review” process. If they have not read them they are incompetent. If they have read them this “statement” indicates they are corrupt.
Either way the AAAS needs a change in their Directors.
David Appell,
What death threats?
Show us any actual death threats.
Your side is lying about this like everything else.