The Guardian Is “Bemused”
by Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 6 August 2011
David Leigh of the Guardian has been added to the list of UK journalists who’ve engaged in phone hacking and other illegal/unethical conduct. Some of the more questionable conduct by UK journalists has involved their acquisition of information from police that police were not legally entitled to disclose either for payment or as a favour. David Leigh also had a role in the Empire Strikes Back phase of Climategate early last year and, in today’s post, I’ll discuss the connection.
Leigh’s admission of phone hacking is discussed at Bishop Hill here; Guido Fawkes here. Leigh himself admitted here.
There is certainly a voyeuristic thrill in hearing another person’s private messages…
Leigh differentiated his illegal phone hacking from that practised by News of the World because his cause was noble:
unlike Goodman, I was not interested in witless tittle-tattle about the royal family. I was looking for evidence of bribery and corruption.
Now the Climategate connection.
In February 2010, a couple of months after Neil Wallis of Outside Organisation had been retained by the University of East Anglia to help them strike back against critics, Leigh authored a smear against Paul Dennis of the University of East Anglia, entitled:
Detectives question climate change scientist over email leaks: University of East Anglia scientist Paul Dennis denies leaking material, but links to climate change sceptics in US drew him to attention of the investigators
Leigh’s smear began by reporting that Norfolk police had interviewed Paul Dennis (as, presumably, other faculty of the University of East Anglia.) However, Dennis had “refused to sign a petition in support of Jones when the scandal broke”. Furthermore, according to Leigh’s apparently disapproving “university sources”, Dennis was reported to have sent a letter to UEA head of department Jacquie Burgess “calling for more open release of data” – suspicious activity indeed. Dennis had also refused to observe the fatwa against communication with climate blogs that were critical of CRU and the Team and had even sent an article on isotopes to Jeff Id.
Leigh’s article disclosed two pieces of information that were not in the public domain.
First, Leigh “outed” Jeff Id by name, occupation and hometown. To that point, “Jeff Id” had been anonymous. His registration at WordPress was anonymous and his gmail account was anonymous. To Jeff’s knowledge, there was no public information that would enable Leigh to identify him.
Complete writeup here at Climate Audit
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Bishop Hill writes here:
Leigh’s name has come to prominence in recent days, with the UK’s premier political blogger, Guido Fawkes, accusing the Guardian man of being involved in phone hacking. The evidence seems pretty incontrovertible, and Leigh appears to be highly unamused to have it broadcast to all and sundry. All good clean family fun.
h/t to Benny Peiser at The GWPF.
He should have hacked Sarah Palin and all would have been forgiven.
“Climategate has basically been debunked”
“Climategate” is quite simply a name given to a package of data that was made public in Nov 2009.
All the data in the package has been certified genuine by the authors of the originals. Therefor it is not possible for “Climategate has basically been debunked” to be a statement that can carry any credibilty.
Thanks for the link to that detailed analysis. It is really something. I loved this quotation, straight from Michael Mann, no less “…reasonably consensus viewpoint…”
Shaun doesn’t get it! If you work in a public institution – or using public funds, your work is just that: *public*. If you want to have privacy, you face the immediate problems of perceived conflicts of interest and need to start being very transparent about how you manage the public and private split. There is now so much money at stake in the Climate arena, that I don’t think Climate Researchers necessarily understand this either.
The hacking aspect is much more worrying. Who watches the watchers? Surveillance in any form must be subject to very carefully thought out checks and balances because of the power it’s use bestows. I’m not entirely sure those checks and balances work well in ‘western’ democracies. I’m certain they aren’t present in ‘western’ media organizations!
/ sarc
Perhaps they think it’s just ‘peer-review’ if you know what private conversations are going on?
/sarc off
>dodgy Barnet, dodgy geezer.
Leigh did his best work as an extra on the Sweeney.
cirby August 6, 2011 at 11:41 am
And for others not familiar with British society: Recall the famous “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” Monty Python sketch.
A lot can be arranged in British society without actually directly stating the agreements .. it’s all done with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink. It allows plausible deniability. “Honest, your honour, I had no idea he would do such a stupid thing. I was just larfing around. I woz being hypothetical”
Brian says:
August 6, 2011 at 3:59 pm
It seems Climategate has basically been debunked:
================================================
Brian, if you read any of the emails or any of the Henry files….
…you would know that what you just said is impossible
If you did read any of them…..then you just want to believe
All this leaves me to believe the CRU know who did the leak.
Perhapse an FOI request ….:-)
Brian is basically being debunked.
Every time he posts!
I think that’s the consensus…hang on let me ask my best friends and several of my employees….
Yes we all agree. It’s settled..
High integrity people indeed… and in the end those exposed in Climategate have only their writing to blame.
“Latitude says:
August 6, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Brian, if you read any of the emails or any of the Henry files….
…you would know that what you just said is impossible
If you did read any of them…..then you just want to believe”
They’ve been cleared.
Nigel S says:
August 6, 2011 at 12:35 pm ,,, dodgy Barnet, dodgy geezer
For those who don’t understand … a “Barnet” refers in Cockney rhyming slang to Barnet Fair AKA hair. Oh, and a “geezer” is a bloke, or guy, man etc. Not sure where that came from. As a kid, my friends and I would say, after we had done something we thought naughty, “Let’s Scapa (pronouced scarper)”. Only late did I realise this refered to Scapa Flow (Let’s Go) the UK’s major naval refuge.
Brian says:
August 6, 2011 at 3:59 pm
The Climategate data is accurate. I think what you meant to say is “UEA has been absolved or wrongdoing.” That is quite debatable and has been debated here. Do not look to skepticalscience.com for all sides of a story.
Actually, “The investigations into UEA were a whitewash” would be a lot closer to the truth.
Kudos to Steve and Anthony; I always thought that this involved more then just the News of the World. With the prejudice exhibited by the MSM, I’m not surprised this amoral man was caught in the quagmire.
I definitely think there will be more reveals to come.
On a side note, the Guardian has been slamming the right-wing Murdoch and his empire since the scandal broke. Wonder if they’ll trash themselves now?
Brian,
No one, including the Climategate principals such as Jones, Santer, Mann, Schmidt, Wigley, etc., have ever denied that the leaked emails and the Harry_read_me file were genuine and verbatim. As usual, it is Skeptical Pseudo-science that is debunked. But what do you expect from a propaganda blog run by a cartoonist?
For a link to the emails, see here. There is also the “Climategate” tab in the menu at the top of the WUWT home page.
For the Harry_read_me file, see here.
The emails and file show beyond any doubt that at least thirteen years of temperature data was completely fabricated. And it’s interesting that every revision of past data by CRU is adjusted upward. What are the odds, eh?
If you wouldn’t call that fraud, what would you call it? Complete incompetence by a clique of highly paid PhD’s? No; with so much money at stake, those self-serving climate charlatans deviously gamed the system at the expense of the taxpaying public. IMHO, only a fool would believe otherwise.
For Robert of Ottawa (August 6, 2011 at 5:55 pm)
Re: the origin of Geezer, most likely it derives from the now obsolete term guiser, meaning someone who walks around in disguise. Used thus in contemporary slang to mean someone with something to hide it has recently evolved into the generic and has now, as you say, simply come to mean bloke or dude.
Some say however (though I make no claims as to its voracity) that the following text was found in a scroll in the stores of the British Museum that originally came from the Buddhist cave shrines of Dunhuang:
In the Worlds before Geezers,
Primal chaos reigned, Heaven sought order.
But the Phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown.
The four worlds formed again and yet again,
As endless eons wheeled and passed.
Time and the pure essences of Heaven,
The moistures of the Earth,
And the powers of the Sun and the Moon
All worked upon a certain rock – old as Creation,
And it magically became fertile.
That first egg was named Thought,
Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha,
Said, ‘With our thoughts we make the world.’
Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch,
from it then came a diamond Geezer.
The nature of the Diamond Geezer was irrepressible!
(h/t to ‘Quins fans everywhere)
Cover blown; trollish distractions no longer scoring ‘goals’ for Hockey Team … time for a ‘make-over’ Bri …
.
John Whitman says:
In any school of journalism, is there any explicit teaching about higher goals to be pursued journalistically for the benefit of saving to earth (ideological environmentalism).
++++++++
In Hollywood it is the norm for the hero/heroine to resign, hand in their badge and hunt the perp on their own. America loves heroes and expects progress to come from them. Thus there is a strong preference to bend the rules when the outcome is a foregone conclusion in favour of their prejudices.
The problems come when that conclusion turns out not to be so sure, or the hero has holes in their moral socks. Philosophically it is a version of ‘history is written by the winner’.
With climate science the thumbs are pressing so hard on the scales to maintain gravitas that it is now a foregone conclusion there are going to be some very hard falls and red faces.
Yawn…
crosspatch says:
August 6, 2011 at 12:11 pm
“…I would want the police unit involved to explain in fine detail to the citizens of the UK exactly how the information contained in those “police files” come in to the possession of The Guardian.”
#%#& that. Prosecute them. Too many times have “law enforcement” been placed on a pedestal with more rights and importance than the citizenry they are supposed to be working for. Time and time again you see cases where the penalties issued against criminals are MORE severe simply because the victim happened to have been a police officer.
If they are that important, then the penalty for THEM being the criminal should be logarithmically MORE severe.
Fate it seems, is not without a sense of irony. – Morpheus
(Sorry this is OT tips and notes isn’t working and I think this is important)
An independent environment agency could be set up in Northern Ireland
What’s next for Northern Ireland? a full-blown carbon tax and the setup of a price on carbon??
will there really be unelected people taking decisions on behalf of the people there influenced by Friends of the Earth and their Man Made Climate Change fraud to be enforced and regulated by environmental soviet style green police?
I think it will be a disaster for the Northern Ireland population of an estimated 1.8 million people.
Background
[In 2008 then Environment Minister Arlene Foster said there would be no independent Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The main demand for one came from various environmental non-governmental organizations. At the time Ms Foster said: “I’m opposed to the setting-up of yet more quangos where unelected people take decisions on behalf of the people.”]
Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/back-on-table-environmental-watchdog-plan-16033182.html
It seems that a Climate Change Levy is slowly being introduced undemocratically to Northern Ireland.
“From 1 April 2011, the exemption for supplies of natural gas in Northern Ireland has been removed and replaced with a lower rate of CCL. A lower rate will apply until 31 October 2013. From 1 November 2013, supplies of gas will be subject to the main rate of CCL. From 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012, this lower rate of levy is set at 0.059 pence per kilowatt hour.”
And after 31 October 2013 Northern Ireland will enjoy a full blown Carbon Tax!
http://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1074404189&r.l1=1079068363&r.l2=1086021901&r.l3=1074403838&r.s=sc&site=191&type=RESOURCES
In the UK? Are you serious? Never happen.
High five to Guido Fawkes for breaking the story. By the way, Leigh also used Guido’s real name in a Tweet
David Leigh@davidleigh3
David Leigh
“Some clown called Harry Cole aka Guido Fawkes says I’m having a go at him because he has an embarassing tale abt me. Dream on, son”
July 11, 2011 4:36 pm
It appears Leigh likes to out peoples real names as a threat just the same is he did with Jeff Id!
http://order-order.com/2011/08/05/david-leigh-the-guardians-hacker-in-chief-lied-to-guido/
Pete H said
“High five to Guido Fawkes for breaking the story. By the way, Leigh also used Guido’s real name in a Tweet
David Leigh@davidleigh3
David Leigh
“Some clown called Harry Cole aka Guido Fawkes says I’m having a go at him because he has an embarassing tale abt me. Dream on, son”
July 11, 2011 4:36 pm
It appears Leigh likes to out peoples real names as a threat just the same is he did with Jeff Id!
* * *
Great catch Pete! Congrats!
The difference is, by outing opponents, he thinks that any supposed dirty laundry is going to be aired. Of course, those on to him have nothing to hide.
He does.
“I was looking for evidence of bribery and corruption”
Startling is it not, how easily any sin can be justified simply by wrapping oneself in the cloak of morality?