From the there’s “nothing to see here and my lawyer says so too” department, we have news that Dr. Michael Mann really doesn’t want those UVA emails to get sunlight. From ATI:
‘Hockey Stick’ Creator Michael Mann Seeks Court’s Help to Ensure No Inquiry, No ‘Exoneration’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Contact: Paul Chesser, Executive Director, paul.chesser@atinstitute.org
Dr. Michael Mann, lead author of the discredited “hockey stick” graph that was once hailed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the “smoking gun” of the catastrophic man-made global warming theory, has asked to intervene in American Tradition Institute’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that seeks certain records produced by Mann and others while he was at the University of Virginia, for the purpose of keeping them hidden from the taxpayer.
Specifically over the weekend ATI’s Environmental Law Center received service from two Pennsylvania attorneys who seek the court’s permission to argue for Dr. Mann to intervene in ATI’s case. The attorneys also filed a motion to stay production of documents still withheld by UVA, which are to be provided to ATI’s lawyers in roughly two weeks under a protective order that UVA voluntarily agreed to in May. Dr. Mann’s lawyers also desire a hearing in mid-September, in an effort to further delay UVA’s scheduled production of records under the order.
Dr. Mann’s argument, distilled, is that the court must bend the rules to allow him to block implementation of a transparency law, so as to shield his sensibilities from offense once the taxpayer – on whose dime he subsists – sees the methods he employed to advance the global warming theory and related policies. ATI’s Environmental Law Center is not sympathetic.
“Dr. Mann’s late-hour tactics offer the spectacle of someone who relies on the media’s repeats of his untrue claims of having been ‘investigated’ and ‘exonerated’ – that is, when he’s not sputtering ad hominem and conspiracy theories to change the subject,” said Christopher Horner, director of litigation for ATI’s Environmental Law Center. “Mann has tried whatever means possible to ensure he remains free of any serious scrutiny, and this just appears to be his last gasp.”
Dr. Mann’s move is therefore gratifying, and ATI will agree to his out-of-state lawyers’ motion to appear. But ATI will ask the court to uphold Virginia’s abundantly clear law, that Dr. Mann has no interest in records that are purely the property of the taxpayer.
ATI will present to the court how Dr. Mann understood, as an unambiguous and agreed-upon condition of his employment, that he had no expectation of privacy when he used UVA’s public email system. ATI therefore looks forward to seeing if, given the opportunity, UVA will defend the idea that any of its own policies be upheld in court. Since Dr. Mann has no property interest in the taxpayer-owned records sought by ATI, he has no standing and therefore should not be entered in the case. Dr. Mann wants, after the fact, for UVA to throw out policies he accepted as a condition of living off of taxpayer dollars, in order to cover up public information and to evade scrutiny.
To the extent Dr. Mann, the university, or their obstructionist backers like Union of Concerned Scientists continue to argue he has been “cleared” or “exonerated,” or that any substantive investigation has taken place, those pleadings are undermined by their persistent efforts to squelch inquiry. As a result, all the public sees is an effort to sweep Climategate revelations under the rug in order to preserve the biggest taxpayer-financed gravy train for science and academia in decades. Hence we see the Rasmussen Reports poll last month that showed a strong majority of the public believes scientists who study climate change have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs.
“Virginia’s courts do not brook conspiracy theories as the basis for intervention in run-of-the-mill Freedom of Information Act litigation,” said Dr. David Schnare, director of ATI’s Environmental Law Center. “Dr. Mann – having failed to prevail in the court of public opinion – cannot now strut into court, soap box in hand, and expect a warm welcome.”
See case documents, press releases, media coverage, commentary, broadcast interviews, etc. pertaining to ATI v. University of Virginia by clicking here: http://bit.ly/mLZLXC
For an interview with Environmental Law Center director Dr. David Schnare or director of litigation Christopher Horner, email paul.chesser@atinstitute.org or call (202)670-2680.
Follow ATI on Twitter: http://twitter.atinstitute.org
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Who’s paying for these attorneys?
The “if you have nothing to hide” crowd is wrong. You never talk to the police. Never never never. Innocent as a new born babe, you still never consent to a search. You don’t volunteer any information that could possibly implicate you. You cannot “vidicate” yourself. You can only dig for yourself a deeper hole.
Now, Mann has done work with taxpayer funds… IMHO that’s public property so he is not entitled to any sort of protection. It’s not “his” to begin with. I just don’t like the pretentious attitude of the above and all it’s liberty-destroying innuendos.
Wade says:
September 6, 2011 at 4:41 pm
The “if you have nothing to hide” argument is an argument for tyranny.
===========
/signed
A comment I just posted on BH.
——————
A little parody, strictly a parody and nothing but a parody, really/
Scene: a US federal courtroom
Judge says – “How does the defendant plead?”
Defense Attorney – “Mr. Mannikin pleads not guilty, your honor.”
Judge – “Prosecution, are you ready to proceed with the trial?”
Prosecutor – “Yes, your honor. We would like to call forth . . . . . ”
There is an altercation and interruption from the defense table.
The defendant stands up indignantly.
The defendant shouts – “Wait a minute! I said I wasn’t guilty. That’s it. There shouldn’t be a trial. I said I am not guilty. That worked in all the other investigations I was exposed to. My word is the final truth in all these matters.”
The scene fades as the MSM rush out of the courtroom saying over their cellphones in urgent tones that the defendant is not guilty . . . .
End of the parody, which I swear is just a parody . . . . honestly, on my ancestor’s graves it is./
: )
John
Maybe Mann has something else to hide, like comments about his wife, girlfriend or whatever. There may be some revealing, deeply personal and embarrassing tidbits in some of his emails. Or maybe not.
Why doesn’t he take out a huge billboard or full page add in papers saying….”I’m hiding something”. Okay, I guess he has pretty much done that now anyway.
Another factor in Mike Mann’s attemped insinuation into Virginia’s FOI
law and disclosure process is those other “institutions” and “investigatory
bodies” that have issued “exonerations” to the Climategate Team members
like grocery coupons.
Undoubtedly Mann’s e-mail collection will also involve correspondents
like Phil Jones, Ray Bradley, Kevin Trenberth, Tom Karl, Ben Santer, etc.
These folks have their respective personal reputations, professional
affiliations and institutional standings to protect.
MPaul:
As I predicted a couple weeks ago, Mann will try to get a declaration
of his standing in the ATI/UofV agreement. When he’s ruled to not have
any legal standing, he’ll try to take that ruling to an appeals court… and maybe
get an injunction to stop the FOI process while the question flutters around the
court system.
The more people (law firms, court employees, etc.) involved with those e-mails,
the more likely someone not directly affiliated with either the University
of Virginia’s or ATI’s legal teams will let out an e-mail or two so Mann can yell,
“I told you so ! It’s persecution ! It’s a political witch hunt ! It’s… “
Fighting a subpoena Duces Tucem ( document production) is very hard, and if the lawyers (not Mann’s) do their job, cross their t’s and dot their i’s, it should all work out well as to getting those documents, as a matter of law.
I have had some experience in this area and Mann’s side can delay but not deny the documents sought as long as the other side can prove compelling need, good cause and not ask for every piece of paper in the universe! A slow slam dunk is my prediction.
R.S.Brown, over at Bishophill I’ve been musing on the idea that Mann might be planning a constitutional challenge to FOIA. This would allow Mann to assert standing by arguing that his individual constitutional rights are infringed by ATI’s action. I doubt that the court will see much merit in his argument, but never the less, it gives him a way to slow things down with a very long avenue for appeal. Since this issue is, no doubt, a fund raising bonanza for Mann’s underwriters, money should not be a problem on Mann’s side.
In their Motion of Notice to Intervene, they write:
“20. Dr. Mann’s First Amendment constitution right to academic freedom is at severe risk in this case. See Sweezy vs. New Hampshire, 354 U.S.234, 250 (1959)”
Their citation of Sweezy v New Hampshire is a bit odd, but at this point I think they are merely looking to hang their hat on any available hook.
I love science and I hate how jerks like Mann are ruining its reputation. Live by the credo of science or find some other job. He doesn’t work for the secret police.
Julian in Wales says:
September 7, 2011 at 3:55 am
Mann is liability to the AGW cause. They should have distanced themselves from his work after Steve Macintyre made his assessment of the hockey stick and rubbished his cherry picking methods. They should have distanced themselves from Pachauri after he made his ill-judged remark about “Voodoo Science”, and after his links to TERI had been exposed. They should have distanced themselves from Phil Jones after they read his climategate emails about knobbling the peer review proces and the Harry Read Me notes.
Now they have to take the consequences for not throwing out the bad apples. No one is going to believe that the whole tub has not been contaminated by the company they choose to keep.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Great Idea, everyone knows that the consensus is in…
(Goes over to the AGW barrel of apples)
Ok, Micheal Mann bad apple, lots more in here…
Hmmm James Hansen bad apple.
Keith Briffa bad apple.
Phil Jones bad apple.
Kevin Trenberth bad apple.
Eric Steig bad apple.
Gavin Schmidt bad apple.
Wow, a whole barrel of apples that were bad.
Tell me that doesn’t make AGW bad as well.
What in the world are in those e-mails that Mann so desperately wants to keep hidden???? Makes one wonder. Who’s paying for his lawyers by the way?
I suspect he may have a civil or criminal liability concern hence the need to lawyer up.
Wouldn’t it be much simpler and more effective to contact Julian Assange and have him upload all that information to wikileaks? No lawyers required. And the radical liberals will stand behind him and applaud the action. A win-win for everyone!
If, as his defence claim, that all enquiries have exonorated him from any malfeasance in the creation of his Hockey Stick on AGW, then why would he wish to go to such lengths to keep details of his research under wraps?
Results of a recent Scientific American poll: click
I suspect there’s some dirt in the emails but nothing that disproves AGW. I think Mann doesn’t want anyone to see that he abused the email system. Maybe it would be best that they clean the emails (i think this would be illegal, but so what), otherwise hte deniers will just use this to smear one of the big players. It’s unnecessary. Seems like someone could make some software to go through the emails and look for keywords and then have those emails looked through by some eyes to remove portions that don’t belong.
In the USA, taxpayers don’t get any share of anything patented from public research funds. Under current laws, a private company could not get an uncontested patent from poaching that research. The problem is with countries like China, where our patent laws are not respected.
The patent-reform being pushed in the USA would change this. It appears we want to move from a “first to invent” patent system to a “first to file” system, in which case your concerns about patent poached would likely be warranted. Don’t ask me how this proposed reform is actually an improvement.
Smokey says: September 8, 2011 at 6:25 am
Results of a recent Scientific American poll: click
Amazing Smokey. Considering the crap they publish and write erroneous hysterical headlines about,
I am surprised that they still have something of a thinking readership. I gave up on SciAm about 15 years ago.
Smokey says:
September 8, 2011 at 6:25 am
Results of a recent Scientific American poll: click
Nice one Smokey, presumably the readers of Scientific American are scientifically literate which would not make a poll like this a nail in the coffin for the IPCC, but several nails, with the lid thrown in for good measure!