UPDATE: 12/21/11 4PM -BBC covers Tallbloke, finally, Richard Black still silent- Norfolk constabulary to share hand-off Climategate investigation, and Greg Laden caves – see below
Dec 14th -The first blogger to break the Climategate2 story has had a visit from the police and has had his computers seized. Tallbloke’s Talkshop first reported on CG2 due to the timing of the release being overnight in the USA. Today he was raided by six UK police (Norfolk Constabulary and Metropolitan police) and several of his computers were seized as evidence. He writes:
After surveying my ancient stack of Sun Sparcstations and PII 400 pc’s, they ended up settling for two laptops and an adsl broadband router. I’m blogging this post via my mobile.
That means his cellphone. In his blog report are all the details. including actions in the US involving WordPress and the US Department of Justice. Jeff Id at The Air Vent also has a report here.
Strange and troubling that they’d seize his computers for comments dropped onto a US service (wordpress.com) from the cloud. There wouldn’t be any record on his PC’s of the event from FOIA’s placing comments, that would be in the wordpress.com server logs.
Either there’s more than meets the eye or they have no idea how the blog system works.
UPDATE: I’ve been in contact with Roger (Tallbloke) and he tells me that he is not a suspect, and that they’ll clone his hard drives and return the computers to him. – Anthony
UPDATE2: 12/15/9AM It seems that the story has gone viral on blogs. Four skeptic blogs are in the top ten of all WordPress blogs today. While I’ve seen 2 at a time on CG1 and CG2, four has never happened before. This is from my wordpress.com dashboard:
From top to bottom, WUWT, The Air Vent, Tallbloke’s Talkshop, Climate Audit.
UPDATE3: Delingpole in the Telegraph thinks its going to escalate
UPDATE4: Horner in The Washington Examiner weighs in
UPDATE5: The Guardian picks up on the story here
UPDATE6: Jo Nova suggests it is a form of intimidation
UPDATE7: Josh weighs in with two cartoons
UPDATE8: Greg Laden on Scienceblogs accuses Tallbloke of being a “criminal” – a claim really over the line and over the top. Clearly this is outside of the Code of Conduct for Scienceblogs.com (contact page here) Of course, after reading the rant of hate this man has for anyone not like him, especially Americans in some states, I suppose it’s just another day for him. Update: I sent off a complaint to the editors of Sb about this, and it appears that Laden has been asked to remove the libelous language, though the post remains as does his hateful attitude in comments.
UPDATE9: Lord Monckton to pursue fraud charges against Climategate scientists: Will present to police the case for ‘numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud’
Monckton: ‘I have begun drafting a memorandum for prosecuting authorities…to establish…the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official ‘global warming’ storyline…they will act, for that is what the law requires them to do’
Story at ClimateDepot here
UPDATE10: More than a couple of people have asked me about computer security in the last couple of days, especially after the Tallbloke raid incident.
I’m offering a simple security solution for those that want to protect their files: a USB flash drive with built in hardware security. See it here
UPDATE11: A copy of the search warrant can be seen at Climate Audit
UPDATE 12: The BBC’s Richard Black is silent, probably because he can’t “… find an angle that will allow the BBC to maintain the usual warmists good, sceptics bad holding pattern”.
UPDATE13: Tallbloke apparently is going to take legal action against ScienceBlogs and blogger Greg Laden over his libelous article (now modified to not be libelous) accusing Tallbloke of being involved in criminal activity, and is soliciting barristers. Laden says on his blog in comments:
“I think he’s a criminal for being a climate denialist. Sue me. “
Looks like Greg Laden will get his wish.
UPDATE14: Rep Markey has an “off with their heads” moment, Jeff Id explains how the connections being made are preposterous.
UPDATE15: Tallbloke has decided to take the libel issue with Laden to tort. A letter from his attorney is posted.
UPDATE16: Planetsave makes another libel with the headline: “Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?” The clueless writer, Zachary Shahan, is about as far away from understanding journalism as anyone I’ve seen. He’s in for a nasty surprise as Tallbloke has added him to the tort list.
UPDATE18: UK cartoonist “Fenbeagle” has done up a Star Wars parody in the vein of The Empire Strikes Back. Mike Mann, Phil Jones, Jawas, and a Wookie are featured.
UPDATE19: Tom Nelson points out that Laden seems to have caved to impending legal action: Warmist Greg Laden: Did I say that tallbloke is a criminal? I meant he’s not a criminal. Details here
UPDATE20: Tallbloke reflects on the solstice and says that questions are starting to be asked in the UK.
UPDATE21: Tallbloke reports that:
In a sudden new development, your correspondent has learned that Norfolk Constabulary have decided that climategate is too big for them to handle. According to an un-named source, they intend to hand over the inquiry to another force.
This follows on the heels of a ‘request for a contact’ at Norfolk Constabulary by Lord Christopher Monckton in connection with his intention to have the police investigate revelations in the ‘climategate’ emails placed in the public domain.
UPDATE22: Donna LeFramboise writes in the Financial Post:
This is all rather chilling. It appears that being the proprietor of a blog in which strangers leave links pointing to material on third-party websites now exposes one to being raided by the police.
UPDATE23: The BBC finally gets around to covering the seizure episode almost a week later, unsurprisingly, the very biased Richard Black isn’t the reporter.
or they have no idea how the blog system works.
============
….thumbsup
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Somehow I don’t think they have a clue what they are doing.
Alright, where’s the decryption key for the rest…
The UK press needs to start demanding answers fast. First question: what is he suspected of?
Stashing up on popcorn, will the password phrase to the next load of emails soon be presented, oh the merry musings …
Hie thee to the Cloud! What will they confiscate then?
Sounds like they are grasping at straws in response to pressure from the warmists that was in the media not long after the announcement of ClimateGate2.
This is truly frightening. If they can get away with this, what next?
Ir is not clear from this post what it is alleged that the blogger did wrong.
What is the charge against him?
Personal experience has shown me that what cops don’t know, they lie about. And what they do know, they lie about.
Sorry Tallbloke – perhaps the UK police aught to read YOUR Climategate 1.0 and Climategate 2.0 emails and then lay criminal charges against the East Anglia criminals instead of going after an innocence fellow. The real criminals are at East Anglia and their co-conspirators at the BBC and the Guardian.
Jeff says it is coordinated:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/crackdown-shooting-in-the-dark/
Rest easy: This is mostly for show to demonstrate that the gov takes the leaks seriously. But in reality they do not really want to apprehend the culprit(s) because they would need to charge them with some crime or other. This would likely produce a ‘trial of the century’ in which the defendant would be branded as the worst criminal since (fill in the blank), while being hailed as hero by skeptics aroudn the world. Famous lawyers would rush to be chosen to defend the case. And here is the rub: The media would be forced to cover the case, and this is the last thing the gov wants.
Seems like a “show” to me. They are under pressure to investigate, and so their doing something to show their bosses that….they’re doing something.
There’s a couple of possibilities I suppose. They could suspect that Tallbloke is liberator of the CG2 emails, and they want to see if there is any evidence to that effect on his computers. Of course, anyone bright enough to liberate that many emails over that period of time and get them onto multiple blogs from a server in Russia that can’t be traced any further backward to the source, ought to be bright enough to not leave the evidence in their home laptop.
I don’t know what the law is in the UK regarding this, but I for one would have refused to allow access to my computers until I had taken a complete image of all drives and copied them to backup media under the supervision of a legal representative who would then sequester the backup copy for future reference. If the investigation turns up something “incriminating”, I’d then have the backup copy in my lawyer’s vault to refer to and ensure nothing had been changed on my computer after it left my possession.
Three years ago I would have poo poo’d the need to do something like that in regard to an investigation by a 1st world police force. Now, I’m not so certain.
https://www.facebook.com/norfolkpolice?sk=wall Facebook page, if anyone is interested.
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.
Who? These guys?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/12/14/ooops-eric-holders-doj-misses-litigation-deadline-in-voting-case/#comment-217875
They’ll “fit him up” meaning that the cops and the media and probably some sleazy politician will have arranged to frame him as a cyber terrorist. He’ll be the main suspect in the hacking of UAE and the MSM will have him convicted within a week. This is a scary scenario for him. Good luck Tall Bloke.
George Orwell was only off by about 27 years!
That ….. is appalling. UK police can now steal citizen’s property. And for what? To save someone’s life in an emergency? No. For being a skeptic blogger.
Wonder if any of the AGW gang will visit Norfolk police and steal their computers.
I think since the 7/7 bombings, the UK government allows the police to do just about anything under the guise of protecting us from terrorism. Letting police terrorise citizens to save them from terrorism goes without saying.
Hmmm … interesting times …
This could be just what’s required to spark “lame stream media” interest in ClimateGate 2.0
(To date, their silence has been deafening)
Meanwhile in the US, maybe Darryl Issa can add this to the gunrunner business next time he has Holder on the griddle?
Now, they’ll come for his cellphone.
So, Anthony, what was the actual timeline of the ClimateGate2 news breaking? Were the files posted somewhere, and Tallbloke happened to stumble onto it? Or did he receive a notification from someone? Do the UK police somehow suspect him of being involved in breaking into the UEA email servers, just because he blogged about the file posting first?
Actually, about 6/20ths of his computers were seized.
Search warrants require a magistrate to see evidence of some crime. Did anybody tell him what the charge was? Under an extradition treaty signed by Blair, it is enough for the US authorities to announce that they want a UK citizen arrested, and no judge has to see the evidence they may have; extradition is almost automatic. Perhaps the US Department of Justice can get a UK search warrant on the same basis?
They took away a DSL router? That would only be done by “experts” to frustrate access to the Internet.
And I would ask commentators not to refer to his mobile phone as a “cellphone”. The bloke’s not yet been incarcerated.
Evidently the powers that be have decided that it is time to harass a few bloggers, shake a few trees, and see if any cherries fall into their grubby little clutching fingers.
Sadly, I usually respect and support the police, but in this case, I feel the chances of Tallbloke being an actual perp are smaller then Micheal Mann admitting that his hokey stick is fraud from start to finish. One wonders where the authorities are planning on going with this…
Paging………. Mr. Holms and Mr. Watson
I’m glad to hear that. However. I hope you have a lawyer just in case this gets more “interesting”.
It makes one wonder if the encrypted part of the CG2 dump is thought to contain something that would make various politicians lives difficult. Someone in authority must be in a cold sweat to bend rules like this.
Nick, what did you do?
The only way the “Enviroalitarians”, “PoliticalCorrectnessPolice” and the supporting media interests are going to get their agenda moving to where they want it to go is to get all Orwellian.
They’re making every attempt at it.
This raid is practice and a fishing exercise I’m guessing.
How many in the raid? 8-10 Your joking?! For a computer geek with, supposedly, sources to some more nerds email’s? Nup, doesn’t work for me.
And to trace the traffic to and from a Russian server? You have to get hold of that Russian server. Good luck with that. 🙂
I’m open to be convinced otherwise, that’s what reasoned argument and evidence do, change your mind. 🙂
There’s something else going here. Dunno what, but I’m strugglin’ with “tallbloke” being FOIA.
Who’s next, though? 🙂
The brown shirts have risen to strike again.
tallbloke says: December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Historical reference: “Yes, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”
Did they give any indication of just what it was they thought they might find? And, if you can talk about it, just what was that about the USDoJ?
Good Luck and keep in touch.
You need legal advice NOW, maybe there are some members of this blog who close to you with connection to a lawyer or may be one. Not a bad idea to get the media involved also.
What could they possibly hope to achieve from this action? The documents are out of the bag now.
Good luck and stay safe.
So did Penn State and East Anglia get similar letters …. ? How about Realclimate?
Looks like a fishing expedition, wonder where their gear is. And who is Kendra?
Clone them yourself when they are returned, and check them for malware and keystroke loggers. Time to change all your passwords.
I guess it was only 2 20ths of his computers.
As for the DSL router, they’re a dime a dozen. I have two spares sitting on a shelf. Routers hold no data, just access codes and linkage admin setup.
As BradProp1 says – from personal experience I can say that lying comes easy to coppers. I know a police sergeant very well. Went round his house once and noticed that he had another PCs pocketbook on his kitchen table. When I asked him why it was there he told me that a case that he had dealt with along with this PC was due in court next week and he hadnt made any pocket book notes at the time of the incident so he was copying them from the PCs notebook to be prepared for court – at which hearing he no doubt answered the age old question “Were these notes made at the time of the incident” with the angelic “Yes”.
I wish you the best of luck Tallbloke – although I cannot bear the fact that a copper can come round to your house, polite or not, tell you that you are not a suspect in any crime, but still cart off your personal property. I dread to say it, but lets just see if any kiddie porn is “found” on your computer.
First, they came for the skeptics….
[snip – let’s keep it relevant to what actually happened – Anthony]
Cheers
Big Dave
No one expects the Mannish Inquisition…
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSe38dzJYkY ]
Kendra Ervin is a University of Virginia alumnus … 6 degrees of separation or less. Has a computer science, math, economics and law degree.
Kendra Ervin
Trial Attorney, Criminal Division, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section at U.S. Department of Justice
Washington D.C. Metro Area Law Practice
Current
Trial Attorney, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section at U.S. Department of Justice
Past
Associate at Williams & Connolly
Law Clerk to the Honorable Alvin A. Schall at United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company
Education
University of Virginia School of Law
Emory University
Connections
285 connections
Kendra Ervin’s Experience
Trial Attorney, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section
U.S. Department of Justice
August 2010 – Present (1 year 5 months)
Associate
Williams & Connolly
Partnership; 201-500 employees; Law Practice industry
October 2007 – July 2010 (2 years 10 months)
Law Clerk to the Honorable Alvin A. Schall
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Judiciary industry
2006 – 2007 (1 year)
Business Analyst
McKinsey & Company
Partnership; 10,001+ employees; Management Consulting industry
2001 – 2002 (1 year)
Kendra Ervin’s Education
University of Virginia School of Law
2003 – 2006
Emory University
2001, B.S. Computer Science/Math and Economics
1997 – 2001
The internet never forgets, if someone is trying to suppress information, this is possibly the worst strategy one could take.
It just feeds the fire, and puts an added focus on the rights of the accused.
Note to the investigators:
Everybody is watching, and it might be best assumed, they know/or will know the exact timeline of all communications in the course of the investigation.
Be very, very careful what you say.
Every detail will be closely examined.
The DOJ, huh? I guess between lamely trying to cover their exposed tails in the “Fast and Furious” debacle and trying to prevent various states from enforcing their state laws to stem illegal immigration (which Holder’s DOJ champions) they have enough time to mess with wordpress and skeptical bloggers to attempt to give comfort to the bruised egos of The Team. I think I’ll throw up…
DSL routers contain MAC addresses and in some cases log files showing connections.
I do whole heartily agree with those who said – GET A LAWYER IMMEDIATELY. Say NOTHING, NOTHING! And you ARE a suspect otherwise the cops would NOT have taken YOUR computers for study. For God’s sake find out your rights! Protest yourself – no one else can do that right now except YOU.
@tallbloke – Unless the law has changed drastically since I left the UK, they need a warrant to search your property and relieve you of any of the said property.
They should have given you a copy of this, and it should list the reasons for its issue.
Would be interesting to see what excuse they used.
.. pour encourager les autres.
“In this country, it’s good to intimidate a blogger from time to time, to encourage the others.”
With apologies to Voltaire.
Dissent needs to be managed and controlled.
good advice from alvin.
the router is probably for the mac address to trace some traffic.
obviously, they descended upon TB in a gang to investigate allegations of innocence.
I would surely want my own copy before handing over my personal files.
CG2 must have had a bigger impact on the warmistas than we thought (or that the MSM has admitted). Maybe they’re just mad that COP17 was a bust and Durban will forever have a negative reputation when it comes to tourist appeal.
There was a time when I thought my government stood for justice and that we were on the side of “the good guys”. This is heartbreaking in so many ways.
“They say I am not a suspect for any crime.”
Then what reason did they have for doing what they did, Tallbloke?
I thought both our legal systems were based on English common law, but y’all’s is certainly different from ours. 🙁
So…. Anthony….anyone at your door yet?
FOIA posted on your blog….so one would think they’d come look at your computers too? At work and at home? If not….why Tallbloke’s and not yours? the various comments indicate coordination with the US…
But if there is any “real” information to be found, I’d think they’d need to start with the WordPress servers and logs. Anyone work there? Or across the street from “there”? Wherever “there” is?
Just because you’re not guilty doesn’t mean you won’t be prosecuted. Meaningless accusations are made everyday and it cost money just to protect yourself from falsehoods. Hope you know an attorney who will look out for your interest and not bankrupt you in the process.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
I love the way you say [mobile] that means cellphone…
Do any of you really need a translation of ‘mobile’?
It reveals FEAR,…but fear of what? Going after some bloggers will make possible “Global Warming? LOL!!! Or…is it something bigger behind?. Anyway it´s useless: What will be will be if the greatest “conspirer” (God) wants it. Really childish.
Barbara Skolaut says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:52 pm
“They say I am not a suspect for any crime.”
Then what reason did they have for doing what they did, Tallbloke?>>>
They didn’t charge him with anything, and I doubt if they will. Executing a search warrant to seek evidence is just a legal search for evidence. I think under common law if he was a suspect they’d have to inform him that he was a suspect.
It isn’t any different than there’s a body found at the bottom of a high rise. There’s no doubt that the police could show up with search warrants for each and every apartment above the body. Searching for evidence in each and every apartment in that fashion would be a pretty logical thing to do, and one would be just searching for evidence, not charging every single apartment dweller with a crime.
At best, they’re shooting in the dark, hoping for some clue or corroborating evidence on Tallbloke’s computers. At worst, they’re just hopelessly and completely clueless about how to investigate something like this.
“Fahrenheit 451” or:
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
Clearly, the police believe that there was more communication between Tallbloke and the originator of the FOIA “Climategate” releases.
Its NOT the police!
Obviously its the gouvernments national intelligence services in action hiding behind the police. They are trying to get hold of “FOIA”. The gouverments are [SNIP! -REP] afraid of what´s in the remaining..encrypted e.mails. There is more here on the line here for the western gouvenrments and the UN and EU than most understand. To find anything that can discredit any sceptic is what they are seeking. They are trying to register all “oppositional” individuals watch your doors and instruct your children NOT to disclose what your familys opinion is on the issue. Dark days are here my friends very dark days. Whos the first sceptic to go to jail for his opinion?
Odd that IPCC is asserting exemption from FOI laws and someone who would like to know what they’ve been up to is having his computer seized.
1. While the ADSL router may have it’s own MAC address, the moment they pulled the plug all running data in RAM was lost. Logs have to be directed to another server’s “syslog” service in order to save it. The manufacturers prefer to save the limited number of writes of the FLASH RAM for firmware updates and config changes.
2. It’s quite possible though the ISP saved something on their end…
3. I suspect that the encrypted portion may not be exclusively emails focused on the usual gimmicks – but rather – they identify 6-12 individuals world wide who are enablers, backers, and financiers of Mann and Co. A few very high up-politicians, a few very high level CEO’s in league with those politicians, some of whom may be CEO’s of energy companies besides your usual Green fanatics and Soros types.
4. n++; what everyone else has said, “Get a lawyer immediately!” They don’t give a damn about your guilt of innocence.
5. EVERYONE!: Put aside $5.00, or $10.00 bucks if you can spare it. Charity season is upon us…
=8-)
“tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.”
Just don’t say ANYTHING to them, reserve the right to remain silent!!!
The Air Vent’s main page is now down. Though you can still reach it through the archive page for December 2011.
FOIA:
They have drawn “first blood”… repeat “first blood”. The fox has the hen… repeat the fox has the hen… end of message. GK
They are probably looking – in a ham fisted way – looking for traces of FOIA’s IP address to trace it back to the original Climategate leaker. Of course he’d have used an anonymous VPN and a proxy to drop off any messages considering he was smart enough to elude them so long and they’ll come up with nothing.
Should we throw some money at Tallbloke? Maybe he could upgrade from those PDP-4s.
Seriously, if he’s out hardware, $50 from 50 people would solve the problem. And a copy of H.G. Wells 1984 😉
I have nothing to hide, but I still use PGP Whole Disk Encryption.
It’s his own fault for being tall.
But I would throw out anything returned. You never know what crap they put on it.
Ok, The Air Vent is back again.
“And then, they came for me.”
When you get your computers back have someone check them out very throughly. With the US DOJ involved, I would not trust any of them.
As several others have said – GET THEE TO A LAWYER!
The Police ARE your enemy – sad but true.
Still haven’t learned the proper definition of “skeptic”, Anthony. No wonder you’re you fall for onspiracy theories so easily.
God!
Very dark times indeed. I love how the watermelons claim that they are ‘pro-democarcy’.
Dark Days ahead…
Neo says:
“Clearly, the police believe that there was more communication between Tallbloke and the originator of the FOIA ‘Climategate’ releases.”
I wouldn’t know what the police believe, but even if it were true, so what?? Despite the protests from the Team’s water carriers, nothing was stolen. How could it be? What, exactly, is missing?
And what law says that the public that paid for those emails cannot read them? This probably isn’t the critical event, but sooner or later something will happen that pushes this entire issue into an adversarial setting, where documents can be subpoenaed, witnesses questioned under oath, and cross-examined. If the Mann/Jones climate clique is ever subjected to full-on legal discovery, the public will start to sit up straight and pay attention as the “Team’s” self-serving shenanigans come to light showing how they conspired to divert tax money into their pockets.
In other news we have this from Sacramento yesterday:
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2011/12/13/firearm-sales-way-up-during-holiday-season/
I just read the link above before checking WUWT for new posts. Imagine coming here this evening after reading this:
——
Firearm Sales Way Up During Holiday Season
“Black Friday sales were off the charts this year,” a TDS employee said.
FBI stats show the number of background checks done on Black Friday three years ago pales in comparison to the number done this year — a 32-percent jump.
“People are just coming in to protect themselves,” the employee said. “I think there’s just a lot of things going on in the world that are getting people thinking.”
——
Hope this isn’t over the top Anthony, but the “TDS employee” might be on to something here. Feel free to snip. Just sayin.
There are several troubling aspects to this.
For one, no cop is going to be dragging anything out of my house regardless of cause without a warrent. This is just common sense because as much as I want to cooperate, I do not trust cops who are under no obligation to ever tell the truth except to as their identities in official capacities.
Other then that, nada. They will take anything you give them and will attempt to take anything they can get without a warrent. They might be able to get a warrent, but the thing that really sounds fishy here is the involvement of the US DOJ.
I have no issues with terrorism and the US DOJ in general but this has nothing to do with them. This is a case of a UK citizin and a UK case involving a UK university so what the heck is the US DOJ doing mucking itself around in the UK’s dirty laundry?
That is what upsets me the most about this as an American and I can tell you that I will be for the second time calling my senetors tomorrow asking why our department of justice is singling out individuals in other countries to investigate for crimes that have nothing to do with the US and for all intensive purposes trashing the rights and the purposes of anti-terrorism agreements.
As for the UK common law, why in the world is the US interested in the first place? Isn’t this a UK issue? And what does it have to do with the US at all?
That is probably the most troubling aspect, the entire premise that the US is involved in any capacity whatsoever.
If this was the case of an American citizen, I could perhaps see the point and perhaps see the involvement therein.
But a UK citizen? There is more here then we know at the moment. It could be just simple harrassement or a simple fishing expedition (both of which are simply wrong legally and hence my case for calling for a warrent and then subsequent juriprudence)….and the involvement therein of the US DOJ.
Smells fishy. Kind of like Fast and Furious. I personally do not trust our justice department here in the states at all, so yea, we shall see what this entire escapade is about.
You know what they say about tall poppies ….
Would not be surprised that the HIGHEST levels in UK and USA government are involved in stopping further release of 220,000 emails by leaker because they were involved LOL
Haha they won’t have a clue what they’re doing, believe me! I used to live fairly close to the county of Norfolk and, lets just say, brains are in short supply.
Mind you they might learn something if they read enough sceptical blogs! I reckon someone is leaning on them to do something and this was all they could think of :o)
davidmhoffer says:
December 14, 2011 at 6:00 pm
========================
My understanding is that they need reasonable cause to suspect Tallbloke of being complicit in any crime … and then they can get a magistrate to sign a search warrant.
So, what is their “reasonable cause” ?
They’d have a lot more “reasonable cause” to execute a search warrant of the ‘The Team’ at the University of Easy Access for climate fraud.
Nothing more than harassment of innocent people because they can.
What was the reason for the seizure ?
Any explanation ?
Or was it the “inconvenient truth”.
Freedom Of Information is a bitch, and she still has some teeth.
Only a fool would confront her, considering her internet allies.
Well all you have to do is vote Obama out and Rick Perry/Newt Gingrich in haha. That will really end the whole thing quick with quite a few changes in The Justice Dept and EPA LOL
What crime is US DoJ investigating? Are they simply cooperating with UK?
Anteros says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:59 pm
=//=//=//=//=//=//=//=//=//=
Probably. In American, the adjective “mobile” isn’t used as a noun for any kind of action or object. That I can think of at the moment, anyway.
An amateur-radio licensee, operating a station away from the address on his/her license, would say (is required to say, I think) that they are operating mobile.
But to the ear of this linguistics-grad-school dropout, aged 57, the word carries a connotation of something requiring a vehicle.
A mobile laboratory, perhaps. (Accent on the first syllable, if you please.) Mobile pet grooming. Mobile windshield repair – they’ll come to your workplace and install a new … ehh … “windscreen” without requiring a trip to their shop.
In the recent past, “-mobile” was used as the second half of a compound noun invented by replacing “auto” with something else: “Junkmobile”. “Clownmobile” (small like those at the circus that emit more people than could possibly fit inside). “Lovemobile.”
Mobile is also, of course, an historic 310-year-old city in the state of Alabama.
But cell phone? No, not an obvious meaning for the word “mobile” in all parts of the “English”-speaking world. 😉
I’m totally flabbergasted and dismayed that the police can just barge in and nick private property of a private citizen in England. As others here have said – get a lawyer! This has to be in violation of your rights! Even making a copy of all your personal files and returning the computers is beyond the pale. I’m appalled beyond words.
fahrenheit 451 anyone?
I’m just curious. If you’re not a suspect, why were they awarded a search warrant for your house and go through your personal belongings. That seems like a pretty massive invasion of privacy for a ‘hunch’ that you may know something relevant to a criminal investigation.
I would lawyer up and if the authorities don’t give you satisfaction as to the reason why your privacy and belongings were taken, go to the press.
So how many computers have they been seizing at East Anglia? Or Russia?
If a search warrant has been issued, doesn’t it have to be related to an established offence?
The last murmurings that I heard from Norfolk Police was that there was no evidence of a crime/offence with the leaking of emails from CRU.
My theory- they are desperate to find the password – they are terrified that the rest of the emails get out. Just a theory
Tallbloke –
concerned for you, but wonder about the legality of the police action.
14 Dec: ScienceMag: Ralph Hall ( (R-TX) Speaks Out on Climate Change
by Jeffrey Mervis
The chair of the House of Representatives science committee doesn’t think much of the investigations exonerating the scientists involved in the 2009 Climategate e-mail scandal. He also believes that climate scientists are driven by hopes of financial gain in producing reports that provide evidence for global warming…
Ralph Hall in a statement to ScienceInsider expanding on his comments to the NJ: …
Recently released emails highlight many of the same concerns that initially emerged in the 2009 ‘ClimateGate’ emails – a small cadre of scientists coordinating advocacy rather than communicating uncertainty; manipulating journals rather than facilitating peer review; and cherry-picking data rather than following transparency principles, which is a central tenant (sic) of science. While several groups have investigated the actions associated with the ClimateGate emails, these straw-man reviews failed to address the real underlying allegations that continue to undermine the integrity of those involved…
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/12/ralph-hall-speaks-out-on-climate.html
Be aware that the returned computers may be loaded with key logger software.
“vigilantfish says:
December 14, 2011 at 6:53 pm”
As is the case now in Australia and New Zealand, the UK has been a police state for some considerable time.
It used to be:
I work for $$$
Then it was:
I work for fish
Then it was:
Will work for broadband
Now, the bobbies work for
the crazed climate hippie communists,
but I do so wonder, if in the end that, the peace bobbies would have acted all differently had they but focused on that slight sliver of information they already possessed but, apparently, all, ignored?
So what could poor Mr Tallbloke do, to counter sue? Or are the UK peace officers claiming war time laws?
Otherwise, in EU you have to be a suspect of a crime for the bobbies to nick you hard drive even. :p
A 2008 quote from the Samizdat blog:
I guess I’m a paranoid loon.
I am not sure but the appearance of threatening to release a boatload of emails may somehow constitute some form of extortion.
At 7:13 PM on 14 December, Bernie had written:
Well, bubbie, I am sure. The “appearance or threatening to release a boatload of emails” could only be considered “some form of extortion” if the person or persons with the power to release those e-mails demanded of the potentially embarrassed (or incriminated) parties some form of consideration.
No demand for payment – or a job, or suicide, or marriage to an ugly chick, or doing the White House Intern kneepad routine, or whatever – no “extortion.”
Now, if somebody were to cuddle up to Prof. Jones or Dr. Mann or Dr. Briffa and whisper: “Tierra del Fuego, for the rest of your life, and not even so much as a cell phone or Internet access; you’ve got one hour, and then get the hell out of here,” that would count as “extortion.”
Also a public health measure, but “extortion” nevertheless.
That help you achieve surety, Bernie?
I am Spartacus
Streetcred;
So, what is their “reasonable cause” ?
They’d have a lot more “reasonable cause” to execute a search warrant of the ‘The Team’ at the University of Easy Access for climate fraud.>>>
As to reasonable cause, I don’t have a clue, but I could think of many possible reasons that would be legit. As for investigating the UEA, what makes you think they haven’t?
It is likely that the UEA would have had to report to any number of governing and regulatory bodies that their security had been breached. For all we know, the board of regents (or directors or whatever universities in the UK have) asked for an investigation. Or maybe the executive of the UEA lodged a complaint. Or maybe the minister of education asked for an investigation. Who knows at this point? Based on the info we have, we’re shooting in the dark as to “why”
The easiest explanation in my mind is that UEA filed a report or possibly even a complaint that the police have to investigate. Being the experienced professionals they are, they most likely interviewed a whole pile of people at UEA and asked each of them “do you know of anyone you think might of done this?”. If even one person said, yeah, I think it was this Tallbloke guy, he’s kinda shifty and he’s been publicly critical of us just look at his blog” then they’d pretty much have to follow up that “lead” no matter how ridiculous they themselves thought it to be. In that context, securing the cooperation of the US Dept of Justice to investigate the WordPress IT infrastructure (my understanding being that WordPress hosts Tallbloke’s blog) would make perfect sense.
All that said, I could come up with a few other scenarios that make sense too. Investigating a cyber crime is a tricky thing, and the first rule of thumb is that all the evidence you collect from the computers themselves points to innocent parties. But you still have to follow the leads no matter how illogical.
[Moderator’s Note: My guess: it was the word “shooting”. -REP]
Alvin says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:38 pm
gnomish says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Unless he was directly connected to the Russian server, MAC addresses recorded by his router will not tell the police anything other than: the MAC address of his ISP and those of his local machines. This type of consumer device is comparatively simple and isn’t capable of logging anything more than that. Depending on how it was set up, there may not even be logs of those things. In order to get any real information on Internet browsing behaviour they would need logs from the ISP providing his connection. If a VPN was used? They will get nothing. (As any real hacker will tell you, the MAC address is easily faked, so even THAT record is pretty meaningless.) I suspect someone tech savvy enough to post this stuff on multiple Russian servers is well aware how MAC address spoofing, VPNs and proxy servers work. Unless the authorities were looking in EXACTLY the right place at EXACTLY the right time, there is very little chance of them finding FOIA. From a technical standpoint a lawyer who also has a degree in Computer Science should be well aware that there is nothing to find here. This strikes me as nothing but intimidation and harassment, and suggests that there is something to find: In the emails not yet released.
When standing tall in pursuing the truth hidden by the party line, citizens of police states have to expect such summary seizures. The only surprise here is where the invasion happened.
I can’t help but wonder if the govt already cracked that encrypted file, knows what is in it, and that is why they are doing this. It doesn’t make sense. Government doesn’t usually come to the aid of the perpetrators of fraud like this.
If I were Tallbloke, I wold never use those hardrives again. Probably full of virses & etc.
My guess? Look at the date on the letter, the letterhead, and the date of the “raid” on Tallbloke. This thing is originating here and the Brits were responding to a US request.
Yoikes, maybe the aniti government militia “nuts” have a point.
OK What ight did the police have to invade an Englishman’s home and raid his property?
Ed D.
As a Canadian, I recognize the word mobile to mean what is colloquially called a cell phone here in North America. but then I have 3 more years of experience than you do. Although, given the level of technology I want in a cellular phone, (make/receive calls only) I would be more inclined to think of his “mobile” as a “smart phone” as opposed to a “cell phone”. Back on topic, I like many others who have posted here would be interested in the contents of the legal documents presented by the police in order to confiscate the computers that they took.
Hope those other 220,000 emails get distributed widely … and soon.
I am Spartacus (the short Irish version)!
TomB says:
December 14, 2011 at 4:57 pm
This is truly frightening. If they can get away with this, what next?
Tom yes they can the UK is now a police state
I don’t know if other comments mention this (I haven’t had time to read them all at this stage) but the US Justice Dept involvement is, I suggest, also on behalf of the Norfolk/Metropolitan police. As major servers are based in the USA the only way a foreign policee force can get access to them and their records is via a US Warrant, undertaken by the DOJ on their behalf. This is a bilateral, country-to-country arrangement, Attorney-General to DOJ request with documentation etc.
As the police are finally going on this (probably for completeness, rather than really seeking evidence of the perpetrator), I suspect that similar requests would have been made (through WordPress) for information from Americam sceptical sites also.
Yea go ahead and clone my truecrypt file. Let me know how that works out for you sport.
What a bunch of dolts. The probably took the laptops because they were running windows and the sparc stations were running unix and they have less than no clue on that. On the windows ones they probably think they know but I’d wager a pile against them having an clue.
1984 is a bit late.
We should form a fund to help a) defend Tallbloke or b) sue the pants of the British police and government.
Notice this happened immediately after the collapse of Durban. I suspect a Cleggeron to be thrashing out, hoping to intimidate the skeptics.
“If I were Tallbloke, I wold never use those hardrives again.”
Not only that, I would not connect them to a system that runs the same OS they originally ran or Microsoft Windows. I would not trust them not to put a key logger or some other surveillance on it.
Of course, if the filesystem is encrypted, they will look like unformatted disks without even a directory structure.
Does this mean somebody is nervous about what is in the encrypted part of the newest file? If so, finding out who leaked/hacked the email isn’t going to do any good, The info is out there all it takes is 1 or more people who are instructed to release the pass phrase if the leaker is arrested. All the authorities can do is speed up the process.
Every thing will eventually come out and it will be worse than we thought.
Robert of Ottawa says:
December 14, 2011 at 7:32 pm
We should form a fund to help a) defend Tallbloke or b) sue the pants of the British police and government.
—–
I’m in!
Actually Gail Combs it isn’t that the police are your enemies. But instead to be accurate that the police are not your friend. At the end of the day they just want to find a bad guy and close their case. Sadly they are not always interested in who thy catch if they can just close a case.
It is for that reason you need to be careful talking to the police. Not that they are actively trying to do ill but that if they are negligent it can go so badly for you. Because things have gone pear shaped with cooperating with police in the past it is wiser to take some precautions when dealing with them simply to avoid putting either them or you in a bad position.
Hey wake up!!
This what the Attorney demands! :
This request applies to the following items, whether in
electronic or other form, including information stored on backup media, if available:
1. The contents of any communication or file stored by or for the Accounts and any
associated accounts, and any information associated with those communications or files,
such as the source and destination email addresses or IP addresses.
2. All records and other information relating to the Accounts and any associated accounts
including the following:
a. Names (including subscriber names, user names, and screen names);
b. Addresses (including mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses,
and e-mail addresses);
c. Local and long distance telephone connection records;
d. Records of session times and durations, and the temporarily assigned network
addresses (such as Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses) associated with those
sessions, including any log history of when username “FOIA” uploaded posts to
the Accounts;
e. Length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;
f. Telephone or instrument numbers (including MAC addresses);
g. Other subscriber numbers or identities (including the registration Internet Protocol
Well ! What information is she then NOT asking for? Dont open your door. McArthy was an amateur in comparence. They are mapping the hole sceptic community. Who think they wont save ALL information. Anyone who registred on the sites will be registred as “opposition”.
What are oyu all doing on Newe Years Eve? Wanna celebrate the New year 1985 anyone ?
Maybe someone have a big “animal farm” where we all can get together?
Does this mean that climate warming causes seizures?
I just donated at TallBloke’s Talkshop http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
He is probably going to need a legal fund.
The UN declare themselves above the law and then the law is used to invade the home of a private citizen and confiscate personal belongings. This is deeply troubling.
If I were Anthony Watts or any other high-profile anti-warmunist, I would be installing a very robust security system and have an attorney on speed-dial.
Robert E. Phelan says:
December 14, 2011 at 7:24 pm
My guess? Look at the date on the letter, the letterhead, and the date of the “raid” on Tallbloke. This thing is originating here and the Brits were responding to a US request.>>>
You’re right, it says Dec 9th. But it is addressed to the company that owns WordPress, directing them to preserve info regarding three blogs hosted by WordPress. Now, was that because of an investigation initiated in the United States? I sort of doubt it because there’s no crime (theoretical or otherwise) to investigate in the US in the first place. My guess would be that the investigation began in the UK, and that someone there asked the US DOJ to assist in securing information that may be relevant on the WordPress servers. If there are any electronic fingerprints to be had at all, the WordPress servers would be pretty much the first place to look, and my guess is that the DOJ is just doing as asked.
Norfolk Constabulary
Norfolk Police think that everyone should feel safe and all those who want to should be able to enjoy the festive season. That’s why today’s tip of our 12 tips of Christmas includes an important message – http://bit.ly/ssET0o
What about raiding Tallbloke’s Talkshop did he feel safe – the UK in 2011 has become 1984. Positively Disgusting.
Eco fascists at work…
Now we know how the Chinese feel.
could be about leaked stuff..maybe some [SNIP: Over the top. Sorry. -REP]
A warrant and 6 (SIX!) detectives… In my little town that would be one hell of a donut party.
You’re a better man than I Tallbloke. I’d be mad like six dogs right about now!
Hmmm, it sounds like opening a blog hosting service on an anonymous Russian server may be a business opportunity worth exploring…
The Evil Empire strikes back.
We should all enjoy the free flow of information on the net while it lasts.
Oh no! Not the Warmistani climate police.
The DoJ is pretty corrupt, just look at the gunwalker scandal. AG Holder should be fired, he could be impeached.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mann and Hansen convinced Democrats or the DoJ there is a “criminal” conspiracy to discredit him through the email leaks by the “climate denial machine”.
[SNIP: Max, really a bit provactive. -REP]
This is now serious. Of course, we had a prediction some years ago of G.B. becoming a garrison state, I think 27 years ago!
UPDATE: I’ve been in contact with Roger (Tallbloke) and he tells me that he is not a suspect, and that they’ll clone his hard drives and return the computers to him. – Anthony
================
And, wot will they provide to Tallbloke in return for the information, they gleaned from his computer.
I would imagine f-all, with a bill for the privilege.
Care to give us the details of your travails, hopefully a pint or two will be able to assuage the costs, incurred.
Just say the word.
“tallbloke on December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm said:
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.”
If a choice was given as to whether the disks could be taken and cloned then fine. If no choice was given then it seems that criminals and terrorists get more liberties than people who are not suspected of any crime. If so, I had better go commit a crime so I won’t be treated like a criminal.
I started wondering what the heck Title 18, United States Code, Section 2703(f) was…and google is a frightening thing sometimes:
———
(f) Requirement To Preserve Evidence.— (1) In general.— A provider of wire or electronic communication services or a remote computing service, upon the request of a governmental entity, shall take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession pending the issuance of a court order or other process.
(2) Period of retention.— Records referred to in paragraph (1) shall be retained for a period of 90 days, which shall be extended for an additional 90-day period upon a renewed request by the governmental entity.
——–
So….translating both the legaleeze and the technoleeze as best as I can, this isn’t actually a search warrant. It isn’t even a request for information. It is actually just an order to preserve any and all electronic information that WordPress has in regard to the specied accounts for a period of 90 days. That’s it. WordPress just got told to not delete anything they have in regard to those accounts for 90 days. If the DOJ wants to actually SEE that info, they either have to secure the cooperation of WordPress (who may very well say “no” if it violates any of their contractual agreements to do so) or come up with a search warrant giving them access.
My guess stays the same. An investigation started in the UK. Someone in the UK asked the US DOJ to help preserve any evidence that may exist in the US on the WordPress servers. If they find something meaningfull on their side of the pond, they want to ensure that regular clean up procedures dont result in lost information that might be important.
when I say “might” think “not likely” in bold, italics, underlined, 28 point font, flashing neon red.
At 8:00 PM in 14 December, davidmhoffer writes of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2703(f) his discovery that it entails:
…about which davidmhoffer considers:
Of course, this is also an order directing the owners of WordPress to change their business practices so as to make of their own computer archives a repository of material which the Department of Justice may at some time in the indefinite future want to examine.
May. An order to retain records “for a period of 90 days, which shall be extended for an additional 90-day period upon a renewed request by the governmental entity.”
Which may be further renewed at 90-day intervals until the heat death of the universe, or until Dr. Ron Paul takes the presidential oath of office in January 2013, at which time we may expect that this kind of crap will come crashing to an end.
Is WordPress going to be provided some sort of compensation for what is obviously a foreclosure of their rights to private property in the use of their computer archives?
Companies like Carbonite provide online backup services to home and business computer users at specified monthly and annual rates in order to help preserve their clients against data loss in the event of theft or device failure or malicious software “hacks,” so there is a very real monetary value for such archival services.
Is WordPress therefore compensated for the archiving being required of them under this law, or are we just looking at yet another violation of the “takings” clause of the Fifth Amendment?
tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.
———————————————————————
TALLBLOKE: For Pete’;s sake man….get a Solicitor!!!!! Of course you are innocent darling. But you may have to prove it!!! Just make a call. You need advice. BTW…..Don’t get Rumpold. Cherie Blair maybe. Where’s D’Arcy when you need him. You need cash…..??
So, they @ GCHQ have no idea who FOIA is. Would they help the police. Because if you believe the AGW claptrap. Which no body really does….just the cash, it’s a matter of national security. INcredible. It’s not you is it Tallbloke?? I did ask over here whether FOIA leaving a direct contact on your blog could be traced. Google no doubt keeps everything per Homeland S. and the net Mandarin gatekeepers…..@l 12 of them, must keep logs incase of cyber attack by states, Wasn’t there one in the Latvia elections. Wired had a interesting article on the first true cyber attack by one Soverign country of another.
FOIA — Better run mate!
If China and India decided to co-operate in destroying planet earth; what would, we in the west, do to stop them?? How far would we go??? And if you believe AGW, how far does AGW hype go in projecting the threat to the Human species??
RockyRoad said @December 14, 2011 at 5:46 pm
CG2 must have had a bigger impact on the warmistas than we thought
I think you have it there, Rocky. Those “in the know|” and they know who they are, know what is in the other e-mails.
Pamela Gray says:
December 14, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Does this mean that climate warming causes seizures?
————————————————————————-
Ha! Good one.
Not a seizure, not a muscle spasm,….just a natural return to ,,,,,,,,,,,,, Amora !!!
Just don’t say ANYTHING to them, reserve the right to remain silent!!!
British / UK law is different in this regard.
Maybe they are looking for Mann’s decline that got lost before going to AR4 press!!!!
Gosh, but the freakin’ suspense is killing me. We’re watching in realtime, over a period of months and years, as what will one day be a 2 hour movie, unfold before us.
Reading a historical whodunnit is interesting. Watching it “live” is….excrutiatingly slow.
For all those a little worried about their security online?…
A few little tools may help…
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=incognito
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ipcop
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ipfire
Let this through, please, MODS? 🙂
YEp,…..i think it’s time to get the Beers in and the pop-corn machine cranking. FOIA is about to do the ‘dump that gagged the world!!’ as me gueses he’s not sitting comfortably at the mo’.
Waitaminute!!! He is “not a suspect” and they still enter his house and seize his computers. Don’t the Brit police need a warrant for that? In that case he is indeed a suspect and a magistrate has to believe he is guilty of something. Get a lawyer and get new hardware. Get the Telegraph and the Daily Mail on the line and keep us posted.
They must be looking for all of the deleted emails from Mann and Phil.
benfrommo says:
December 14, 2011 at 6:38 pm
There are several troubling aspects to this….
I have no issues with terrorism and the US DOJ in general but this has nothing to do with them. This is a case of a UK citizin and a UK case involving a UK university so what the heck is the US DOJ doing mucking itself around in the UK’s dirty laundry?…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You forget that one of the e-mails shows that the US Department of Energy “ordered” Jones to evade the FOIA requests.
The head of the Department of Energy at the time had just served as the US Ambassador to the United Nations prior to his appointment as Secretary of the Department of Energy.
This could be a very big CYA for the US government.
I sure wonder what is in the hidden e-mails…
tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.
______________________________________________
As a retired LEO in the US what right do they have seizing your personal property? Copying it? or any other invasion if YOU are not the subject of their investigation? Who was the magistrate that authorized the search and what specifically was it they intended to find?
this stinks bad… there is something very fishy about this…
Bill
Tallbloke, I wouldn’t even feel confident wiping the drives and reinstalling everything. Complete new hardware! Seriously. I, and many others here will cover your costs for thks, and any legal costs. Speaking of, GET. LEGAL. REPRESENTATION.
SOMEONE GET THIS TO DRUDGE FAST!!!
Noblesse Oblige says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:00 pm
“Rest easy: This is mostly for show to demonstrate that the gov takes the leaks seriously. But in reality they do not really want to apprehend the culprit(s) because they would need to charge them with some crime or other. This would likely produce a ‘trial of the century’ in which the defendant would be branded as the worst criminal since (fill in the blank), while being hailed as hero by skeptics aroudn the world. Famous lawyers would rush to be chosen to defend the case. And here is the rub: The media would be forced to cover the case, and this is the last thing the gov wants.”
Noblesse, I appreciate your insightful comment. And I hope that you’re right. On the other hand, The Land of Orwell has done some backsliding on the rights of the accused. I remember reading a year or three ago that some bloke or blokes charged with bank robbery were denied the centuries-old right to trial by jury! What’s next? The resurrection of the Star Chamber?
Okay. Reported the link here @ WUWT to Drudge.
Bill H says:
December 14, 2011 at 8:26 pm
tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.
______________________________________________
As a retired LEO in the US what right do they have seizing your personal property? Copying it? or any other invasion if YOU are not the subject of their investigation? Who was the magistrate that authorized the search and what specifically was it they intended to find?
this stinks bad… there is something very fishy about this…
—————-
LEO…..L.E.O.?????
tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.
So, just a random disk cloning? Yeah, that happens all the time.:)
This is something they could have done after the first “climategate” release but they didn’t. Now we get the second release which now shows complicity with media, more context around the gyrations they underwent in order to get the data to fit the desired result, and the close association with NGOs among some of these climate people.
It is now beginning to impact people who are huge political donors to very powerful people. The first release was about the science, this release begins to impact on the policy discussions and as the README shows, the potential impacts of these policies on the poor.
They could have done this two years ago. They didn’t. Someone, somewhere is starting to sweat.
This sounds like a poke and hope….
nothing more that poking the pile to see what pops up….
i would really like to see those other E-mails.. i hope this poke unlocks the mess.. which is my Hope….
Bill
Johnnythelowery says:
December 14, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Law Enforcement Officer “LEO”
I’ve served search warrants … and they are very specific.. and that warrant has to be served on the subject… this is a very bad thing.. the officers statements sent up big alarm bells… I hope Tallbloke had goof representation..
LamontT says:
December 14, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Actually Gail Combs it isn’t that the police are your enemies….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In my neck of the woods they most certainly are. Crooked does not even begin to cover the bunch in my county or in the county next door. It is an open secret they are neck deep in drug dealing and so are several county officials. A friend over heard the county officials talking and two neighbors, one a cop have independently verified the drug dealing connections.
If someone high up is putting the pressure on the cops ARE your enemies because they are looking for a scapegoat to hang.
I am sure Tall bloke’s ancient equipment just saved his rear. It is hard to convince anyone that someone is a “Hacker” if he doesn’t have new and sophisticated toys.
This whole mess has been reported at the Instapundit, which is one of the most widely read blogs in the US. A post on Instapundit often produces an avalance of readers and lurkers on a server. Anthony should see huge spike in readers.
DECEMBER 14, 2011
CLIMATEGATE UPDATE: UK police seize computers of skeptic blogger in England. Hmm. Could it be politically motivated? Some think so.
UPDATE: The U.S. DOJ is going after blogs too, reportedly. None of this is increasing my confidence in the disputed climate science . . . .
Gail Combs;
This could be a very big CYA for the US government.>>>
Not likely me thinks. If they were trying to cover something up, ordering the electronic records to be preserved would be the LAST think they would want to do.
LEO = Law Enforcement Officer (i.e. policeman)
think…thing…same ting?
Law Enforcement Officer.
And the government can access your data any time they want with a subpoena. In fact, if you have left the data there more than 180 days, government doesn’t even need a subpoena! There is a little loophole that says if you have left data on a provider’s server for more than 180 days, then it is “abandoned” and the government (in the US) may have a copy of it at any time simply for the asking. This also goes for any email you might have on such a service as hotmail, google, or yahoo. If it is more than 180 days old, the government may have it for the asking without requiring a judge to be involved.
Same goes for the “commercial” cloaking services where you have a VPN to them and they mask your true IP address behind one of theirs. This is very useful for people like patent trolls and people who are perusing their competitors websites. But they also have a very cooperative relationship with law enforcement. You can’t use a commercial service to keep data private unless it is offshore in a place with very strict privacy laws and that might not even help if enough money is involved.
Look, SCAGW is a multbillion dollar business deal. Thousands of careers have been made on it. Political careers have been made on it. People are going to “protect” it.
Shades of Keystone Kops … at least till they come a-knockin’ at your door.
Now, if FOIA starts leaving more comments on blogs in the near future …
They did the identical thing at Climategate 1. They are desperate to cover up this info. I suspect this push is from bureaucrats and not politicians, as it was before.
Everyone thought the eco-green police in that SuperBowl video were just actors. Now we know better. Tallbloke, did you ever say “AGW is total crap” or “all AGW believing climate scientists are complete fakes” in any of your posts? That might be what they are really digging for.
I’m assuming you must have been clean on batteries-in-the-trash and have changed all your bulbs to CFLs.
Pamela Gray says: Does this mean that climate warming causes seizures?
One of your very best, Pamela,
As soon as Obama signs the DAA, and he has come out and confessed that he will, suspending our unalienable rights, and declaring the entire US a ‘battlefield’,
the military will be able to seize anyone and anything without warrant or cause. Maybe even use a Hellfire from one of the Predators they are now using in domestic law enforcement. Combine that with SOPA and the pre-existing power to shut down the cell phone networks, and there will be no reporting or communication about people disappearing, if the Administration desires that.
What I can’t understand is why the disks were handed over. I would have approached it differently. I would have got legal council and been cooperative in a different way. I would have said “tell me which files exactly you are looking for and I will give them to you”. When they go in to search someone’s home they must state on the warrant exactly what they are looking for. They can’t just have a warrant that says “we want to come in a look around and see if we might find something incriminating”. In other words, searches are not supposed to be “fishing” expeditions. They are supposed to know exactly what they are looking for.
I would tell them “fine, you can have copies of any file you want, which ones would you like?” and make them very clearly specify what they want and what they are looking for. It sounds to me like they just got a pass to go fishing and look to see if there might be something interesting in there.
They can’t show up and say “hey, we would like to make copies of all your personal paper files to peruse at our leisure to see if there might be something in there that interests us”. They have to specifically state what records they are after. Same should be true with files on a computer.
BTW, lest any one think this is a funny in the UK, it is not. Like the Justice Department in America, the police and national government officials have no compunction about destroying the lives of ordinary citizens. And there is no redress, attorney fees or even discipline. Free speech in the UK is sharply limited. Even a town council can destroy a family and career with impunity, much like the boards in Canada.
There is clearly an attempt in America to shut down thought that varies from the bureaucratic line, at least on a national level. I dare anyone to pose a question to the EPA about something they wish to0 do that involves a proscribed activity in the minds of these creeps.
Tallbloke: Call a solicitor NOW. I don’t care if the police are polite and promise to return your equipment. They might also politely slip in some “evidence” before cloning the drives, so you need legal protection before anything untoward happens. DO NOT TRUST persons in authority when they are snark hunting!
Larry Fields says:
December 14, 2011 at 8:34 pm
….The Land of Orwell has done some backsliding on the rights of the accused. I remember reading a year or three ago that some bloke or blokes charged with bank robbery were denied the centuries-old right to trial by jury! What’s next? The resurrection of the Star Chamber?…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
Actually it is more like disappearing into a black hole never to be seen again according to the bill just passed in the US Senate. The President has been given the right to declare a US citizen an enemy “Combatant” who can then be “detained” indefinitely without trial.
I am not sure whether the matching bill in the house has passed yet.
See my comment: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/ipcc-declares-itself-exempt-from-foia-laws/#comment-830959
crosspatch
They are supposed to know exactly what they are looking for.
——————-
It’s the UK – who knows what the laws are
Tucci78;
Is WordPress therefore compensated for the archiving being required of them under this law, >>>
Any organization the size of WordPress would (or should) have tools in place that would automate complying with this request. The amount of disk space and/or backup tape required would be miniscule, pennies more than likely. We’re talking server logs and such, they are tiny. If they don’t have the right tools in place…then it could be a major expense. Nor would they necessarily implement such tools merely to respond to requests by the DOJ. Standard evidenciary rules apply just as much to electronic evidence as anything else. If they were sued for example, and the judge ordered their electronic records be preserved, no extraordinary laws would be required to make it stick. The tools that all large IT shops should have in place to deal with something as simple as discovery processes in legal disputes work just as well for requests such as this one.
On the other hand, if they DON’T have those tools in place, then it would be a hassle. Their risk would not be so much in terms of the cost of preserving those files manually (which still wouldn’t be all that large) but in terms of accidently MISSING something that they SHOULD have preserved and accidently deleting it. THAT could be a VERY bad thing, and jail time for the executive a real possibility.
Brian Epps;
They might also politely slip in some “evidence” before cloning the drives, so you need legal protection before anything untoward happens. >>>
That is why I would have recommended taking my own complete copy of the hard drive before turning it over to them. That said, I kinda doubt they could make something like that stick. Once they walked out that door with his computers, he no longer had control of them, and anyone who had custody of them could have modified the contents of the drive at any time in any way. If they were actually after Tallbloke, and actually had anything serious to go on, and were actually competant, they would have ensured he had legal representation, and made copies of the hard drive under supervision of both legal council and a qualified neutral expert in computer forensics.
The fact that they didn’t do those things suggests to me they are either after corroborating evidence that has nothing to do with Tallbloke directly, or they just do not have a clue. Once out that door without first making a reference copy, they broke chain of custody.
This is all a big show. They’ve been ordered to investigate, and so they are running around showing everone how serious they are about this, and then they’ll throw up their hands and say it was nothing but dead ends.
You know, it may actually be Jones, Mann, et al. that need to be nervous right now, and not “our” guys. Perhaps someone in the gov’t thinks there might be evidence of Climate Shenanigans on those servers & computers.
Pamela Gray says:
December 14, 2011 at 7:28 pm
If I recall the movie correctly, the Romans (aka the Norfolk Constabulary) needed to execute (crucify) the protagonist forthwith. Numerous false confessions (led by Tony Curtis) required the execution (no pun intended) of many fruitless warrants and computer/hardware seizures. In the interests of avoiding a similar unfortunate situation, I unreservedly withdraw my false confession, and urge others to ignore Tony Curtis (or diminutive Celts?).
Remember the recent posts on WUWT on the theme ‘Let’s see if we can work out who FOIA is’? Fun, wasn’t it?
A few contributors, me included, tried to get the ‘Colonel Nicholsons’ to shut up, but the IT ‘experts’ just carried on playing with themselves in public.
Some people on the thread opined that the authorities were no longer interested in exposing FOIA and wouldn’t risk creating a martyr etc. etc.
Fortunately, most of the IT ‘experts’ were just windbags, but even so, why do it?
I wrote at the time: ‘The police seem to have dropped the investigation into C1? Well then, let sleeping dogs lie.’
Well, the dogs are clearly not sleeping. Well done, guys!
“They say I am not a suspect for any crime.”
But they do suspect a crime somewhere, and they do want to look for evidence on your computers to find out whether you’re involved in that crime.
Something similar once happened to me. My work was raided after my employer’s stock price had crashed 50%. This was in the aftermath of the dot com thing. There were a few employees who thought that the prices in the weeks before were a good deal and sold, including me since I had bought a home, and within minutes of that commitment I did of course secure the money for it. So the suspicion was that the management had leaked information to employees. While I officially was regarded as a “witness” and interrogated, in reality I was of course suspected for insider trading.
(They cloned the hard drives and returned the computers the day after, but my computer had apparently been dropped and badly damaged. The hard drive was broken. The police sent it to a company who have experts in recovering lost data (whether this was an honest attempt to repair what they had broken or just because they badly wanted the contents of the drive, I don’t know). But even that company could not extract anything. I lost a couple of weeks of work.)
tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
“They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.”
Roger,
That makes me wonder how they came by a search warrant that has to be issued by a Judge/Magistrate and the reason the police gave to them for the issue. Its been a while since I left the UK so maybe they have amended the law under the “terrorism threat”. Roger, you better have a word with Gary McKinnon’s legal council as the the U.S. Department of Justice seems to have had a hand in all this!
The Other Pamela Gray said:
December 14, 2011 at 9:19 pm
crosspatch
They are supposed to know exactly what they are looking for.
——————-
It’s the UK – who knows what the laws are
=================================
Yeah – I think they’re under Sharia law now.
Inspector Knacker of the Yard “Tell us what you know or we will find kiddie porn on your hard drives”
RichardSmith;
I wrote at the time: ‘The police seem to have dropped the investigation into C1? Well then, let sleeping dogs lie.’
Well, the dogs are clearly not sleeping. Well done, guys!>>>
That thread was dated Dec 6th. The legal order from DOJ to WordPress was dated Dec 9th. If you think that a thread on WUWT sparked an international investigation that coordinated multiple police forces in the UK and legal orders by the DOJ in the United States in just three days….Actually, based on the time of the thread and other factors…more like two days or less…
Well, you’re free to believe whatever you wish.
Use the free Trucrypt program to encrypt your harddrive or to create an encrypted volume on your drive.
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_rights/legal_system/police_powers.htm#Powersofentry
Tallbloke,
Anything we can do to help?
MtK
If the hacker had a sense of humor he would post links to the files on Joe romms site
I wonder of the cops would seize those computers.
It would be interesting to have the hard discs checked to see what documents were accessed, but I guess that they won’t do anything other than clone the disc, then work on Tallblokes private information on their copy.
In that regard I would think there is a great risk of privacy abuse as you will never know what has been accessed, or copies made or distributed. In those circumstances the police who seized the hard discs, should be restrained with an application to the supreme (higher) court.
That they show cause for the search, specify the purpose of the search, and in the interests of the individuals privacy specifically record any access or document or copy, and be be limited to the specified matter under investigation. Undertakings be given to the court to preserve the individuals privacy and rights and document the process.
Blanket seizure and open ended perusal is not a light matter in law. I am sure that any high profile legal person in the UK would be capable of getting an injunction to prevent such open ended examination and it should be easy to impose court ordered supervision of the process.
My guess is that some one is frightened at what might be revealed if the password is cracked or released before they have their actual suspect in some bargaining position to prevent that happening.
Tallbloke and his privacy, becomes a pawn in that larger game. British law usually depends on the co-operation of the general public with the police and naively surrendering personal rights to that higher purpose.
Perhaps this is the time to put that to the test and impose the supervision of a court in their evidence discovery process.
Given the vast eclectic intelligence of the WUWT readership I have no hesitation in saying….
Oscar Wilde.
A proto-celebrity if ever there was one. The ‘flamboyant’ Mr Wilde sued someone who had made unpleasant allegations about him.
He didn’t win…no…in fact the revelations about his life that ‘came to light’ during the trial was sufficient for the poor fellow to be ‘banged up’ in Reading Gaol. (See poem very good).
I always think that anyone who initiates legal proceedings should be very very careful, courts are great places for revelations and uncoverings.
I for one would love to see poor Mr Tallbloke in court. (Of course another part of me really feels for him, being harrassed by the police is never nice…even when you know you are absolutely innocent.)
No, I would love to see him in court because with some top legal aid (pro-bono), and a fighting fund behind him he could really shine the spotlight on the nefarious activities of Jones, Mann, etc…a Trial…what a great way to let the world see the antics of the ‘climategang’!
RichardSmith says:
December 14, 2011 at 10:00 pm
I agree completely. STFU, people. This is serious. Always was, but now it is pretty clear.
“they’ll clone his hard drives and return the computers to him.” They will but don’t hold your breath, it’ll take forever. Also it’s an invasion of privacy.
As to the theory that they are wondering what’s on the FOIA encrypted emails?
You have to be kidding!
They KNOW what’s in the encrypted files.
“steven mosher (Comment #86227) November 26th, 2011 at 3:53 am
Bugs.
There is a reason why the case is open.
There is a reason why the file is in the open password protected
No deal has been done. Yet.
He may want to come in from the cold.
He has contacted the other side.
he’s not a hacker.”
Above, you referred to the revealer of the emails thusly;
“If the hacker had a sense of humor he would post links to the files on Joe romms site”
Hacker, or not hacker? What do you know, and when did you know it? 🙂
Jeez, poor TallBloke. This is sick!
But not unprecedented for our wonderful boys in blue. A couple of years back they raided the offices of a British Member of Parliament, suspecting him of being in receipt of leaks from a whistleblowing bureaucrat. They had no search warrant. The police have no jurisdiction within Parliament. The whole raid was filmed by aides. When other MPs asked what the **** the police were doing they were told to go away. Eventually the hapless Speaker of the House of Commons had to apologise to all MPs for letting the police into the building.
Which made no difference. The MP was arrested (although he’s now a senior government spokesman). The whistleblower was found, arrested and charged. As I recall no action was taken against the police.
All this in Parliament, involving MPs, and on the telly.
What chance for a mere individual blogger in this increasingly scary country, once the citadel of democracy and individual rights?
You need to have a read of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000
Your computer can be seized and you are required to reveal any and all encryption keys as required. Failure to reveal is a separate offence.
The above act is also used by local councils to obtain information about people living in a house, the amount of rubbish they throw away, and anything else that fits….and there is loads of fitting.
AND they do not have to say why they are doing anything, and they can require you to not inform others (including the press)
My apologies for asking, but I haven’t been following things very closely. Can someone enlighten me?
As I gleaned in passing, there is a further cache waiting to be released, but it is encrypted and the passcode has not been released. Does that mean the encrypted files are already widely distributed and all that is required for them to see the light of day is someone publishing the passcode?
Hope you don’t mind Tallbloke I’ve forwarded your story to El Reg as they are the guys that know about all thinks IT, including the law.
Tallbloke’s main allies are the IPCC now. He sent a complaint to the IPCC to investigate the police. Well, it’s this IPCC:
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/en/Pages/how_complaint.aspx
Carefully note what the IPCC stands for. Pretty cute, right? 😉
Was Tallbloke arrested? or can the police just turn up and copy your hard disk these days ?
UK law is imposed from the EU. Is this Sarkozy’s revenge?
For:
The answer is yes.
If you downloaded the FOIA 2011/Climategate 2 files, the encrypted ones are in it.
Steve from Rockwood says:
December 14, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Steve, please……. it was George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Blair) who published “1984”
@tallbloke and others,
It is an urgent matter to assemble relevant expert advice on legal and digital issues….. there may be organizations which might lend free expertise if they see this as germane to their work, such as possibly the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
https://www.eff.org/bloggers
I don’t know much about them except that I understand they are very ‘purist’ digital libertarians fighting against govt intrusions upon the internet, and they have this specific focus upon defending and enhancing “blogger rights” —- so they may well lend at least some expertise and advice.
May the call go out to FOIA,wherever you are, to monitor this matter closely and strike like Robin Hood as needed!
Timely releases of more emails may be just the thing to embarrass powers-that-be.
I have no idea whether this raid represents a credible investigation or merely some fishing expedition, but I am astonished that UK law can allow police to just sweep up some hard drives merely because they are interested in seeing all the data they can find. Was there a detailed search warrant???
If Tallbloke is not any designated ‘suspect’ it seems amazing (too innocent minded me anyway) that authorities can simply seize his computers.
I don’t know much about any aspects of any of this but I hope that folks reading this thread are thinking hard about any possible contact(s), legal, digital, political, and otherwise, who might have useful advice and information.
@davidmhoffer
Where did I suggest that the recent posts on WUWT ‘sparked an international investigation’?
My point was that the efforts to track down FOIA are ongoing and speculating about the identity of FOIA are out of place.
You also seem to think the short time interval between the latest post of this type and the police action in the UK rules out WUWT as the trigger for this action.
On that you’re probably right, but irrelevant, since I never said it was the trigger.
However, I seem to remember a ‘Guest Post by David M. Hoffer’ on November 30, 2011 in WUWT entitled ‘The Climategate email network infrastructure’. Was that you suggesting that ‘we can then discuss everything from the simple questions regarding who could delete what (and when), how the emails might have been obtained’?
Some interesting contributions in the comments on that article too, for example Johnnythelowery: ‘And as he posted on TallBlokes under FOIA….wouldn’t Tall Bloke have some basic information to identify something about this……….hero??’
Great minds think alike, it seems.
Might be time to emai/upload foia.zip everywhere possible.
Email may propagate it better. The file has to go through Mail Servers and be back’dup by sys admins.
It is a little big though, so may cause some data issues for some.
This ought to be terrifying, but TBH in the UK these days it will cause scarcely a ripple – I haven’t, for instance, heard a word about it on the “objective and impartial (ho ho) BBC”, who you would think must be rubbing their hands with glee. TB, I echo every word above about never again using or trusting that kit (if you get it back) and about making darn sure you have a fully briefed solicitor onside – police protestations that they don’t suspect you are just words. I’m not rich, but will cheerfully contribute what I can to a TB restoration fund – assuming that it remains possible to, think Wikileaks.
sky says (December 14, 2011 at 7:20 pm):
It really shouldn’t surprise you. The UK has been a cheap suit police state for years now, and the suits are getting smarter by the week. FFS, a few years ago the Chinese sent a team over to London to learn how best to run CCTV systems for public surveillance; how big a red flag (no pun intended) do you need? There are literally millions of cameras continually recording the innocent activities of innocent people in this country, quite apart from the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system which does the same job for innocent vehicular journeys and God knows how many other systems. Oh, and I wonder how many people register the occasional mentions of how they’re working hard at improving their facial recognition software – not everything you hear on the BBC is a lie. “Innocent until proven guilty” means precisely nothing in the face of an authoritarian government dedicated to removing every check on its actions against the public, and the evidence suggests that we have that on both sides of the pond.
If nothing else the fact that this happened under a “Conservative” government ought to give pause to those who still try to paint the encroaching totalitarianism with a “leftist” tag. As I’ve pointed out before, what we’re all seeing is taking place on the authoritarian/libertarian axis, it’s nothing to do with left/right.
And “FOIA”, man, if you’re reading this, I hope that this act ratchets you a step or two closer to releasing that encryption key. Be very careful how you do it when you do.
Remember. There are four lights. Don’t let them talk you into seeing five.
Bart says:
December 14, 2011 at 11:54 pm
“As I gleaned in passing, there is a further cache waiting to be released, but it is encrypted and the passcode has not been released. Does that mean the encrypted files are already widely distributed and all that is required for them to see the light of day is someone publishing the passcode?”
Everyone who downloaded the full ZIP (60MB or so) has a copy of the encrypted, yet to be decoded stuff. A million copies of Pandora’s Box. All it takes is one word… 🙂
Just to drop here a line of support to Roger.
Don’t forget: The Inquisition is back!
Ecotretas
“But cell phone? No, not an obvious meaning for the word “mobile” in all parts of the “English”-speaking world. ;-)”
I’m in the US and knew what he meant right away. Of course I’m old enough and still have enough wits left about me to remember that mobile phones were what the first, well, mobile phones were called.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone
A mobile phone (also known as a cellular phone, cell phone and a hand phone) is a device that can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator, allowing access to the public telephone network. By contrast, a cordless telephone is used only within the short range of a single, private base station.
In addition to telephony, modern mobile phones also support a wide variety of other services such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming and photography. Mobile phones that offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.
The first hand-held mobile phone was demonstrated by Dr Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing around 1 kg.[1] In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first to be commercially available. In the twenty years from 1990 to 2010, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew from 12.4 million to over 4.6 billion, penetrating the developing economies and reaching the bottom of the economic pyramid.[2][3][4][5]
Hello, you have reached the IPCC. All of our agents are currently busy assisting others, please hold the line and your call will be ignored in the order in which it was received … (click) (buzz).
Under the freedom of information law, most of these emails should have been made public anyway. Under the human rights legislation, the police are breaking the law if they attempt to deny the free movement of information, particularly for journalistic purposes (and leaking to the press clearly comes under this category).
Only where there is a specific offence can the police action contrary to our human rights be legal. There was no theft of information: it was already public under the FOI law, but the only offence was the denial of the public of OUR information. In otherwords, if anything the law is on the side of disclosure and not prevention of disclosure.
Which all goes to prove this has nothing to do with enforcing law let alone justice. This is really the action of a police state enforcing the will of the elite irrespective of the law.
Tallbloke should sumit a FOI request on Norfolk Police to find out what promted them to raid his computer.
I’m Spartacus too. Tallbloke, if you need help drop me a line. This nonsense should soon blow over, but if it doesn’t, you aren’t alone.
Tallbloke has my deepest sympathy for this outrage and the inevitable worry and distress it causes him. And I have no idea of any kind as to why the police have violated his privacy as they have.
I write to correct some misunderstandings repeatedly presented in above comments.
Firstly, the UK is a Constitutional Monarchy. We members of the UK are subjects of Her Majesty, and we are under the protection of the Crown. But several above posts from Americans seem to think we have “rights” as defined by a piece of paper which American’s value. We don’t have such “rights”, and most of us don’t want them because most of us prefer the protection of the Crown.
So, all the above comments pertaining to “rights” are not relevant because they do not apply to a UK subject (i.e. Tallbloke) in the UK. A UK subject has the protection of the Rule of Law which formalises how the Crown protects subjects.
Secondly, national security has always taken preference over all “freedoms of an individual” in the UK. This was formalised in the Security Act adopted in the 1960s. Recent anti-terrorist laws have merely clarified the matter.
So, the Rule of Law does not apply when agents of the Crown (e.g. the police) are acting in defence of national security. But an affected subject (e.g. Tallbloke) has a right to appeal to the monarch (i.e. at present HRH Elizabeth 2) who wears the Crown.
Thirdly, it is very, very probable that UK security agents know both the contents of the encrypted Climategat 2.0 files and the identity of the Climategate leaker. GCHQ is extremely competent and its staff working in the Donut probably sorted those things out within hours of being asked.
So, it is not likely that UK authorities need further investigations to determine these matters because the authorities already know them.
Richard
In my experience, the UK is a police state. I lived next door to one for 14 years. He was into everything he could lay his hands and used his mates to try tp prosecute me for some ridulous offence while his senior officers protected his back. Quote from his most senior officer ” I have to get an officer in from another force because I can’t trust my own”.
The skeptic, democratic community here are on red alert, watch dogs for Tallbloke’s civil rights, in the FOI case of the whistleblower who released tax payer funded climate *science* communiques into the public domain.
excellent – just feeds more publicity about the Climatgate 2 emails,
it makes it look like they want to hide information.
The police are getting suspicious that global warming isn’t happening and are looking for the truth.
They wouldn’t find the truth on a warmists computer!
In any state the police can only act effectively with the sanction of the people … particularly in a democracy. The solution to this abuse of power by the police is in our own hands. In the US and UK most of us will sit on a jury in our life time. Most cases will involve the word of the police against that of the suspect. All we need to is to utter these words in the jury room:
… “You can’t always trust the police”.
The police have to deserve our trust. They have to act within the law, not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. There has clearly been fraudulent behaviour by at least some climate scientists. There may not be enough evidence to convict any individual, but there clearly is enough smoke in the air to look to at least start checking their servers to see if there is a gun.
Far from trying to track down the criminals who have been responsible for probably the biggest fraud in human history, they show that their only interest is in stopping those who are trying to uphold the law of FOI.
In other words, the police are trying to clamp down on those who are doing the job the police should be doing!
OK, like most police work, it is probably cock-up over conspiracy, but the real conspiracy is that they haven’t even attempt to investigate the biggest fraud in history. They are clearly not even handed in their enforcement of the law, and when the police hold the law in contempt, then I’m afraid members of the public will just follow their example.
Some interesting parallels in this case:
http://www.news.com.au/national/police-raid-the-age-over-alp-database-hacking-allegations/story-e6frfkvr-1226222702380
The Melbourne Age newspaper and the hacking of the Australian Labor Party Data Base (unusual that the pro AGW newspaper is conflicting with the party it normally promotes). The newspaper is presently seeking an injunction to stop any police search of their computer records.
“The Age discovered, via a whistleblower, that the ALP was collecting and storing personal information about members of the public, unbeknown to those individuals, and reported, carefully and precisely, what those files contained without breaching any person’s privacy.”
The Age is defending any action it took as “in the public interest.”
They also deny any wrong doing and have expressed grave concerns over the risk that the sources for the report may be identified adding that “we protect our sources at all costs.”
In that case the national newspaper should support the disclosure of Climategate material? Mmmnn, I wonder.
Guess it all depends on the definitions of a “whistle blower” and “in the public interest.”
A further expression of support to Roger.
As others have speculated, those who have downloaded the full set of files have a time bomb waiting to explode when the code is given. Perhaps the police have advance notice that the original Hacker is ready to release the code?
Tonyb .
AT 1:45 AM on 15 December, climatereason writes:
If they have such “advance notice” from the whistleblower (I’m disinclined to accept the “Hacker” meme), it can be expected that the whistleblower has seeded the password to the all.7z archive in multiple locations. Something as simple as uploads on a few of the sites already used by interested parties to spread FOIA2011.zip around, or on one of the Usenet newsgroups.
They could “disappear” him and expect thereby to trigger a “pop goes the weasel” opening of all.7z a categorical 24 hours after the whistleblower drops off the grid.
This “FOIA” person (or persons) have demonstrated a high level of sophistication and a lot of hatred for “Mike’s Hockey Team” and all the others who have battened upon the AGW fraud. That all.7z Easter egg isn’t there for no reason.
I know people love to speculate but banging on about local laws is utterly pointless. This was done in the UK. The relevant authority is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000
This insidious act allows the Police, hell even your local council to demand access to your digital information. You must also provide encryption keys. People have been jailed for withholding encryption passwords.
This is BIG BROTHER, 1984, and thanks to the panic over 9/11 we allowed it into law.
So Tallbloke has NO rights in this, they could even use this law to add monitoring equipment to his PC on return and not tell him, or otherwise track or tap his communications.
This is what “democracy” and “freedom” mean, it means they can do whatever the hell they like to obtain and sift through Tallblokes, yours or my computers, track us, force ISP’s to give them information, basically anything – and we have NO rights within it.
Also, if anyone really, honestly, in this day and age does not know that a “mobile” is what we Brits call cellphones, then you maybe need to work on expanding your world view.
What, no hugh pepper or /a physicist commenting on this one?
Here’s hoping the climate crooks just shot themselves in the foot.
EDIT: I meant terrorism generally, not 9/11 specifically, as it did not happen until year after the law was legalised!
Maybe they think Tallbloke is hiding the missing heat? Those old Sparcs used to get very hot, so perhaps they are onto something…. warming shall resume now they are liberated.
The same thing happened to me , for different reasons in a different country, and I put it down to the fact that I lived in a police state. Fortunately my laptop was returned after two and a half weeks of intrusive and threatening “interviews” and allegations of all sorts. I have never used that laptop again.
That such a thing could happen in the UK is scary but not surprising . The intrusive state that is Britain seems to be in the increasing habit of knocking down doors and confiscating computers, often in the name of hunting pedophiles or “extreme right wing racists” and the like.
I know how disconcerting it can be Roger and it takes a while to get back to normal. Good luck.
No need to get too paranoid.
The Police are under pressure to get results and show some effort. With Climategate 2 it is becoming a desperate issue as to whether the leak was from a whistleblower with the right to protection in the public interest or from a theft of data by someone without legal authority to handle it. Personally I’d guess at the former but obviously cannot yet be sure.
Tallbloke was the smallest and easiest target so this activity could just be a way of the Police being seen to do something without having to expend much money or effort in a case which they are probably not deeply interested in and which they regard as more likely a civil rather than a criminal matter.
From Tallbloke’s comments it appears that he is being treated politely, is apparently not a suspect and can expect to receive his data back shortly. In the meantime he is still able to maintain his blog.
This could turn out to the advantage of Tallbloke and the entire sceptic community with the Police possibly laughing up their sleeves at the idiocy of those who are pressing them to do something (anything).
Anyway, I hope that is an accurate diagnosis.
I’m Spartacus …. No I’M SPARTACUS…. No I’m REALLY Spartacus……
This is the first reaction of this government to the fact that their policies on climate change are wrong. Huhne still maintains that he is right and that his policies are the right course for the UK. How wrong he is. He is the sort of man who, allegedly, gets someone else to take a speeding ticket for him. So not the most likeable or trustworthy type of person.
Scare tactics in the extreme and must be stopped for the sake of free speech and truth in science.
“Either there’s more than meets the eye or they have no idea how the blog system works.”
You forgot how intimidation works.
Many of this occurrences are intimidation. They force the person to loose time, expenses knowing very well from start that in the end they have no case.
King of Cool,
The left-wing Age newspaper has been at the forefront of those claiming that Murdoch newspapers in the U.K. are low-life scum because they hacked into the phones of celebrities and politicians, yet they have no problem hacking into the computers of the Australian Labor Party whenever they want.
The hypocritical nature of the Age is matched by that of the UK Guardian who openly boasts about hacking into the phones of big corporations while at the same time condemning the Murdoch newspapers for their hacking.
The question becomes, when is it ethical to hack into other peoples privacy. It would appear that if you are hacking then enemies of the Left (e.g. Wikileaks, the Age or the Guardian) it is “noble” and OK. However, if you are accused of hacking [note: I know that the climate-gate emails are probably not the result of hacking but more likely a disgruntled academic] into the bastions of the politically correct (e.g. IPCC or East Anglia Climate Unit] the you are a criminal and it’s not OK. No double standard there….. move on….. nothing to see here.
Conspiratorial gathering
Well at least DMI have put ice extent back to normal (haha its now within “normal”range), check norsex ice.
Anyone outside the UK may be amused to learn that the place to make a complaint about the police force in the UK is the Independant Police Complaints Commission
thats right, its another IPCC
Now being followed on other blogs:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/12/force-for-evil.html
And to repeat the question. Why seize his property if he is NOT a suspect.
“WillR says:
December 14, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Just don’t say ANYTHING to them, reserve the right to remain silent!!!
British / UK law is different in this regard.”
not true, i have a friend who is a Police officer (a good, honest one, BTW – they do still exist) and when arresting someone they still have to give the schpeel which includes the “you have the right to remain silent , anything you say may be used against you, (blah blah blah etc)”,
so, yes, even in Police State EU/UK your best course is to exercise your right to remain silent.
Oh, and “Tallbloke”, the Police had no right to take your lap tops without a court order. They only took them because you let them. I would have mad them jump through hoops and in the mean time backed up, then wiped the hard drives and re-installed! hah
“I request that you not disclose the existence of this request to the subscriber or any other person,
other than as necessary to comply with this request.”
It appears that WordPress was in breach of the above instruction contained in the electronic notification since they did disclose the existence of the request to at least some of the subscribers ?
“If you are charged, the police must caution you that you do not need to say anything in answer to the charge but that you have the opportunity to reply. Any reply that you make will be noted and may be used in evidence.”
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland/your_rights/legal_system_index_scotland/police_powers_scotland.htm
This part of the law is the same in Scotland as in the rest of the UK, BTW.
It would appear that the esteemed officers of Norfolk Constabulary may be what is known in the UK as “normal for Norfolk”…
Frederick James (Norfolk, UK)
A Force for Evil
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/12/force-for-evil.html
Maybe they are looking for the missing Hotspot?
Anyway can’t one (all) of you get hold of a hot shot lawyer from Big Oil to sort it all out on his behalf? Wouldn’t that service be included in the recruitment package for shills?
No? Strange…
tallbloke says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
They say I am not a suspect for any crime.
============
so mate, if your’e NOT a suspect??? what right do they have to copy your personal info and be intruding on your life then??
Its like a scene from “A shot in the Dark” isnt it?
A bunch of Clouseau’s all stumbling around and getting the wrong suspect.
Its obvious that they have no clue who theyre looking for, heck , Mr FOIA could be looking over their shoulders right now and theyd have no idea, but thats what happens when you try to cover up a lie, one thing leads to another and before you know it youre intimidating people, kicking their doors down, treading on their rights and acting like tyrants.
Just to cover up a lie. A climate conspiracy.
I really, really do hope that Mr FOIA drops the passphrase soon and i really do hope the rest of whats in the file is so destructive that completely blows this whole climate charade wide open so we can at least prosecute those at the heart of it and also get a return to common sense and some kind of normal behaviour, this certainly isnt.
Instead of going after the liars at uea, at penn and nasa theyre trying to cut off dissent and kill the truth in favour of what their political masters want.
Well, the truth will out, it always does and no amount of gaming, fixing, lying, cheating or threatening will stop it.
Its as inevitable as the fact that agw is a fantasy generated by scheming mendacious hypocrites, pretending they care about this world but proving all along theyre only interested in dollars.
Come on Mr FOIA, strike one for freedom.
Request for Cartoon by Josh ?
Pentium II 400s .. man.. Tallbloke really needs some funds from Big Oil to run his climate skeptic’s operation! 🙂
Morons are raiding the wrong damn place….
Richard S Courtney says:
December 15, 2011 at 1:22 am
“Thirdly, it is very, very probable that UK security agents know both the contents of the encrypted Climategat 2.0 files and the identity of the Climategate leaker. GCHQ is extremely competent and its staff working in the Donut probably sorted those things out within hours of being asked. ”
No, Richard, at the moment nobody on Planet Earth can crack the encryption. This is the newest report I can find about progress in attacking AES 256; still falls short of a practical real life attack.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/08/new_attack_on_a_1.html
“As our attacks are of high computational complexity, they do not threaten the practical use of AES in any way.”
Since even a teenager would know there could be no trace on Tallbloke’s computers (still less his ADSL router) to lead the police to FOIA that can’t be their purpose.
But if he is suspected fo being (or aiding) FOIA then having his router and his computers makes very good sense.
He doesn’t need to be a very likely suspect for the police to need to actively rule him out. I suspect it is just a routine bit of policing, albeit with garish levels of over-manning. I bet at least one of the officers was there just as a health-and-safety rep.
Cellphone was the established usage of the lingo in the United States from the time these devices were first introduced into the U.S. market. Motorola setup a prototype cellphone netswork elsewhere in California, and then established a commercial cellphone network in Los Angeles. Our company delivered the first retail sale of their new cellphone, and I was given the task of arranging with FEDEX to have it delivered by FEDEX to the first customer. FEDEX lost it (chuckle), and it was a circus as they tried to tell me they COULD NOT possibly lose a shipment, but they did (LOL). Must have been two firsts in one outing. FEDEX eventually found the lost shipment, and we were off and running with cellphone service in Los Angeles. The local managers hounded the district manager to have one of these new cellphones installed into my automobile, because I had to spend most of the day sitting in traffic on the L.A. freeways as I went to appointments in the three counties.. They liked to see him get all red in the face as he reminded them there was no way he was ever going to authorize the >$1.00 per minute air time charges for them to talk to me…. Kind of different than today.
When Motorola introduced this new product, they gave us some extensive training. The first cellphones had to be installed in the trunk (boot for you corssponders) of an automobile. An antenna had to be fitted in back with the cable running into the trunk with the cellphone. Motorola was quite insistent upon their new product being described as a cellphone or mobile cellphone. This was to distinguish the new cellular communications technology from the already decades old mobile telephone services that did not employ the cellular switched mobile services. Until very recent years or perhaps even to the present, there were still some of the older non-cellular mobile telephone services still in service in some of the more isolated regions of the Western United States, where cellular networks were not established or available. So, mobile cellular telephone, mobile cellphone, or cellphone; the cellphone moniker Motorola chose to describe the device has been the normal terminology for it in the United States.
About week ago I posted a comment asking if it was wise for us to be speculating on the identity of FOIA as the Norfolk fuzz were presumably adding ideas posted on WUWT to their “leads to follow up” file.
Anthony replied REPLY: Not likely, I have information that they have no interest in pursuing the case further. – Anthony
I think that the information that Anthony had been given must have been misinformation, intended to keep the flow of useful leads coming. It is now clear that they have *every* interest in pursuing the case further.
Before people rush off in the land of tinfoil conspiracy over Tallbloke , lets remember the present UK government was not in power during the period the leaked e-mails cover and that there may be good reasons to think the current UK government would have no issue with the last one having embarrassing information made public. Lets leave the conspiracy calls to those that claim all AGW skeptics are in the pay of ‘big oil’ and are part of the ‘organized’ disinformation campaign.
Way to go, Airstrip One!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Airstrip_One
We in Oceania salute our brave comrades, who courageously deployed a force of only 6 enforcers from the Ministry of Truth, to seize a vast and dangerous cache of two laptops, and a deadly hair-trigger router.
John Smith says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:06 pm
“They’ll “fit him up” meaning that the cops and the media and probably some sleazy politician will have arranged to frame him as a cyber terrorist.”
It’s even easier than that. While you’re “helping with enquiries,” giving statments to the enforcers from the Ministry of Truth, if you say something that disagrees with what they found on your laptop (or anywhere else), bam! they’ve got you for lying to investigators.
Anthony can probably expect Barbara Boxer and Janet Incompetano to arrange a visit from some helpful government advisors.
Of course the real issue here is that people are assuming that this is the Norfolk Police investigation into a UEA “hack driving this. The truth is this was instigated from across the pond, the UK plods are just carrying out orders.
Police Priorities
The Norfolk rozzers
—a half a dozen of them!—
take stuff from Tall Bloke.
Seriously, they
need six cops to hound a
sceptic? What a joke.
Sex slavery and
similar crimes increase, but
they search blogging folks.
Other malefactors
ignored are those who push the
global warming hoax.
RichardSmith says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:37 am
@davidmhoffer
Where did I suggest that the recent posts on WUWT ‘sparked an international investigation’?
My point was that the efforts to track down FOIA are ongoing and speculating about the identity of FOIA are out of place.>>>
My point was that there was no way the discussion in WUWT had anything to do with the investigative processes that were clearly well under way already. The impetus to investigate (whatever it is they are investigating) began long before that thread, and would have happened regardless of the WUWT existing or not.
Further, if you were paying attention to what I wrote in that article, I went to considerable lengths to explain what enterprise class email systems looked like. My purposes in that regard were to clear up various matters of confusion regarding the technology that were recurring in various threads, and to expand (not narrow down) the list of possible suspects by showing just how many possible ways those emails might have been obtained.
So in essence, we agree. Speculation about the identity of FOIA is nigh on useless because of the broad number of ways the information could have been obtained. I was just simply explaining why that was, while clearing up some misconceptions. The police are going to investigate for reasons entirely their own, and unknown to us (also not worth speculating about) but I can assure you that the chattering of the masses affected their actions not one bit.
Let’s face it, how does one go about giving a Nobel Prize to an anonymous leaker? This person or group must be found so that they may come forward to claim the prize. Seriously though, how can one see this as any other than an attempt by the authorities to ferret out a key cyber clue. It does demonstrate how desperate they are, if this is to be the approach. Or, perhaps they already know who the leaker is, and are in the process of gathering evidence to lay charges upon arrest.
This is probably one of the best things that have happened for skepticals. Usually the injured party (skeptical Bloggers in this case), win hands down re public perception of an issue (ie AGW).
At 3:20 AM on 15 December, AdderW writes:
Sorry, no can do. The police confiscated his pencilbox.
Can they have my laptops?? Norfolk and chance!
Is it not curious, one can spend years trying to get a public funded scientist to release their data and meta data (McIntyre vs Mann, and many other examples) or one can submit FOI requests to the IPCC (found guilty of subverting the scientific process on numerous ocassions) reciepients of world wide attention for their policy recomendations affecting every man woman and child on the planet, and have these GSE efforts stonewalled to no end, but on the otherhand you can be a common citizen, with a deserved reputation for being an open minded well informed, well educated man, and with nary a notice the authorties can come into your home and take all your computer files and poor through all your private records. It just ain’t right.
They might really be worried about the rest of the emails and the cops are being told to get them.
Maybe they’re looking for the rest of the email and the password before climategate 3 and they’re caught by surprise, again. This is big money and they know they’ve been caught in the fallacy of their own arguments. Who know how deep this runs?
If climategate 2.0 was really such a bore, and really had nothing of interest, they would not be doing this sort of raid/intimidation.
We are getting close.
So, It wasn’t the milkman, it was the police.
You must also remember that cellular phone is not a clever name. Each tower had a range where it would be the primary tower. That range was called a cell. The way I saw it originally, and this was back before there were any digital towers anywhere, was to have a chart full of hexagons. Each hexagon had a little drawing of a tower and represented the tower’s cell and that represented the range in which the tower would be the one to carry the call. When I saw the idea drawn out, the name cell phone made perfect sense to me.
This thing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000
is a nightmare.
“Agencies with investigative powers:
“…Charity Commission
“…Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland
“…The Pensions Regulator
“…Scottish Environment Protection Agency
“…Scottish Ambulance Service Board
“…Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust”
In the UK, just about anything that can call itself a “government agency” can investiagte you, intercept your communications, surveil you in any number of ways, electronically and physically, and the act,
“…prevents the existence of interception warrants and any data collected with them from being revealed in court.”
I believe they must have the right to take anything they like from you if it prevents deaths and child abuse,but surely they must tell you why they are confiscating your possesions?
I’d beware it’s easy for information to be planet on the PC to smear Tallbloke, I would be careful that they didn’t find something that wasn’t there before to make Tallbloke look bad.
First they came for the bloggers…
I read the “Request for Preservation of Records” PDF and what I found most interesting was that only those three Accounts are mentioned. WUWT, for example, is not. This can only mean that there is very specific content in those three Accounts that ties them together and also separates them from the rest of the blogs.
Logically then the next question is: What is it about the contents of those three particular Accounts in regards to FOIA that is so unique and similar at the same time, and that ties them together in a way that beckons potential scrutiny by the DoJ?
Best,
J.
Climatereason 1:45:
I hope you’ve taken appropriate backup precautions on your computers, Anthony. Tallbloke might not be the only target.
(I made an attempt to post this thought earlier but don’t see it, even in moderation. If it turns out a duplicate, sorry.)
It is quite possible that the authorities have a person or group targeted for arrest and are simply gathering evidence in front of laying charges, meaning this is not a fishing expedition at all, but the building of a case.
Richard S Courtney said:
“Thirdly, it is very, very probable that UK security agents know both the contents of the encrypted Climategat 2.0 files and the identity of the Climategate leaker. GCHQ is extremely competent and its staff working in the Donut probably sorted those things out within hours of being asked. ”
DirkH said:
“No, Richard, at the moment nobody on Planet Earth can crack the encryption.”
GCHQ wouldn’t need to. All they would need to do is look at the UEA backups which are (I assume) unencrypted and which the Police (iirc) have a copy of.
Tallbloke – commiserations, but chin up and keep your eye on the ball. Max Clifford (the publicist) may be interested: it might be worth a phone call. Someone, somewhere, precipitated all this by making a court application (possibly to a Magistrate or a Crown Court judge) – try to find out why, who is leading, why and under what procedure (are they for some strange reason looking at Article 16 of the UK/US extradition treaty?). And keep smiling: (a) it will all be over before long, (b) you’re now famous and (c) all this will really be something to dine out on, or regale the grandchildren at length about, in the fullness of time!
Perhaps Leif …… no that’s way over the top.
Skiphil says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:13 am
Steve from Rockwood says:
December 14, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Steve, please……. it was George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Blair) who published “1984″
——————————————–
You know Skip, I forgot that, having only read it twice. I understand he wrote the book in 1948 but renamed it. Sad ending. A lesson to never give up, even though most of us do.
Also read H.G. Wells Time Machine and Invisible Man. I have a terrible memory for authors although I remember most of John Wyndham’s books.
These novels are described as “a pessimistic answer to scientific optimism”. Add that to what amounts to a shakedown of Tallbloke and welcome to 2012.
If Tallbloke is not a suspect in any crime, then wtf are the cops doing “impinging his personal freedom” and confiscating his kit?
Ask for a warrant, and make sure the terms of the warrant are proper.
This affair stinks to high heaven.
I’m not surprised. I mean, he put this on this Inter-thing, this Al Gore invention. He basically gave it to the Russians to read, or the Chinese, the Huns, maybe even the Yanks, I shouldn’t wonder. (Made trusted Olde English institutions look bad, to boot.) Time for Bulldog Drummond & Col. Blimp to biff the baddies.
Your computers are next, sir.
*twirls mustache*
=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//
tallbloke says:
December 15, 2011 at 9:43 am
many thanks to those who have hit the donate button.
I’ll be able to get a second hand laptop soon so I can keep blogging.
=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//=\\=//
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/tallbloke-towers-raided-many-computers-taken/#comment-10781 [bold added]
@tallbloke
As others have said, when they do return your computer throw it out. Or at least quarantine it and DO NOT hook it up to your home network. There is no telling what kind of spyware they will put on it while they have it. And there is a good chance that whatever they put on it will not be found by commercial antivirus or antispyware software.
I would go on, but for some reason this news has me paranoid about voicing my views online.
Tallblock, one word: Upgrade.
Raiding Tallblock’s place to find deepthroat would be similar to police raiding our old Commodor 64’s in order to discover who created the internet. Who wants to bet they are all sitting around Tallblock’s computers with “Windows 98 for Dummies” cracked open trying to find the on button?
That you do what you do with the hardware you do it with is astounding.
The UK and most of the rest of Europe have been inching towards full Socialist states for quite some time. When you model yourself after something Joe Stalin built, it’s not surprising that you eventually start to act like . . . well . . . Joe Stalin.
The MSM aren’t biting much.
I phoned BBC Radio Norfolk at 9.30 GMT this morning. They hadn’t heard of the story, but (after I pointed them to WUWT) said they would investigate. As of the 13:00 news, a small item giving the basic facts (6 police…raided…2 computers..Climategate emails..no-one has been arrested) has appeared as #2 news item.
Chris Horner has a piece at:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/12/obamas-justice-department-joins-britains-climategate-leaker-manhunt/2006206
They were polite and promised to return the kit after cloning the disks.
Why would they need to drag out the hardware? Most departments have portable drive archivers, and a notebook to write down the mac addresses. I don’t have a copy in front of me, but the typical computer forensic guidlelines insist on archiving insitu.
I can see the taking the router if they thought the firmware had been updated (although I am at a loss as to what nefarious purpose it could be bent towards.)
FOIA and the bloggers are doing a great service to mankind.
That is not an exaggeration.
The fact that it is being investigated is irresponsible to the maximum degree.
If the police take your harddrives & computers how would anyone know if the police then put incriminating data on them. Think of the issue with DNA contamination and the necessary procedures there. Harddrives are even more open to abuse. Some form of supervised, forensic analysis prior to removal would be needed to try and avoid a possible fit up and where real criminals are involved so assisting a correct prosecution.
“No, Richard, at the moment nobody on Planet Earth can crack the encryption.”
Isn’t the viability of the encryption compromised by the large amount of known plaintext associated with it? If the CG01 and CG02 materials are in the zip, then I don’t think you can make the assumption that the file is secure. Even the known frequency of names and email address (based on the released material) is perhaps enough to degrade the value of the encryption function.
1) This is getting out of hand. Is Climate Science/Policy the National Socialism of the 21st century? By what right does law enforcement procure any search warrant without revealing the nature of the evidence and stating what crimes they believe to have been committed? When does Klimatenacht begin?
2) Can someone explain how DoJ is involved in the warrant? I see several comments to the effect, yet from what I read here and elsewhere, DoJ’s only involvement seems to be an inquiry to WordPress regarding Tallbloke’s account there. Is there more involvement than that?
3) They’ve either got proof of a hack, or the Team is in no way involved and/or driving this. It’s taken on a life of it’s own. The problem I see is that if it is determined that this was a leak, rather than a hack, it ALL becomes admissible in court. There may not be direct evidence of scientific misconduct (though I hold that information in the data/code files in CG 1.0 are exactly that), there are torts here, ‘ipso facto’, both civil and criminal, more or less admitted, stated and agreed to in these emails. The Team is either certain it’s a hack or they no longer have control and will have problems defending themselves in court should the occasion require it. I doubt Scotland Yard considers their opinions relevant, though they also may not be inclined to investigate the Team for such conduct.
4) My most sincere sympathy to Tallbloke. Never had to suffer the indignity of law enforcement at my door with a warrant, valid or otherwise. Hope never to. Illegitimi non carborundum!
Shocking, even worse. I haven’t even read one single comment yet, so it could be that I’m repeating what others have already expressed, but I cannot help it.
This is what used to happen in the Soviet Union, or is happening in Iran and communist China……….. shame shame shame…
DirkH:
At December 15, 2011 at 3:26 am you say to me:
“No, Richard, at the moment nobody on Planet Earth can crack the encryption. This is the newest report I can find about progress in attacking AES 256; still falls short of a practical real life attack.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/08/new_attack_on_a_1.html
“As our attacks are of high computational complexity, they do not threaten the practical use of AES in any way.””
Of course, you may be right.
Personally, I am sure that if there were no possiblility of GCHQ (or the NSA in the USA) ‘cracking’ AES 256 then other security agencies would have done nefarious things to inhibit use of it. (The UK obtained an empire that circled the globe by use of espionage and trade, and given the size of our current expenditure on espionage I doubt we have lost our expertise).
History repeatedly shows that those who provide an encryption system always underestimate the ability of others to ‘crack’ it (e.g. google ENIGMA and Bletchley Park).
Richard
I’ve made a small contribution toward a new computer, or legal representation (whichever is more urgent), at Tallbloke’s website. Perhaps this episode will have a silver lining?
Canada’s decision to get out of Kyoto, climategate and climategate 2, the triple debacle at Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban, the crash of the carbon stocks and the resultant melting of billions of dollars in the process, the skeptic blogs exposing the scam, all these and other episodes taken holistically, have resulted in this Orwellian situation. However, this is just the dying dragon kicking with its tail. It can be dangerous, but dying it is and it finally it will be over, soon.
Sorry Tallbloke – perhaps the UK police aught to read YOUR Climategate 1.0 and Climategate 2.0 emails and then lay criminal charges against the East Anglia criminals instead of going after an innocence fellow. The real criminals are at East Anglia and their co-conspirators at the BBC and the Guardian.
_________________________
Reading this comment rather hastily, I magaged to read it “…. The real criminals are at East Germany………………..”
A world where corrupt scientists and corrupt bureaucrats and corrupt NGO’s get police protection and ordinary individuals get raided. There is only one word that describes this new world: FASCISM.
I expect I am now at risk of a police raid, having posted this very comment,
This is a watershed moment really.
It is obviously an outrage that Tallbloke has been raided and others “implicated”.
SO now we will find out if there is any power in the sceptical movement, any influence reach or voice. Or if we are just shouting at each other in isolation and the world of econuts just carries on marching towards world domination.
yah- the usual raid on a computer by the feebs or anyone legal (at least in the usa) involves these steps:
pull the plug so no deadman app or booby trap can delete files
boot from encase cd (that’s the forensic software made for this purpose. if you are a member of law enforcement community you can get an account at encase forums and chat about all your tricks, including what piratey sites to visit for up.to.date encryption software for instant messaging services, etc)
the encase software clones the contents of the hd.
the clone goes to the office for scrutiny. nobody carries heavy stuff.
the appearance of a gang was definitely showmanship – but for whom?
Current Administration DOJ is the most corrupt in history; with many agendas of which, at times, breathtaking means justify the end as long as it furthers the agenda.
It is all too eerily like 1984. Not a suspect, yet he loses his computers (even if for a day) and all his personal – non-criminal – documents are exposed to any clown who wants to get his jollies off.
So many points.
First off, the standard thing is to say “you are not a suspect” when what is really meant is “we don’t have enough for an arrest yet”. The usual dodge is “person of interest” or “questioning as a witness”.
Second the notion about encryption. Oh, and blind allies. One of my ‘fun things to do’ in a prior life was to leave sporadic encrypted files in selected places. These contained either things like MS Word or, my favorite, the encryption key. Nothing like opening the safe to find the key inside 😉
I liked the idea of a lot of folks named FOIA posting links to email on selected “other” sites 😉
I’d buy a new laptop and donate the other ones to the local high school… (after scrubbing my data).
I’m pretty sure FOIA is smart enough to have logged on to an open WIFI hotspot with a disposable wireless card (perhaps even from a car in the parking lot / carpark) THEN bounced off an anonymzer. Why take the ADSL? Perhaps to see if it was configed to connect to some ISP that was not on their list. “Contact tracing”
FWIW, I’d largely ignored CG2, figuring it was likely “more of the same” and “well covered”. Now that I’ve been awakened to it… Went looking just a bit. I think there is a simple reason for “why” this is of interest. The “Named Names” in the emails.
I ran in to a couple of interesting ones in:
http://dump.kurthbemis.com/climategate2/FOIA/mail/5310.txt
It talks about the UK Govt wanting to “shut down” some noise being made in an article. It has references to Russian Govt folks getting grumpy. It has email addresses with UK Govt in them and with “.iimperial.ac.uk” in them (that is suggestive to me) and folks with “Titles” like “Sir John Houghton”. Looks to me like some of the emails have folks of rank and in the government in them. That will have rattled some cages. Further, there is some ‘inside baseball’ talk about how the UK Government is trying to manipulate RUSSIA in to joining the AGW bandwagon… One of the folks in the CC list looks to be a UK Govt party stationed in or focused on Russia “Cc: “Evans Simon [FCO] – moscow, Russia” simon.evans@fco.gov.uk,”
That was from one email that I hit after about a dozen random ‘picks’, so who know what all else is in there. And that’s the stuff that is NOT encrypted…
So imagine you are a local constable and you get a call from “Sir xxx” and an email from “xxx@imperial…” and some folks from the Foreign Office have some friends from a Three Letter Agency (or Two Letters and a Number) show up asking for your “Help” in a matter of “National Interest. At the Highest Levels.”
Yeah, I think that would explain leaning on a blogger somewhere in the hope of finding an IP trail …
There is a whole lot of “conspiring” going on here, and the email shows it. (Don’t know if it is illegal conspiracy or not, but clearly these folks are working together to an end).
Further to my post above, regarding the possibility that the leaker or leakers are known to police and that, instead of a fishing expedition through Tallbloke’s computers, prosecutors are amassing evidence in a case to present to a magistrate prior to an arrest and, walking this theory forward a bit more, it is a near certainty that all the emails are in the hands of police/prosecutors, but not yet in the hands of the public. This could lead to a ‘leniency plea of guilt’ in exchange for keeping the emails out of the hands of the public.
“2) Can someone explain how DoJ is involved in the warrant? I see several comments to the effect, yet from what I read here and elsewhere, DoJ’s only involvement seems to be an inquiry to WordPress regarding Tallbloke’s account there. Is there more involvement than that?”
Legally, the UK Government could have made the same inquiry and it would have been proper and yes I am sure me and others would have still gone on about how the UK government is trashing the rights of its citizens…. but for the US DOJ to do so smacks of something rather fishy. Is there more involvment then that? Well for one the timing is also fishy to seemingly occur at the same time as the raid on the computers. That kind of timing in Governments is not easy to accomplish especially among international Governments.
Read between the lines….this is a joint venture (investigation if you will.)
Why is it that the DOJ is getting involved at all is still a very good question. I mean there is no reason. And the request for secrecy? It is almost scary that they asked the request not be forwarded. Almost as if they did not want anyone to know they were also investigating…and we all have to ask…what is it that they are investigating?
LamontT says: December 14, 2011 at 7:39 pm “you need to be careful talking to the police. Not that they are actively trying to do ill but that if they are negligent it can go so badly for you.”
Actually, you should NEVER talk to the police. They are actively trying to do you harm at most times. I know this from experience as a juror. Just remember how well it worked for Martha Stewart. The justice system (as with all of government) is corrupt to its very core. You deal with them at extreme risk. You might as well work with the mafia, there is little difference.
Maybe the Police should take all of the Warmist’s computers since they are the ones perpetrating a giant fraud on humanity!
All this information including the encrypted files and passwords should be sent to wikileaks.org ASAP.
woodNfish says:
December 15, 2011 at 7:29 am
“All this information including the encrypted files and passwords should be sent to wikileaks.org ASAP.”
Why would you trust Assange?
How weird, I am starting to feel scared for whoever is in the unpublished emails.
Usually fools don´t have the sense of humour. …We already know that the “King is naked” and they are trying to hide it! LOL!!
DirkH says: December 15, 2011 at 7:34 am “Why would you trust Assange?”
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
@DirkH says – December 15, 2011 at 7:34 am
I would not trust Assange. After he tried to jump on the CG I bandwagon with an absurdly obvious lie.
Why are there no updates to WWW for 12.15.11?
Wikileaks? They’re on the establishment’s side on CAGW. However bizarre that may seem.
They did try to claim some of the credit for Climategate 1.0 though…
Weird that the truth about global warming is denied while the police look for the culprit who leaked the truth … They appear to be worried about the wrong thing, NO?
And remember that the Climategate Investigation is in the hands of the NDET (National Domestic Extremism Team), which is part of the Assocn of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). ACPO is a PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY and not bound by FOI.
The Norfolk plods are simply foot soldiers and will know very little themselves.
To Tallbloke … stay strong friend. And get busy: Start writing a diary right now, jot down everything (you can and will write a million selling book later). Get lawyered up. Ask Chris Horner and Chris Monckton who they recommend. Perhaps in the UK, you can FOI the constables to find out if anyone dropped a dime on you (cough Mann cough Jones) and then FOI them or whoever it was. Just sayin.
Keep a sense of humor. You may have been destined to play a larger role in the coming collapse of the AGW religion.
Meanwhile, computers owned by the following climate kooks have NOT been confiscated …
+ Paul Ehrlich
+ James Hansen
+ Bill McKibben
+ Michael Mann
+ Algore
+ Princess Charles
+ Rajendra Pachauri
+ Kevin Trenberth
+ David Suzuki
+ John Holdren
+ Ben Santer
+ Gavin Schmidt
+ Phil Jones
+ Keith Briffa
+ Bill Nye
+ Michio Kaku
+ Joe Romm
+ William M. Connolley
+ Raymond Pierrehumbert
+ Tim Flannery
+ Casper Amman
+ Raymond Bradley
+ Eric Steig
+ Malcolm Hughes
+ John Cook
+ Foster Grant Tamino
…
My guess is that more than a handful of those listed will become aware of this computer confiscation (Mann, Jones, and Gavin for sure) and will smack their heads and be heard mumbling something about ‘Oh crap! We don’t need a freakin’ martyr now.‘.
I don’t know about England, but in the US – the police telling you that you are not a suspect is completely meaningless.
See this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6wXkI4t7nuc
I totally agree with Blade, get tooled up, this is an opportunity for someone with the wherewithall to help you big time. Could open lots of doors as a precedent has now been set.
This is probably just part of some backtesting to see if 0bama’s Internet Kill Switch could have shut down Climategate 1 & 2.
Looks like Josh found his backup crayons
Norfolk Police requests your help !
“I dread to say it, but lets just see if any kiddie porn is “found” on your computer.”
That is exactly what plod is hoping for.
Anything will do, perfectly innocent photos of any youngish (or even youngish-appearing) female, a quiet hint to the Daily Mail, and there’s your awkward person dealt with.
As he doesn’t have a reference image, they could plant something too, if they’re keen enough.
An idea:
Let’s say we get 10,000 people all to write an email to the Norfolk police saying they have had contact with FOIA2011, and that he/she has sent them the password to the encrypted file. People all over the world from Alabama to Zanzibar. The password and his IP address is on their hard drive right *now*.
A sort of “I’m Spartacus” moment.
Then get all of them to encrypt their hard-drive with TrueCrypt… imagine the fun… 🙂
Obama’s Justice Department joins Britain’s ‘Climategate’ leaker manhunt
“The leaked records derailed “cap-and-trade” legislation in the U.S. and, internationally, as well as talks for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The emails and computer code were produced with taxpayer funds and held on taxpayer-owned computers both in the US and the UK, and all were subject to the UK Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and state FOIA laws.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/12/obamas-justice-department-joins-britains-climategate-leaker-manhunt/2006206#ixzz1gcYAgUtP
Reason 387 to talk to a lawyer NOW.
Astounding! On the behest of the USA, our police raid a home, confiscate hardware to clone it and then say he’s not a suspect. There are serious questions to be asked about sovereignty, freedom and rights. If I were Tallbloke I’d get a lawyer asap
If I were Mr. FOIA I would release the encryption key ASAP. There some very powerful folks who are worried about the content of the unreleased emails. They will not arrest FOIA as that would still allow the release of the key. There’s only one way to stop him.
Of course, once the key is released they will no longer have a big reason to pursue him.
First there is TrueCrypt
If that’s not enough, there is always Live-CD or bootable USB-stick containing Ubuntu which leaves no trace on your Harddisk; then use an internet cafe and use Tor.
As always Encrypt your Emails.
It is unwise to interfere with an ongoing police investigation, no matter how noble the motives. Getting this out in the public and enlisting the involvement of fair minded politicians is by far the best route, IMHO.
Yes, Climategate file involvement may be the pretext used to shut down bloggers and/or make future arrests.
Andrew
sorry just going off topic for a mo to bring you this lovely Chart from New Scientist. I like the regularity of the warming.
http://www.newscientist.com/articleimages/mg21228392.300/1-hyperwarming-climate-could-turn-earths-poles-green.html
And how many who have read this, and/or commented on this trust thread “Cloud Computing”? I don’t and I won’t. Why would the police come to you for your computer when the could put pressure on Apple or some other company and get all of your information and records without your knowledge. I was raised by a cynic and a skeptic and have remained true to the mold. I keep my own backup.
As to the comments about the police. I have known and been friends with a few. Most of them are all right as individuals, but they will always default to orders from above and will always protect each other before they defend a citizen. “To Serve and Protect” means to serve the boss and protect each other. Well I’d better get closer to the front door and start listening for the knock…or boot!
There’s an American expression that might be pertinent here.
“…something, something, cold dead hands.”
Sorry…should have read “…commented on this thread trust “Cloud…”
Anyone see the Minority Report?
Another brilliant move by the Warmarxists. This tactical strike will intimidate the skeptics & they will certainly stand-down now…..
As a visitor to this site, I find it very puzzling that so many posters rush to explain why the police can’t do this, or must do that, when they clearly have very little understanding whatsoever about the matters on which they are pontificating.
Only one poster even mentions that Scotland has quite separate (and very different) criminal and civil legal systems* from those in England and Wales – and even he got it wrong, when he claimed that the criminal caution was the same in both jurisdictions! And the IPCC is only for complaints against police forces in England, not UK forces – again, they have no authority or responsibility for Scottish police forces.
Speaking as a retired senior police officer of some 30 years service, there are indeed many puzzling facets of this incident – but none of those involve the actual legalities of the operation or the SOPs (standard operating procedures) that were followed. No, there was no requirement to make a forensic image at the point of seizure (why, when that’s the first thing that will be undertaken on forensic examination?), and no, the chain of evidence isn’t broken accordingly. Have a look here: http://7safe.com/electronic_evidence/ACPO_guidelines_computer_evidence_v4_web.pdf or if the link doesn’t make it to this post, Google for “ACPO Digital Evidence Guidelines”.
There are clearly issues for you guys to debate… but please, the plethora of armchair generals all giving advice (about stuff that clearly they know very little about) is distracting from the real issues… 🙁
* And education, banknotes, company registrations, registers of births/deaths/marriages, etc., etc., etc., …
Paul says (December 15, 2011 at 8:49 am)
—-
Blimey! Is this what we’ve come to? Anyone dubious of AGW has to TrueCrypt their drives and communicate via Tor? It’s like we’re hiding from Lavrentiy Beria.
What’s the point of these people “saving the planet” if it’s not worth living on?
Okay, it’s up at The Register now:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/15/climategate_police_action/
How nice to see Tallbloke’s info and employer revealed so “the opposition” knows where to apply the pressure to get him sacked, or at least demoted, for being un-trustworthy with secure materials. Or was that already public?
And yes, there was a search warrant.
Might as well stick this story in a new post for further arguing before the comments here get unmanageably long.
Bernie says:
December 15, 2011 at 8:50 am
It is unwise to interfere with an ongoing police investigation, no matter how noble the motives. Getting this out in the public and enlisting the involvement of fair minded politicians is by far the best route, IMHO.
==============
I agree, this isn’t to be taken lightly.
Tallbloke
Others have mentioned it, let me reinforce it. Write everything down including dates and times. Notes taken ‘in the moment’ hold a lot more sway than summarized information later on. No detail is too trivial. Anything they copy or sample, get a duplicate. If anything happens to show up on your drives it will be time stamped and if you’ve been meticulous in your record keeping you can show it was in their possession when it happened.
I’ve gone through legal proceedings involving government and you’d be surprised how childish and duplicitous individuals in government can be. On the other hand, maybe you wouldn’t.
R. de Haan says:
December 15, 2011 at 3:12 am
A Force for Evil
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/12/force-for-evil.html
………….
alisonmrobinson says:
December 15, 2011 at 7:12 am
Current Administration DOJ is the most corrupt in history; with many agendas of which, at times, breathtaking means justify the end as long as it furthers the agenda.
__________________________________________
I am afraid I have to agree with both these statements, but the corruption has been continuous for decades. Thanks to the internet the rot is finally being exposed.
The raid at tallblokes was minor and very low key compared to what others have suffered in the raids on the farm community in the USA for a decade or more…. Stuff that never made it into the news and is only known thanks to the internet and bloggers.
New Documentary by a concerned citizen:
Farmagedon: America’s War Against Small Family Farmers: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-09-24/article/38459?headline=Farmageddon-America-s-War-Against-Small-Farmers
“In scary legal news a Wisconsin judge had gone completely loopy declaring that citizens have no right to produce or eat the foods of their own choice….” http://nonais.org/2011/09/
Older raids
2006, Henshaw Incident: http://nonais.org/2006/09/29/henshaw-incident/
2000 “Mad Sheep” Raid ~ Faillace imported dairy sheep. [ Note THESE animals when through health tests and quarantine yet Mexican cattle cross the border with out TB testing or quarantine bringing TB, Blue tongue and other diseases into the USA thanks to the WTO Agreement on Ag. Southwest states have lost their disease free status as a result while the USDA cut testing to 1/10 that done prior to WTO.]
….Larry completed his PhD in animal physiology. Larry was offered a position at the University Of Nottingham School Of Agriculture and they jumped at the chance to live and work overseas. Linda worked at the University as secretary to Professor Lamming, a well-known researcher in the field of Mad Cow disease. Linda learned a great deal about the disease and planned to continue researching it upon their return to America…. http://jmyarlott.com/Articles/Mad%20Sheep/Default.asp
2009 An interview with Linda Faillace, author of Mad Sheep” (Video) : http://farmwars.info/?p=1306
This is a well reasoned explanation (backed by evidence) of why US Farmers have no confidence in the USDA.
The rot is quite pervasive and all ties back to the UN and trade treaties.
Who’s interfering or suggesting interfering? Asserting your rights is not “interfering”.
Paul Homewood says:
December 15, 2011 at 8:16 am
And remember that the Climategate Investigation is in the hands of the NDET (National Domestic Extremism Team), which is part of the Assocn of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). ACPO is a PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY and not bound by FOI.
The Norfolk plods are simply foot soldiers and will know very little themselves.
—————————————–
ACPO is a contracted PLC doing Govt police work??? You have to be kidding. And they bill by the hour.so this could take….well….how much money has their client got?? And they are answerable to Rupert Murdoch oooppps…..strike that……to….. Well, who do they answer to. And then FOIA their incoming information.
This world is going mad! Add it all up—greed is taking over the world….in all it’s disguises!
Several have commented that the returned computer might have something added to the drive. That ‘something’ would probably be a rootkit, which regular antivirus scans do NOT detect. I recently had some problems and had to do some study on that topic. One can download a good, fast, free antirootkit scanner from Kaspersky Labs — the TDSSkiller — which found my problem right away.
http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208280684
If you have not taken much time to study such matters, it would also be a good idea to get one of the ‘wipe drive’ utilities; there are several free programs. I use Eraser, which can overwrite at various levels of security. The high levels run slowly, however.
Beyond the easy level there is ComboFix, (which takes expertise, or consultation with experts), and reading books by Bruce Schneier, the high guru of computer security —
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Lies-Digital-Security-Networked/dp/0471453803/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1323971930&sr=8-2-spell
William Old;
No, there was no requirement to make a forensic image at the point of seizure (why, when that’s the first thing that will be undertaken on forensic examination?), and no, the chain of evidence isn’t broken accordingly. Have a look here: http://7safe.com/electronic_evidence/ACPO_guidelines_computer_evidence_v4_web.pdf >>>
Having read that document (thanks for the link) and also Tallbloke’s description of the events, either Tallbloke left out an AWFULL lot of detail, or these procedures were not followed. Further, in looking at the dcoument itself, in my opinion it has a variety of holes in the procedures themselves that could easily be exploited with ill intent, and these could be demonstrated to a court of law.
Hard drisks are called “volatile media” for a reason. If no attempt is made to preserve an independant copy of the data on premise prior to removal, then any data on the drive after it leaves the possession of the owner is by default suspect. If the courts accept this shoddy procedure, then I am aghast.
This document was written, in my estimation, by people who knew what they were doing as a guideline of sorts for people who don’t. As anyone with IT experience can tell you, making operating instructions fool proof is almost impossible because fools are so fiendishly clever.
BTW if you read no other links I post do read the article Mad SHEEP By Linda Faillace
http://jmyarlott.com/Articles/Mad%20Sheep/Default.asp
Her documentation of the pal review, back scratching and lying in her case shows why FOIA and release of e-mails is being fought tooth and nail when it comes to CAGW.
The next time a Warmist says anything about “Peer review” Phd Scientists or “Authority” whip out this article where the rot is laid bare in excruciating detail.
No one who reads this would EVER trust the legal system again. I certainly do not.
Hmmm … impractical considerations aside, like governments who have access to “high computational complexity” hardware and software.
I guess that clears things up.
.
What’s odd about this to me is that if they succeed in figuring out the identity of FOIA, then it’s virtually guaranteed that the encrypted 225,000 e-mails will see the light of day.
So is it a bluff or a double bluff ??
Whatever, it sure as heck has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
So…was any of this done to American or European servers due to wikileaks? If it was I missed it, which is certainly possible…but this seems…extreme.
OT Gail; mods, do you see the ‘hobby horse’ ridden with that (and other) posts?
.
I don’t think it has been pointed out here, but the East Anglia CRU department, is in the Norfolk Constabulary.
Is this an inside job?
.
Gail Combs says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:11 am
Gail. i checked the link but it came out in Mandarin Chinese? I can read onlty a very few characters in chinese: the numerals 1,2 and 3 and also the phrase; “danger: slippery floor”.
Thank you Anthony Watts for taking the risks from probable attacks by ‘Big Authority’ to provide your excellent platform which gives us, the free-minded people, the way to share and disseminate knowledge and information.
There are many worrying aspects to this story. Given the huge financial issues at stake here in the trillions of dollars market that is the Climate Change scam, and the resources that the warmists, their sponsors and their supporters have at their disposal, we all need to be on our guard.
The publishing and broadcasting to the wide world of stories such as this, is one of our greatest methods of defence against those who seek to close down any opposition.
.
And if the plods from Norfolk are looking for FOIA, try Russia, not Leeds. That’s the trouble with Norfolk plods. They all look the same, you know. Funny, that.
.
Ralph says:
“…try Russia, not Leeds.”
But the streetlight is better in Leeds. That might help them find their key.☺
I believe there are a couple of vital issues that most people are not even noticing here (I’m not at all suggesting the other issues aren’t worthy of discussion, just that the following is being neglected so far):
Assuming (big ‘if’) that the search and seizure as conducted is legal under the relevant laws where ‘Tallbloke’ lives,
1) think about what a huge change this is from traditional concepts of privacy, that nowadays with the web you could be subject to legal search (potentially) if you had any kind of digital contact at all with a total stranger(s) anywhere in the world, and/or police even suspect there might, possibly, somehow be digital evidence of anything on your hard drive;
2) a ‘blogger’ or any ‘ordinary’ citizen is subject at any instant to total disclosure to the police of every digital activity he’s ever conducted via said hard drive(s).
Even ‘if’ the police are acting within their legal rights and responsibilities it does not take a conspiratorial mind to worry about the state of modern privacy here. I don’t (in general) reject the right and duty of police to collect evidence of crimes, but unless they already had a “smoking gun” of a crime committed BY ‘Tallbloke’ (which has not been suggested anywhere and has been denied directly by a police rep to Tallbloke), what we have is a massive anti-privacy fishing expedition of police (legally) combing through all aspects of a person’s digital life for potential evidence of SOMEONE ELSE’s alleged crime.
I think this should give everyone serious pause, especially that political dissidence itself has become much more dangerous. I don’t think I’m conspiracy oriented but I would not (hypothetically) want to entrust anything of value to the kinds of scumbags we have seen in the CG1 and CG2 emails, or to the kinds of people running the CAGW scams.
Does anyone not think that govt agencies in the UK, USA, and worldwide have become thoroughly seeded with bureaucrats who have no respect for the privacy rights or well-being of CAGW dissenters?
Does anyone reading this really want to provide all of your personal digital info to the police and to the CAGW enforcers, simply because as an informed citizen you have opinions and judgments of your own?
Wikileaks? Not likely. I’d go for cryptome and besides that FOIA seems to have his act together. Strategy, tactics, planning and execution. Quick raid the university chess & go clubs and you are bound to catch your man!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire?INTCMP=SRCH
Very insightful; Nota Bene: to anyone wishing to see a variety of UK govt names-named should see the above link to e-mail 5310.
.
Skiphil – very well said. Precisely what I had in mind. The traditional goal posts seem as if they are being moved all the time.
Great quote by Tallbloke in the Guardian piece cited by Vukcevic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire?INTCMP=SRCH)
“I am happy to assist the police with their inquiries because I haven’t been hiding anything important like some people have.”
If you harbour stolen goods, the police might knock someday …
what are you all getting worked up about?
Some links!
https://sites.google.com/site/myteurastaja/
Oh Dear The Norfolk Plod are doing their masters bidding, could coincide with what they discovered on the UEA computers and are trying to hide what they found. After all UEA gave the plod £10.000 could be a bonus in it for them!
This is rich:
From the Guardian and the spokesman for the UEA
Mikael Pihlström says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:02 am
If you harbour stolen goods, the police might knock someday …
what are you all getting worked up about?
================================================================
This is potentially much much broader than that. Collecting “evidence” in digital terms can come to simply seeking a name, an IP address, an email address, a tiny piece of a digital puzzle, etc. You might not even have any idea that you possess such ‘evidence’ because you probably don’t actually ‘know’ the person they are investigating (someone operating under multiple internet aliases etc.).
Thus, your privacy could be obliterated at any moment if police merely suspect you ever received an email from a hacker, leaker, etc., or that such a person ever posted on a blog you run, or if you ever posted something on a blog they run etc.
_Jim says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:17 am
““As our attacks are of high computational complexity, they do not threaten the practical use of AES in any way.”
Hmmm … impractical considerations aside, like governments who have access to “high computational complexity” hardware and software.
I guess that clears things up.”
Jim, we are talking many orders of magnitude here, like 10 ^ 73 or so…and it is totally impossible that some government agency has access to such technology. That would be like technology from the year 2100 – and you would not hide that technology until you can crack an AES-256 encoded file with it, no, you would use it ALL THE TIME and TOTALLY RULE. So, they can’t have that technology, we would know. It would be like having a suitcase sized nuclear fusion reactor and not using it.
After watching V for Vendetta. I from now on shall be known as FOIA to confound and confuse.
Ilkka Mononen provides a link (11:03am).
Google says “This page has insecure content.”
What’s up, Ilkka?
REPLY: Just ignore this stuff from Ilkka, I certainly am – Anthony
So what would it take to get a warrant to seize information that’s been illegally withheld when requested under FOI laws?
Jimmy Haigh says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:24 am
Gail Combs says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:11 am
Gail. i checked the link but it came out in Mandarin Chinese? I can read onlty a very few characters in chinese: the numerals 1,2 and 3 and also the phrase; “danger: slippery floor”.
——————————————–
Wierd
Link was http://jmyarlott.com/Articles/Mad Sheep/Default.asp
or search jmyarlott.com then go to articles then mad sheep.
What I do not like is the increasingly nasty raids on citizens that I have seen over the past few years. Tallbloke’s raid is another in a long line and should be look at as such. Without the background of other recent raids it could be considered an isolated instance when it is not.
I will repeat, Tall bloke get thee to a lawyer FAST. The legal system does not represent the citizen it represents the bureaucracy and we should never forget it.
I would highly suspect that when he gets his harddrive and other equipment back, that it likely has a bit something ‘extra’ added that wouldn’t be obvious.
I heard that the hard drive production had taken a severe hit due to bad climate, er weather, in Thailand, but this is taking it too far, bursting in and raiding people’s computers like that.
Note to constabulary: Data storage RAID devices, not RAID the data storage devices. :p
Nothing from Richard Black over at the BBC yet. Amazing really, considering how vermently Richard has chased this story. Perhaps it has something to do with any righ minded person reading about an innocent blogger having his PC stolen and cloned may leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Richard, if you read this, you know who I am and you are spineless.
‘There wouldn’t be any record on his PC’s of the event from FOIA’s placing comments, that would be in the wordpress.com server logs.’
Is this sentence correct? Should it be ‘that wouldn’t be’?
I must confess that I’m struggling to get worked up about this. Sorry,but we’re not on our way to a police state, down a slippery slope or to hell in a handbasket. The police have always had plenty of powers; it’s just that most people never have any cause to be touched by them. The joke is that the police haven’t concluded anything from CG1 so it doesn’t exactly bode well now.
That is a very good point. We really have been like the proverbial slow cooking frogs in a pot of water. Let’s review …
If Tallbloke were a citizen in the USA and the case eventually wound up in the Supreme Court it is almost a slam dunk there would be favorable ruling, perhaps even a unanimous smackdown like the Clinton Sexual Harassment Lawsuit or the Nixon Watergate Tapes. It sounds far-fetched I know, but so did those. This one is iron-clad (Bill Of Rights) versus those other two which were in gray murkier areas.
Your point touches the fact that someone’s computer often has things such as family photos and family tree history, bank records, passwords, school work, business information, trade secrets, phone numbers, social security records and much more. It is inconceivable to me that Justices pondering a case like this for months would not realize their immense duty and draw a bright line here. This is clearly what the Fourth Amendment is meant for. I suspect the powers-that-be will push and push and game the current corrupt system for all its worth, all the while anticipating that one day this is gonna end badly for them. So they are thinking they may as well use it while they can.
The fact that the Holder DoJ is taking advantage of the fact that the UK has no such Amendment is also very troubling. And then there are the many DMCA abuses with the RIAA suits, domain seizures and other similar infringements, I can’t help but think that a major ruling is going to occur sometime in the next several years. If it doesn’t, things are really gonna get bad.
P.S. For anyone that is not angry enough yet, over at Bishop Hill one of the commenters pointed out that the nitwit moderator from SkS Dana1981 had this to say at his blog …
The knucklehead even uses the Virginia state seal and it’s motto: Sic Semper Tyrannis (‘Thus Always to Tyrants’), while describing his side as the little people, which has to be an Olympic world record for long jump hypocrisy.
Just read the Guardian piece. They let a UEA spokesperson have the last word, who talks about “theft of emails” and “distorting the debate about global warming” – now WHERE is the Guardian defending whistleblowers in this case; and HOW exactly can more openness DISTORT the debate…
The leftists at Guardian, NYT and Spiegel cannot possibly be dumb enough to not see their own hipocrisy; comparing the treatment of ClimateGate2 with the Wikileaks diplomat cable release – so I assume malice, not incompetence in this case.
I knew Blair was Bush’s poodle, but it appears that the U.K. cops are Obama’s bitch.
The high-pitched noise you hear is Churchill spinning in his grave.
What does come to mind is the fact that if Mike Mann etal had stuck to the facts.
Facts Count Up Now Notwithstanding A Bit Late.
@Jason R
My point above is that the reach and effects of those police powers are drastically expanded by the nature of digital media and the internet.
Few of us have had any real grasp (I know I haven’t) of just how easily one could invite a police raid by what seemed like the most innocuous legal actiivities, e.g., pursuing one’s rights as a citizen online to learn about and discuss issues affecting our lives.
There is no practical limit to the kinds of relevant records which *might* be created on your own hard drive(s) if you ever visit a website, have any digital interaction with “FOIA” or anyone connected in any way with that person etc. You may have no idea right now that you already have some relevant bits of digital info on FOIA if you have followed this story at all on the web.
There has been a persistent rumor for several years that the NSA has a backdoor into AES. When IBM wanted to commercialize DES (an older encryption standard), there was a story going around that the NSA asked to review the algorithm, and after several months came back to IBM with a list of peculiar changes, and that the US government required IBM to make the suggested changes before the government would give IBM an export license. Clearly, the government has an interest in being able to break crypto.
Its an interesting idea — that the government already knows what’s in the encrypted file and is in a blind panic to stop the leaker from releasing the encryption key. But to me, this sounds a bit too much like science fiction.
I think its more likely that some politicians are feeling heat after the failure of Durban and are looking for a scalp that they can hold up to show the enviro voting block that they are doing something after the failure.
The greenies and left wing parties know one thing for sure. If you want to influence people, dominate the people that influence people. The greenies have infiltrated the media to such an extent the public have difficulty getting any other news other than what the greenies want you to hear, that’s why we come here to get an alternate point of view. I listen to everyone and believe no one. But how many people do their own research to be informed? that’s why we call them sheeple.
Upon thinking of kinking them.
What if say 100,000 nobelivers in AGW, better yet bloggers, all, over the next 6 months or so call up the plods, aka authorties and confess that they and their computers are the guilty ones.
Give them something to do.
Jason R,
You are missing the blindingly obvious. I can now get the police and Government to break into your house and confiscate all of your most personal details by simply lobbing a file containing information that is purporting to be hacked or stolen. You have no say in this matter – all that has to happen is that the authorities have to become aware of the file showing up on your computer.
Of course, there is no problem if the file I lobe onto your computer is hacked information from one of the groups hated by the PC authorities (e.g. Wikileaks, tobacco companies, big oil, Wall Street corporations, U.S. Military, climate skeptics etc.) however, you should expect police to break down your door if the file contains information that questions the current PC dogma (e.g. CAGW etc.).
If you are person who is running a blog that is challenging the authorities, you are now completely vulnerable to these Police-State tactics. You are one file away from your deepest secrets being handed over the authorities.
Wow, I wonder if UK law enforcement takes plain-jane computer identity theft that seriously. They don’t? Oh, I see…
You can be prosecuted for having downloaded illegal copies of content onto your computer, such as music and movies. Various entertainment companies are essentially extorting large financial penalties from downloaders. This extends to software such as Windoze. Sites hosting the files or even facilitating transfers are being shut down with the operators facing criminal charges, as with Napster and the Pirate Bay. You don’t even have to have the content on your machine, they can go off of ISP logs that show you downloaded it.
If the Climategate files are determined to be illegal copies, can such penalizations be sought against hosting sites and downloaders?
how’s this for smearing?
15 Dec: ScienceBlogs: Greg Laden: Computers of Criminal Cyber-Thieves Seized
Thieves who broke into Unviersity of East Anglia computers in 2009, stealing thousands of private emails thus compromising years of expensive scientific research and causing a fabricated and unnecessary political doo-doo storm, as part of a much larger campaign of harassment, have had some of their computer equipment seized by UK authorities…
Tattersall later whinged on his own blog that “an Englishman’s home is his castle … [but] not when six detectives form the [Met] … arrive on your doorstop…”
So, apparently it is OK for Tattersall and his band of thieves to unilaterally play vigilante and break into your computer or mine, but when authorities investigating a crime, with proper search warrant, show up to investigate his misdeeds, suddenly he’s an “Englishman” in his “Castle.” I don’t know whether to laugh of to go medieval on him…
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/12/computers_of_criminal_cyber-th.php
About Greg Laden:
I am a blogger and writer and independent scholar who occasionally teaches. I have a very fancy PhD from Harvard (written in Latin and everything) in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, as well as a Masters Degree in the same subjects (also from Harvard). I was awarded a Medical Doctorate from Harvard as well, but that was a clerical error and it was quickly revoked, much to the annoyance of my patients …
My undergraduate degree in Anthropology is from the Regents College of the University of the State of New York, which is an individualized degree program. My academic advisors were Dean Snow and Bob Paynter, which probably gives you a good idea of what I was into at the time…
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/about.php
mpaul says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:01 pm
“There has been a persistent rumor for several years that the NSA has a backdoor into AES. When IBM wanted to commercialize DES (an older encryption standard), there was a story going around that the NSA asked to review the algorithm, and after several months came back to IBM with a list of peculiar changes, and that the US government required IBM to make the suggested changes before the government would give IBM an export license. Clearly, the government has an interest in being able to break crypto. ”
The NSA changed the DES, gave it back to IBM, and no expert could really figure why they changed it the way they did.
More than 20 years later, independent researchers discovered differential cryptanalysis, a new way of attacking a cipher.
They were surprised when they tried differential cryptanalysis on the old, unmodified version as designed by IBM, and on the improved version of DES by the NSA. Turned out that the changes by the NSA in the 70ies HARDENED DES against this sort of attack. The NSA knew this technique all along.
Now, we shouldn’t overestimate their capabilities. They sat on this knowledge for two decades until the rest of the world finally had that idea, granted. But saying that they still have this kind of advantage would be pure conjecture. Computing is much more widespread now, and everybody and their dog is trying to break ciphers on their PC today… We can’t know, but I would bet against it. This type of singular knowledge is probably no more possible in that area.
Why would any self-respecting computer criminologist need to confiscate any computer to clone a hard drive? You can easily do that with handheld devices these days, it could be done over tea time. Either the law enforcement who visited Tallbloke are poor and incompetent (technically) or its just intimidation.
A spokesman for the University of East Anglia said today: “We are pleased to hear that the police are continuing to actively pursue the case following the release last month of a second tranche of hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit. We hope this will result in the arrest of those responsible for the theft of the emails and for distorting the debate on the globally important issue of climate change.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire?INTCMP=SRCH
DirkH says on December 15, 2011 at 11:15 am
…
[_]Jim, we are talking many orders of magnitude here …
You do realize, Dirk, that those are Bruce’s words, not mine:
“As our attacks are of high computational complexity, they do not threaten the practical use of AES in any way.”
I interpret that to mean you or I or the first several ‘levels’ in government intel can’t crack it, not the highest level. For you or I (and even Bruce) we are interested in practicality; those others not so much.
Besides, I think you assume ‘unknown text’ in ‘unknown form’ and that basis is not entirely correct, is it? The files, their sizes and names are visible, are they not, and and they are assumed to take the form of ‘e-mail text’ for the ‘encrypted’ files in the all.7z archive?
‘Impractical’ implementations (for you or I and Bruce) would include and racks and racks of cards containing 64 (and wider) bit DSP’s and FPGA’s and ‘Gate Arrays’ running optimized routines/code working to ‘break’ a particular code block …
Not everyone trying these tricks is running an over-clocked eMachines desktop.
Richard above also made a very good point earlier: those worried already *know* the contents of any possible additional e-mails (and possibly fostering this ‘raid’ through bureaucratic pressure), they wrote them!
Any communiques to/from the UEA were potentially compromised!
.
Story covered by Guardian…but no comments permitted.
Do you know what the Guardian claims on its main page?
‘Comment is Free’
Yea sure it is…if you happen to agree!
@Jeremy says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Really, if they are so clever, why do they need to confiscate hardware instead of doing it like any decent “hacker”?. Then it is obvious that the real purpose is to menace, to intimidate, all skeptics.
“We are pleased to hear that the police are continuing to actively pursue the case following the release last month of a second tranche of hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit. We hope this will result in the arrest of those responsible for the theft of the emails and for distorting the debate on the globally important issue of climate change.” (read: We’re desperate to find to root out the traitor before he releases the final batch of emails that prove that we, the US government, and the UN distorted the important issue of climate change for money)
Tallbloke being harassed by shortbrains.
The UK police are ‘saving the planet’ the Orwellian way.
That’s libel. And Mann retweeted it. That makes Mann guilty, too.
But it gets better. If Mann has any twitter followers in the UK (and you know he does), he committed libel in the UK. UK is libel central. Tallbloke needs to be talking to a lawyer for another reason: he’s got a cause of action that’s worth lotsa quid.
@blackswhitewash: I tweeted Revkin hours ago asking what he thought of Tallbloke’s laptops being seized in the UK by the DoJ. I don’t expect him to tweet back. After all, hypocrisy is the hallmark of the left elite.
Think Tallbloke have some support :
https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1883825&Site=COE
“Strasbourg, 08.12.2011 – The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers today alerted its member states about the risks to the rights to freedom of expression and association that may be created by politically motivated pressure on Internet platforms and online service providers. It also expressed concern about the threat to these rights caused by cyber attacks against websites of independent media, whistleblowers, human right defenders and dissidents.”
The Weaselzippers website has a bit up about the U.S. Dept. of Justice working with the UK to find out who “released”, “leaked,” whatever, the CRU-Tape I and II emails. So the story is getting legs in other parts of the blogosphere.
I’ll repeat this…Given the nature of the data bomb that is out there floating around, nothing the ‘authorities’ do is going to stop the last emails from being made public and in fact everything they do will speed up the release.
At best this is just pointless intimidation, at worst it means a trial for FOIA that may go either way.
ChE,
That shows the kind of person Greg Laden is. Tallbloke has something he can work with now, being labeled a criminal. There’s a reason people use the word “alleged”. Too late now for Laden and Mann, their libelous tweets are busy destroying Tallbloke’s reputation. He should get a screenshot of the tweets and contact a solicitor.
I think the police was searching for which mail was so hot that it got Manns stick to rise and
the polar ices to melt. ( Better than blue pills. )
Because accessing a private computer over the internet without permission is a crime. Police are supposed to be working above-board in the public eye. That means they have to come to your home, declare what they are doing, and follow the law. However, with today’s technology, confiscating a hard drive is unnecessary and simply deprives people of property when the enforcement agency only needs information. Taking TB’s laptop says they either can’t afford these kinds of devices or their laws forbid their use in law enforcement (seemingly unlikely), or they are practicing intimidation.
_Jim says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:40 pm
“‘Impractical’ implementations (for you or I and Bruce) would include and racks and racks of cards containing 64 (and wider) bit DSP’s and FPGA’s and ‘Gate Arrays’ running optimized routines/code working to ‘break’ a particular code block …”
No, rooms full of FPGAs or even custom chips are not considered “impractical” in this regard. The German Chaos Computer Club experiments with such hardware, for instance. That might add you 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, with a decent investment, but still falls short of the needed acceleration.
“Richard above also made a very good point earlier: those worried already *know* the contents of any possible additional e-mails (and possibly fostering this ‘raid’ through bureaucratic pressure), they wrote them! ”
Valid point. Still, at the moment, they can’t find out whether a certain item is or is not in the archive.
From the beeb on a different FOI email story but very interesting….
He adds: “Given the difficulty for civil servants and private offices to search private email accounts, and taking into account concerns regarding the security of these accounts and the need to ensure the completeness of the public record, the use of private email should continue to be actively discouraged.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16197167
This may have been said – its a long thread so I may have missed it – but I very much doubt the computers will be returned quickly. Could be plain inefficiency, but also rather intimidating. Will be interesting to see how long they are kept. 2 months minimum my guess.
I suppose that means everything should be backed up somewhere safe. Techies would know how I hope.
I doubt the Authorities like the internet, Utube or bloggers much, just as a general matter.
Meanwhilee, Drudge snoozes …
DirkH:
You seem to think GCHQ would need to de-encrypt the encrypted files to determine the contents of those files. But ‘there is more than one way to skin a cat’. There are several ways people with the sophistication of workers in the Donut could apply to make the determination. For example, Another Gareth states one in his post above at December 15, 2011 at 5:06 am where he writes;
“All they would need to do is look at the UEA backups which are (I assume) unencrypted and which the Police (iirc) have a copy of.”
So, I stand by my original comment whether or not GCHQ has the ability to solve the encryption; i.e. I said;
“Thirdly, it is very, very probable that UK security agents know both the contents of the encrypted Climategat 2.0 files and the identity of the Climategate leaker. GCHQ is extremely competent and its staff working in the Donut probably sorted those things out within hours of being asked.
So, it is not likely that UK authorities need further investigations to determine these matters because the authorities already know them.”
And you seem to have some strange reasons for thinking GCHQ, the NSA and etc.cannot solve the encryption. For example at December 15, 2011 at 11:15 am you say;
“Jim, we are talking many orders of magnitude here, like 10 ^ 73 or so…and it is totally impossible that some government agency has access to such technology. That would be like technology from the year 2100 – and you would not hide that technology until you can crack an AES-256 encoded file with it, no, you would use it ALL THE TIME and TOTALLY RULE. So, they can’t have that technology, we would know. It would be like having a suitcase sized nuclear fusion reactor and not using it.”
They would NOT “use it all the time”. History shows this. As in the past, any government with such code-solving ability would use it sparingly to avoid disclosure of what it was doing. Sparing use of data from descrambling coded messages ensures that important use is constantly maintained. The code would be changed immediately it were known to be solved. Too much use of solved messages would reveal that the code was solved and, therefore, a new code would be adopted. Constant use ensures that much time is expended solving (a series of) new codes and the messages of new codes cannot be read until their code is solved.
So, how would or could you or anbody else know GCHQ and the NSA are “not using it”?
Richard
Nice to know the UK police are out in force – 6 Met officers plus the locals. No wonder they can’t find the thieves who are stealing millions of pounds worth of copper cables, lead etc and causing £1bn of losses to the Uk economy.
Can’t be long before the end of all this nonsense- eventually the electorate will wake up and respond.
Forgot to mention that the same Met police allowed hundreds of rioters to go freely about there business of looting and arson a couple of months m o – safer to raid some bloggers house.
enneagram says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:33 pm
A spokesman for the University of East Anglia said today: “We are pleased to hear that the police are continuing to actively pursue the case following the release last month of a second tranche of hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit. We hope this will result in the arrest of those responsible for the theft of the emails and for distorting the debate on the globally important issue of climate change.”
———————————————————————–
That put me over the edge. Shoot the messenger. What a bunch of political morons.
Just donated 50 pounds to Tallbloke and $100 to WUWT. Merry Christmas.
And if it ends badly for Tallbloke I’ll send him a file of my own. No, not a digital one – one in a cake;)
Good luck!
Blade says:December 15, 2011 at 11:48 am
“If Tallbloke were a citizen in the USA…”
If he was just arriving, then his laptop would be subject to disk cloning on entering the US.
Blade says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:48 am
“The fact that the Holder DoJ is taking advantage of the fact that the UK has no such Amendment is also very troubling.”
Interesting – cyber rendition, anyone?
I was just about to leave a link to Greg Laden’s quite remarkable post. Glad you found it, Anthony, and posted it as update 8.
Will these actions possibly force the leaker to dump everything he may still have?
Steve C says:
December 15, 2011 at 12:45 am
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
It is very worrying how the UK has changed these past 20 or so years. Once the bastion of the free, but now there has been a fundamental shift. Instead of the government being accountable to the people, the position is that the people are now being held accountable to the government. Liberty has long since been lost.
It’s pretty amusing that the guy who broke the story of “ClimateGate” doesn’t believe in well-established radiation physics, but simultaneously promotes one of the more laughable pseudo-scientific attempts at weather forecasting called “aerology”.
http://research.aerology.com/original-november-1994-hypothesis/
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/aerology-forecast-verfication/
Yeah, lot’s of credibility there!
[Oh look, the magnetic dipole is causing baroclinity! Let’s do some basic pattern matching, and realize it rains when there’s a low pressure center on the map!]
“Cultural Anthropology” a 5 dollar phrase coined by ’70s post-college sociology graduates backpacking Europe, to describe their habit of latte and Heineken sipping on European street patios, ogling the local fauna, trying somehow raise the profile of the degree they spent thousands on.
“Doctorate in Cultural Anthropology” The paper you get, having failed the practical in advanced basketweaving. You are now forced to spend your career watching other people weave baskets, while all the while protesting that, really, you’re not a sociologist.
Delingpole writes;
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100124397/climategate-obamas-boot-boys-strike-back/
He says the US Department of Justice is involved. Now, why would they be involved in finding leaks from a university in the UK?
“I’m Brian and so is my wife”- Monty Python version
I have no time for Wikileaks. Mr Lasausage, or whatever he is called, last month thoughtfully released the names and addresses of the last remaining Jewish families in Baghdad. It is a death sentence. Exactly what purpose did that serve?
Of course not, not for top-level code breakers with a hard, cold budget denarii and access to in-house ‘research’ on this crypto subject we can only dream of … and on top of some known ‘metrics’ indicated by 7Zip as to what is in “all.7z” …
With the backdrop of wikileaks et al, the all.7z archive might have moved up the priority list a notch or two for queuing into the code-breaking cycle … who knows; none but the analysts themselves who received back any ‘paydirt’ from that exercise …
But again, as Richard brings up, there would seem to exist a file prepared ostensibly to meet an on-going FOIA request back in circa 2009, but which was apparently denied late in the game; anyone who corresponded with the UEA CRU-related personnel have got to believe that their communiques were compromised and at some level, if it involved climate subjects, are part of the e-mail archive, and if not currently public, must reside in the encrypted 7zip archive.
.
From Tom Nelsons blog is this juicy entry.It seems that Dr. Mann does not know how to keep his mouth shut.He is treading on shaky grounds with his ill advised tweeting.It could backfire on him and his hypocritical libel case against Dr. Ball.:
Wow: Warmist Michael Mann points us to a blog post by warmist idiot Greg Laden, who accuses Tallbloke of being part of a “band of thieves” “who broke into Unviersity of East Anglia computers in 2009”
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/12/wow-warmist-michael-mann-points-us-to.html
and
Climate hoax promoter Michael Mann calls seizure of Tallbloke’s computers a “major lead in apprehending the #CRUHack criminals”
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/12/climate-hoax-promoter-michael-mann.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gee I was not aware that Tallbloke was charged of an alleged crime by the police.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/14156/Fmr-Thatcher-advisor-Lord-Monckton-to-pursue-fraud-charges-against-Climategate-scientists-Will-present-to-police-the-case-for-numerous-specific-instances-of-scientific-or-economic-fraud
the MSM/News Agencies keep it simple, leaving impression Tallbloke is perhaps involved somehow!
16 Dec: WaPo: AP: UK police seize equipment as part of investigation into ‘Climategate’ email scandal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/uk-police-seize-equipment-as-part-of-investigation-into-climategate-email-scandal/2011/12/15/gIQAPWYOwO_story.html
15 Dec: CBC: AP: ‘Climategate’ police raid targets computer equipment
No arrests during raid of West Yorkshire property
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/12/15/technology-climategate-police-raid.html
16 Dec: Sydney Morning Herald: AP: ‘Climategate’ police raid property
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/climategate-police-raid-property-20111216-1oxcj.html
Anthony, another computer raid could put you over 100 million views
Greg Laden? No relation, I suppose.
I have visited Greg Laden’s blog.
People are posting comments there.That are very critical of Greg’s blog entry.Calling him names and saying he is inviting possible legal troubles for it.
OOOOh they are angry at him for it!
That appears to be well-settled law, Nick. For example, see the court’s opinion rendered here:
http://sites.google.com/site/roadwaydamage/USv.Arnold.pdf
For instance, in Torres v. Puerto Rico, (1979) the Supreme Court stated that:
Well-settled law, Nick.
.
A clearly libelous headline:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/12/computers_of_criminal_cyber-th.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GregLadensBlog+%28Greg+Laden%27s+Blog%29
With the internet’s fundraising capacity, Tallbloke can sue.
the AP meme is mainly to reinforce the word “STOLEN”:
15 Dec: MSNBC: AP: UK police raid property in ‘Climategate’ probe
British police say they have seized equipment as part of an investigation into thousands of emails stolen from the University of East Anglia two years ago…
It said no one was arrested in the operation, which is tied to the investigation into stolen emails that started in November 2009.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45686789
CBS-affiliate WGME13 Portland: AP: UK police raid property in ‘Climategate’ probe
http://www.wgme.com/template/inews_wire/wires.international/32b803cb-www.wgme.com.shtml
16 Dec: SBS TV Australia: AAP: ‘Climategate’ police raid property
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1613143/-climategate-police-raid-property
Adam Corner profile (from link): Adam Corner is a research associate at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK. His research interests include the communication of climate change.
15 Dec: New Scientist: Adam Corner: Climate change drops off ‘hot topic’ list
This year’s British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey comes complete with gloomy headlines on public opinion about climate change. Compared with surveys in 1993 and 2000, concern about the seriousness of environmental threats has decreased, and the number of people saying they were willing to pay more for environmentally friendly services has dropped significantly…
The survey’s authors suggest that the lingering effects of the 2009 Climategate affair – the release by climate sceptics of private emails between climate researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) – has knocked people’s trust in climate science.
To those who observed the deafening silence that greeted the release of yet more of the hacked UEA emails last month, this is a curious explanation. It has become a media truism that the fallout from Climategate dented public confidence in climate science. But the few polls that have asked directly about it, which the BSA did not, have painted a more nuanced picture. A US study in 2010, found that Climategate primarily influenced those who were already sceptical.
Beyond the somewhat spurious Climategate angle, are the BSA findings really as worrying as they seem?…
In fact, the most recent polling from the US – where scepticism about climate change has become a badge of honour for political conservatives – suggests a small but detectable upward trend in the number of people who agree that human activity is causing climate change. And in UK polls more recent than the BSA results, which were collected in 2010, levels of concern are once again increasing.
It is true that there is a large gap between public doubts expressed about the reality of climate change and the weight of the scientific evidence…http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21289-climate-change-drops-off-hot-topic-list.html
15 Dec: BBC: ‘Climategate’ inquiry: Police raid West Yorkshire home
The inquiry started after emails from the university’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) were hacked in 2009…
The US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) studied every email that had been hacked at the Climate Research Unit, based in Norwich…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-16202580
And if SOPA passes, what will happen to skeptic blogs?
Thanks Anthony — again.
For well, all of it.
14 Dec: Reuters: Edward Hadas: Casting the runes on climate change
Something has gone wrong with global warming. It’s not that the world has stopped heating up. It’s that the anti-warming political movement, which seemed almost unstoppable when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, has stalled…
Last week’s United Nations climate change conference in Durban ended with little more than an agreement to talk some more about what to do next. Even that was too much for Canada, which has just said no to emission-reduction targets…
While only experts can judge the strength of the scientific evidence for man-made climate change, no technical knowledge is required to be troubled by the way the activists present their case. The willingness to describe knowledgeable opponents as “deniers,” a word previously used only for fantasists about Nazi atrocities, suggests a very unscientific attitude…
The “Climategate” emails show scientists so passionate about their beliefs that they are unwilling to brook opposition. Fervor seems to have led to overconfidence. The status of the claim that recent years have been by far the warmest in a millennium has been downgraded from certain in 2001 to likely or mistaken (depending on the expert consulted).
The activists’ excess of passion and certainly has led them to a dogmatic conviction that a radical policy — rapid and sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions — is required to save the world. Since industrial economies cannot yet function without using large amounts of energy generated by burning carbon, the anti-carbon prescription equates to a campaign against prosperity — tough on rich countries (too tough for Canada to bear) and practically a sentence of economic stagnation for poor ones.
Such draconian measures only make sense if global warming is exactly what devout affirmers say it is — hazardous, accelerating, man-made and about to go non-linear (science-talk for catastrophic). Otherwise, a more moderate strategy makes sense…
Why do activists show so little interest in such a sensible compromise? I blame the sorcerer’s apprentice. In the 1797 poem by J W Goethe (familiar from in the Walt Disney film Fantasia), this clever student is able to invoke — but not control — the magical-technological ability to turn a broom into a water-carrying machine. The man-made global warming activists tell a less poetic version of the same story. It goes like this: we have learned how to use the energy stored in the earth to serve our purposes, but do not know the spell which keeps the unleashed energy from destroying us — and we have no equivalent to the poem’s old master to rescue us from our carbon folly. Halfway countermeasures are likely to replicate the apprentice’s effort to stop the broom by splitting it with an axe — he ended up with two brooms and twice the trouble. Under the circumstance, moderation would be madness…
If climate change is to be taken seriously, the IPCC and UN conferences need to have less madness and more method.
http://blogs.reuters.com/edward-hadas/2011/12/14/casting-the-runes-on-climate-change/
Perhaps we should all admit to being involved? After all, I have read the emails – and have downloaded them!!
Perhaps we should all offer our computers as potential ‘evidence’ – should keep them amused for a few decades!! Kind of a like a mass surrender of data – could keep some detectives off the streets for some time! I wonder how long before they give up in that scenario?
I know there’s nothing on my computer(s) – but they don’t! – and of course, my computer did have a sneeze a couple of years ago – that could have been caused by the cru hacker attacking my system files?? who knows? maybe those old pc’s and hard drives may hold something of interest????
Hurrah for Lord Monckton. I believe that the legal complaints that he proposes should get the attention of Climategaters and those who have colluded with them. It should also get the attention of the MSM – finally.
As soon as a police constable believes an offence has been committed and believes you have committed it, he has to caution you, “You are not obliged to say anything etc”.
This comes under the so called “Judges Rules”. Failure to comply with these rules results in the case being instantly slung out of court.
No caution, no solicitor required.
That teeny weenie worldwide tweet by Greg Laden & Michael Mann seems to have just given tallbloke a good chance for a cushy retirement. Hope he, when time cleared, sues the c..p out of one or both and the MSM for direct libel and slander, and wins. For now we all know exactly what kind of manly “man” Mann really is, don’t we? [pun intended]
The “pink panther” and 5 more agents….
Dougmanxx:
home routers don’t record mac addresses, they have mac addresses.
this can be used by an isp to identify the customer connected
my linksys lets me change the mac addie.
“We hope this will result in the arrest of those responsible for the theft of the emails and for distorting the debate on the globally important issue of climate change.”
Which 77 Climate Scientists will determine guilt or innocence of the accused on the charge of “distorting the debate”?
This may have been said – its a long thread so I may have missed it – but I very much doubt the computers will be returned quickly. Could be plain inefficiency, but also rather intimidating.
Yeah, I’d say it’s more about the intimidation than about seriously expecting to find anything useful (to them) on Mr. Bloke’s harddrives.
That, and I hope he didn’t have any kiddie pr0n on the machines… of course, he stands the risk of being provided with some, ex post facto — if they decide to play hardball.
the “ribbing” at the end links to HuffPo, for those who don’t want to go there!
15 Dec: NYT Green Blog: More Climategate Buzz
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
The blogosphere is abuzz with rumors that the British police investigation into the 2009 release of private e-mails between climate scientists has taken on new life.
On Thursday, Tallbloke, an anonymous British blogger from the climate skeptics’ camp, related that “six detectives from the Metropolitan Police, the Norfolk Constabulary and the Computer Crime division” had raided his house on Wednesday and taken two laptop computers. The police confirmed that a raid related to the e-mail inquiry had taken place and that computer equipment had been seized.
For those of you who have not been paying attention to the climate wars, e-mails originating on the computer servers of the University of East Anglia in England were disseminated online in November 2009 by skeptics on the science underlying climate change…
Could the police be pursuing leads on several fronts, however?
Tallbloke also posted a copy of a letter that he said was from the United States Department of Justice and was forwarded to him by Automattic, the parent company for WordPress.com. Automattic is a company that hosts WordPress.com Web sites, including Tallbloke’s.
***A spokeswoman for Automattic confirmed on Thursday that it had received “a preservation order” from the Department of Justice.
Meanwhile, the police have been taking some ribbing online from folks who feel they have not done enough to catch the culprits who distributed the hijacked e-mails.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/more-climategate-buzz/
367.Skiphil says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:34 am
I believe there are a couple of vital issues that most people are not even noticing here (I’m not at all suggesting the other issues aren’t worthy of discussion, just that the following is being neglected so far):
Assuming (big ‘if’) that the search and seizure as conducted is legal under the relevant laws where ‘Tallbloke’ lives,
‘legal’ passing itself off as lawful is fraud.
Apparently greggy bin laden had gone to moderating incoming comments.
I seriously hope his little rant has gone viral. [snip you guessed right] (I’m guessing the first sentence is the only one that makes it thru….
I’ve just had a look at Laden’s blog. Is that theJames Annan commenting there? Even the mad Dhog is sounding a word of caution.
Lord Monckton sounds like he is going to take the Crown Prosecution Sevice head on. They recently let Chris ‘Wind Turbine’ Huhne off a rap that would have ended his political career, so let’s not hope for too much.
OTOH, anyone can “lay an information before a magistrate” any time they want.
@ Clipe (quoting from the linked article)
“The deception lies in the willingness of the lead author to leave the erroneous graph uncorrected, knowing that it conveys incorrect information calculated falsely to exaggerate the influence of Man on the climate.”
How deliciously naughty of Lord Monckton to avoid libel by the omission of an “n”!
16 Dec: Independent: Steve Connor: Blogger’s computer seized in ‘Climategate’ police raid
Norfolk Constabulary, which is leading the inquiry into the theft of thousands of emails from university computers, said nobody was arrested during Wednesday’s raid.
“This is one line of inquiry in an investigation started in 2009,” it said. A spokeswoman refused to say whether it was the first time computers had been seized during the two-year investigation…
The blogger – whose real name is Roger Tattersall – is a digital content manager at Leeds University. In an email to The Independent yesterday, he denied having anything to do with the hacking of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
“I am not the person who took the data and emails from the CRU,” he said.
“I just happen to run a science blog which was the recipient of a comment containing a link to the second tranche of ‘Climategate’ emails.
“The three investigations in Britain were a joke. The Parliamentary Select Committee was told not to investigate the science because the other inquiries would. The Oxburgh inquiry was headed by a man who is part of the inner circle, as revealed in the emails. The Russell Inquiry thought the best person to ask which evidence they should consider was the person being investigated – Professor Phil Jones.”…
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bloggers-computer-seized-in-climategate-police-raid-6277726.html
” ‘legal’ passing itself off as lawful is fraud.”
They had a warrant to search. A warrant is an instruction to someone telling them to do something. If the warrant told them to go and beat him up then it would be unlawful, even a soldier is obliged to disobey an unlawful order. This warrant told them to search and seize, if that is all they did there is no possibility of an offence.
Sorry if spam – just released this into the wild
http://www.uglymug.co.uk/I_am_FOIA_mug/p735934_5246197.aspx
How odd. If Sceptics are the Sherlock Holmes of the Climate fraternity, then surely the police should be on the side of sleuths
This is turning into a massive own goal!
1. Where are the trolls? Not even the most determined of them want to touch this story.
2. CG2 is now squarely in the public spotlight, which the CG2 emails themselves failed to accomplish.
3. It looks like an amateur hour investigation that smells like a cover up, looks like a cover up, sounds like a cover up, and even the MSM is starting to clue in that maybe it is a duck.
4. Now they have started a legal investigation in earnest, they cannot just let the matter die (which is what most likely would have happened to CG2 had they simply left it alone). Not only is the investigation highly unlikely to identify FOIA, it is also highly LIKELY to wind up exposing additional skeletons in the closet without meaning to.
5. Someone is eventually going to start digging into what prompted this…and by what, I mean “who” and “why”.
The UEA and CRU had nothing to gain by pushing for this, and plenty to lose. I’m betting this turns out badly. For them.
• BTW Lord Monckton is asking for help
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/14156/Fmr-Thatcher-advisor-Lord-Monckton-to-pursue-fraud-charges-against-Climategate-scientists-Will-present-to-police-the-case-for-numerous-specific-instances-of-scientific-or-economic-fraud
… I have begun drafting a memorandum for the prosecuting authorities, together with all evidence necessary to establish not only the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official “global warming” storyline but also the connections between these instances, and the overall scheme of deception that the individual artifices appear calculated to reinforce. In each instance, the perpetrators of the fraud will be named and their roles described.
Once the report has been completed, it will be reviewed carefully by experienced criminal lawyers in each of the national jurisdictions in which the perpetrators reside. The report will then be submitted to the prosecuting authorities in each jurisdiction, with a complaint lodged by lawyers acting for citizens of that jurisdiction against perpetrators there. No complaints can be lodged against the IPCC or the UNFCCC, for they are beyond any national jurisdiction. However, individual “scientists” can be brought to book in the countries where they normally reside.
Here is how you can help. If you consider any specific aspect of “global warming” science to contain an element of fraud as defined and illustrated here, then please – in strictest confidence – get in touch and let me have as much detail as possible. Be specific. Name names. Give details. If you can, supply or point me to backup evidence.
Since the information you will be supplying to me is in contemplation of criminal proceedings, it is privileged and no libel suit would succeed even in the unlikely event that the perpetrators discovered you had contacted me. Your details will be kept confidential, and will not appear in the report or be passed to any authorities.
Don’t be coy. It is all too easy to fall for the line now being ever-more-anxiously peddled by some of the more notorious fraudsters – that science cannot thrive in an atmosphere where scientists who publish honest research in good faith can find themselves having to answer charges in a criminal court.
over to us …
________________________________________
Greg’s defense after his attack on Tallbloke.
Interesting. I know of no other person claiming threats by sceptics. Harassment perhaps but not “Threats” And “Harassment ” is not a correct word for refusing to be a sheep.
Wow. Just read the links from Update 8 to the dulcet toned reasonableness of Greg Laden. Yikes.
As a Virginia resident, I can attest that we do have some imports who are every bit as rude, and firmly laboring under the same onanistic delusions that they do in fact set the standard for the universe.
Hope Tallbloke sues, and my prayers for him and the others being harassed.
I doubt that Greg Laden was ever threatened, or even criticized by Tallbloke. Claiming that someone else threatened him is meaningless in this instance. He announced to the world that Tallbloke is a “criminal”. That is libel.
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/15/390511/climategate-swiftboaters-under-criminal-investigation-for-hacking/
More brilliant analysis from a crypto-fascist shill.
As for Greg Laden-with-hate, we all know what that is. It floats.
My hunch is that this time, global warming will cause global warming cooling.
Having been subject to the criminal justice system in the UK, I would not now be as naive as Roger was!
Given the time, unless I had a direct line to a solicitor, I would be offered the duty solicitor. I would accept this offer as a delaying tactic. I would reject the advice I was given, to let the police take the computers. I would force them to wait!
I used to trust the police!
DaveE.
An incredible scientific achievement and breakthrough happened a while back . It has not been made public and has been kept quite secret. Through DNA reconstruction and regenerative medicine,Torquemada has been brought back to life. He volunteered to continue his great work in dealing with heretics. His experience in these matters, as time goes on, will prove to be invaluable. His first contribution was to bring back and teach how to properly use the waterboarding technique. As his mind recovers other techniques will follow.
As with any scientific breakthrough there is always a down side. A while after his revival, Mr Torquemada begean to show some unusual symptoms. The scientists decided to investigate the environment his remains had been kept in. After careful examination of the crypt he was placed in, it was determined a troll had lived in it a long time ago, and may have contaminated the DNA.
James Annan’s response to Greg Laden’s appalling post is succinct and to the point – #6 “You utter moron. The police raid does not imply there is any evidence that any of these people were involved in the hacking.” Dr. Laden is getting reamed. However, my sense is he is one disturbed guy so it will probably have zero impact.
464.Robin Hewitt says:
December 15, 2011 at 5:01 pm
” ‘legal’ passing itself off as lawful is fraud.”
They had a warrant to search. A warrant is an instruction to someone telling them to do something. If the warrant told them to go and beat him up then it would be unlawful, even a soldier is obliged to disobey an unlawful order. This warrant told them to search and seize, if that is all they did there is no possibility of an offence.
Under which law did they do this?
They’re over at Curry’s whining about her use of “stolen” emails.
@davidmhoffer says:
December 15, 2011 at 5:34 pm
“This is turning into a massive own goal!
1. Where are the trolls?”
:-()
p.s. US Constitution based on British Common Law.
387.Blade says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:48 am
Skiphil [December 15, 2011 at 10:34 am] says:
“2) a ‘blogger’ or any ‘ordinary’ citizen is subject at any instant to total disclosure to the police of every digital activity he’s ever conducted via said hard drive(s).”
That is a very good point. We really have been like the proverbial slow cooking frogs in a pot of water. Let’s review …
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Note, under Common Law there is natural right, that is, it is not something given by another, but something naturally owned by the man or woman, policemen and policewomen have a duty to uphold this. “and no Warrants shall be issued”
grin – haven’t had this for some time now – a key logger screwing with my posts…
What a thread.
Climategate 2.0 > 62 Updates.
Now Climategate 2.1 > 9 updates and rising.
Anthony, thank you again.
ChE says:
December 15, 2011 at 6:38 pm
1. Where are the trolls? Not even the most determined of them want to touch this story.
They’re over at Curry’s whining about her use of “stolen” emails.
—
..and, I’m sure, using LOTS so fossil fuel energy and petroleum products!
SO PLEASE, CAGW TROLLS. CEASE USING ANY PETROLEUM PRODUCTS OR ENERGY DERIVED FROM FOSSIL FUELS. RIGHT NOW. TODAY! PLEASE SEEK ALTERNATIVES AND LEAVE THE REST OF THE WORLD ALONE. THANK YOU.
Spen says:
December 15, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Then the electorate vote in in another set of incompetents!
from [Available] markus fitzhenry markusfitzhenry123@gmail.com
to greg@gregladen.com
date Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 2:28 PM
subject YOU PHOBIC LITTLE PRICK
mailed-by gmail.com
hide details 2:28 PM (3 minutes ago)
“”I can not be sued by anyone for what I wrote here.
Posted by: Greg Laden | December 15, 2011 10:03 PM””
You phobic little prick.
Some of us with integrity will hold you personally responsible for the fraud you have committed against humankind. I have a family, you f**k, and your insane religious beliefs about AGW harm them. Some of us see that as enough reason to terminate your existence within climate science.
Markus Fitzhenry.
At 7:39 PM on 15 December, markus gets very upset with the libelous Greg Laden and reproduces here an e-mail sent the malefactor in response to Mr. Laden’s frabjous assertion “I can not be sued by anyone for what I wrote here,” advising the silly, stupid, dolt:
I would abjure Mr. Fitzhenry to bear in mind that because of Mr. Laden’s incontinence, when the ritual Dance of the Lawyers comes to its coda, Tallbloke is soon going to have himself a perfectly lovely suite of brand-spankin’-new computers and other communications equipment and much more besides, and Mr. Laden is going to be wondering what the hell rolled over him.
No expressions of hatred for Mr. Laden and his co-religionists, please. Let’s all try to remain Sicilian and remember that “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
The question arises, why are the UK and US authorities so desperate to get the code for the 200,000 encrypted emails spread from one side of the planet to the other? If these idiots get anywhere remotely close to charging anyone with anything, FOIA will surely open Pandora’s Box. The kleptocrats at the World Bank, Vampire Squid Inc. and the UN are certainly not going to thank them. They must know that thousands of copies of the encrypted files are spread around the world waiting for the code. Are they so panicked that they have they lost all reason?
fwiw –
6 officers from 3 ministries, was it? that was a show, for sure.
for whom was the show?
i now suspect they’ve got an influential person flogging them to get him a head on a plate.
if this is so, what would rattle such a person just now, particularly?
perhaps the quotes in the readme are meant to remind someone familiar that there are dirty dealings revealed involving influential people?
It’s great to see that Lord Monkton has rolled his sleeves up and is wading in. He will put the cat amongst the pigeons!
15 Dec: Business Week: Ben Sills, Bloomberg: Banks Curb Carbon Trading
With progress slow on climate talks, banks withdraw from the industry
The European Union, which runs the world’s biggest carbon trading market, has other things on its collective mind. One side effect of all this is a 47 percent drop this year through Dec. 12 in the value of C0₂ allowances issued under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme. The permits, which mostly go to utilities and other industrial companies, can be banked or traded.
The biggest banks, trying to recover from trading losses and a regulatory clampdown on using their own money to make bets, are scaling back their carbon trading operations. “People are leaving the industry because they’ve been fired or because they see no prospects,” says Emmanuel Fages, head of energy research for Europe at Société Générale (SCGLF) in Paris. “That is the sad story.”
The latest casualties include Odin Knudsen, managing director for environmental markets at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), who in October left his New York post after his team was shrunk. The previous month, UBS Securities (UBS) fired Vice-Chairman Jon Anda and the rest of his Stamford (Conn.)-based climate policy team. Anda and Knudsen confirmed their departures in interviews. JPMorgan would not comment…
Fages’s employer, Société Générale, announced on Nov. 25 that it had agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in carbon trading joint venture Orbeo to partner Solvay Group (SVYZY), a chemical maker.
In Europe, demand for emissions permits has been crimped by the economic slowdown, which has forced industry to idle plants. The value of carbon trading fell 8 percent, to €23.7 billion ($32 billion), in the third quarter from the previous three months as the price of permits tumbled, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.
A carbon offset program operated by the UN is in jeopardy as a result of the expiration next year of greenhouse gas caps set by the Kyoto Protocol…
The carbon trading industry’s dimming outlook can be seen in the thinning membership rolls of the International Emissions Trading Assn. About 10 institutions have quit the Geneva-based trade group this year, cutting membership to around 150 companies. “There are shakeouts and departures happening as you would expect to be the case during any market that was a little bit unsure about where it was going,” says Henry Derwent, the organization’s president. Carbon trading “is currently suffering, as so many other markets are, from low economic activity in the main area, which is the European Union.”
The bottom line: Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis and lack of progress in global climate talks are leading some investment banks to ax carbon trading
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/banks-curb-carbon-trading-12152011.html
——————————————————————————–
Best of luck to the ‘Bloke, I know you will come through with flying colors. Also, a big thanks as well to Anthony and all the bloggers covering it. Even though the MSM ( some of them, anyway) are covering it, they obviously won’t get the real story. ( Or even be interested in it.)
It also appears that Tallbloke has quite a good case against Mr. Laden and Mr. Mann. In the past, both of these men, ( and I use the term loosely,) have advocated lawsuits to try and strike fear at anyone who disagrees..
Would be nice to see the tables turned against them!
What an “I am Spartacus” moment!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q&w=640&h=360]
Greg Laden is rapidly going to pieces.
Here is the link to his rant.It is comment #80.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/12/computers_of_criminal_cyber-th.php#comment-6194650
Selected Excerpt:
Tattersall is not the New York Times. He is a climate skeptic who is part of the climate change denialist horde, and you can read above to see what that looks like. There is not, as you know, a valid denialist position. It isn’t like there are some “good” denialists who legitimacy question the science. There are just people who are either crazy old men who want everybody off their lawn
(again, see above) or people who are very strongly politically motivated, or who are being paid off to carry out harassment of people supporting the science (see above). Why did he not take the comment with the link off line and contact the police? Was he in on it? Did he take this as an opportunity to finish an (illegal) act that someone else started? Maybe. Did he do the right thing? No. If that link was to a set of instructions leading people to carry out a violent crime, rather than the endpoint of systematic harassment, he’d be culpable. I am not interested in excuses.
I think he’s a criminal for being a climate denialist. Sue me.
====================================================================
Impressive huh?
LOL
It appears that Greg is really jumping the sharks now…
sunsettommy,
I see what Laden did there. First, he labeled Tallbloke a “criminal”. Mann repeated the libel. Now Laden is backing and filling, saying:
“I think he’s a criminal for being a climate denialist.”
Too late, Laden. You falsely tweeted to the world that Tallbloke is a criminal. Not “I think”, not “allegedly”. Tallbloke’s reputation is irreparably damaged. The libel cannot be retracted now by your new weasel words “I think”. The damage is done, and you’re just compounding it.
The internet never forgets. If Tallbloke takes action, you’re toast. Prepare to empty your pockets. And your vile attacks on people who simply have a different point of view is just icing on the cake.
gnomish says:
December 15, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Of course your home router records MAC addresses. Thats how it communicates with the ISP, and with any device that connects to it such as a laptop or cellular phone. In a practical sense this means most consumer type routers have only 2 or 3 MAC addresses in their FIB/MAC address tables, however these tables do have default age timers so if not used, the MAC addresses will age out and disappear (depending on the router anywhere from a few seconds to many hours or even several days, unless manually configured. As an example: I use MAC address filtering on my wireless router at home [linksys like yours!], so my devices never age out of the MAC tables, but no other devices may connect. The only MAC addresses you’ll ever see on my home router are the ones I’ve specifically allowed to connect). I have a feeling we are basically saying the same thing, to whit: taking a consumer DSL router is simply a waste of time, there isn;t a shred of useful info there. It’s even worse if this was a MODEM. Taking a DSL modem would fall under the “terminally stupid” category. Modems have NO info at all, the only reason to take it would be either: the police really are completely clueless, or they just want to harass.
Smokey;
Don’t discourage Laden from digging! The deeper the hole, the more impressive the cave-in.
I wonder if his wife knows he’s having a meltdown?
Laden is overlooking a key axiom of blogging, just because you can write it doesn’t mean you should post it.
The left is well populated with rageaholics. Laden is becoming a variation of Deb Frisch.
http://tehdailysqueak.blogspot.com/
That’s ok, we have all that big oil money we’ve ALL been paid to defend Roger (Tallbloke) in court and buy off the MSM.
Then we can continue our cherry-picking, witch-hunting, and slogan-shouting! Muahahahaha!
Tallbloke is the man. Don’t **** with him. [or me.]
Seriously.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Greg Laden has lost it. His best defence against a libel action is that he is nuts.
The CBC in Canada has picked up the story
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/12/15/technology-climategate-police-raid.html
Surely a big problem in all this is the ‘subjectivity’.
Criticizing people for being subjective, or hiding the subjective viewpoint, or pretending that subjective is objective … muddies the waters.
I was banned from Greg Laden’s blog. Probably not a good idea to upstage the blog host.
In growing old, I realize and accept that my own subjective exploration of things is the best part of me. I’ve spent a lifetime saying and doing foolish things by indulging in my subjectivity. … I AM SUBJECTIVE
Seeing the climate change debate move on to subjective issues encourages me. Both in Durban and with candid comments in blogs, there is a softening of the hype. Opinions are resetting themselves. People are re-discovering that they are human.
Greg Laden appears to have some very serious mental problems. (Can I say that here?) I did not read everything there, but the worst thing I saw (not including the libelous comments) was his last post…
Gotta get up early for a day with the toddler. Lots of work prepping him for GROWING UP IN A WARMING CLIMATE!!!!
Good lord.
Jerky says:
December 15, 2011 at 3:03 pm
It’s pretty amusing that the guy who broke the story of “ClimateGate” doesn’t believe in well-established radiation physics, but simultaneously promotes one of the more laughable pseudo-scientific attempts at weather forecasting called “aerology”….
Yeah, lot’s of credibility there!
I’m afraid your name has preceded you, Jerky. Unsurprisingly, your post is irrelevant to the issue except insofar as confirming your own Religious belief in a bunch of Climate Jabberwocky which hasn’t made a successful prediction about reality yet but still continues right on with its usual “methods”. Congratulations on another “success”!
England United party headquarters released a comment today about the criminal known only as “V” and the rumors swirling about the conduct of officials: “The killings will continue until people behave.”
If you refuse to love Big Climate, you will be declared an enemy of the state and an ally of the terrorist Emmanuel Goldstein….
Update: I sent off a complaint to the editors of Sb about this, and it appears that Laden has been asked to remove the libelous language, though the post remains as does his hateful attitude in comments.
—
Wrong
“Your Stupid State
Sometimes I’m hard on an entire state. Like Texas. Or, recently, West Virginia.
It’s funny when the slack jawed yokels who live in these god-forsaken shitholes get annoyed at that.
But seriously folks. I’m hard on your state for a reason. I do it for your own good. A state is a democracy. If you have medical care that is second only to a despotic third world war torn failed state, that is because it is what you vote for, what you strive for. If you have a state with a system of education that produces high school graduates who couldn’t pass the entry exam to Romper Room and have no chance of going to a good college unless they happen to be one of the athletes you raise up and systematically traffic, then you got that way because that is what you vote for, what you strive for.
While you were busy clinging to your guns and your gods and that watery piss you call beer, other states were getting their acts together to have positive growth, clean and stable industry, a clean environment, excellent education, proper infrastructure, humane health care, etc. You know this new health care bill? Actually, a big part of the change that will happen is pulling your stupid-ass nuts out of the fire, because those of us who live in the progressive states fixed half those problems you are living with a long time ago. Yet you are the states that seem to be sending more than your share of testicle dangling tea-baggers to DC to complain about the very progress that is going to keep your 11 fingered offspring from the misery that your created environment imposes on them.
OK, maybe I’m overdoing it a bit.
But by now I think you get the point. If you are one of these backwards, anti-progressive third world states, I’m trying to do you a favor by humiliating you. I’m trying to bring attention to the fact that you could do better by changing your politicians, and in some cases, throwing off the yoke of one oppressive industry or another. We could just breed a lot more liberals and send them there, like we did to Virgina. Or we could ignore you and wait for some major natural disaster to mostly wipe you out, like happened in Louisiana. Yes, folks, certain things in Louisiana will probably be better after the hurricane than before, simply because people from out of state have gone there to do stuff. I don’t know what we can do with a vast and heavily populated state like Texas. Except to keep up the humiliation.
If you were not dragging the rest of us down with you, I (and others) would not feel the need to do this. But you are, so we do. Deal.
Oh, and do feel free to say humiliating things about my state. Please do. We are the state who elected Tim Pawlenty as governor. We are the state that sent Michel Bachmann to Washington. We are very worthy of humiliation. We don’t get enough of it. Please send some our way.
And stop whining about stuff I say about your stupid state. Stop whining and just fix it.
”
This guy is a bigot.
Dougmanxx says:
December 15, 2011 at 8:52 pm
gnomish says:
December 15, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Of course your home router records MAC addresses. Thats how it communicates with the ISP, and with any device that connects to it such as a laptop or cellular phone. In a practical sense this means most consumer type routers have only 2 or 3 MAC addresses in their FIB/MAC address tables, however these tables do have default age timers so if not used, the MAC addresses will age out and disappear (depending on the router anywhere from a few seconds to many hours or even several days, unless manually configured. As an example: I use MAC address filtering on my wireless router at home [linksys like yours!], so my devices never age out of the MAC tables, but no other devices may connect. The only MAC addresses you’ll ever see on my home router are the ones I’ve specifically allowed to connect). I have a feeling we are basically saying the same thing, to whit: taking a consumer DSL router is simply a waste of time, there isn;t a shred of useful info there. It’s even worse if this was a MODEM. Taking a DSL modem would fall under the “terminally stupid” category. Modems have NO info at all, the only reason to take it would be either: the police really are completely clueless, or they just want to harass.
They don’t get recorded on your basic home router – they just reside in RAM – a virtual log that deletes old entries to make room for new entries. The FLASH is reserved for firmware and config saves.
Once they pulled the cord – all record of what had connected directly to the WAN, LAN and WLAN interfaces within the last few hours or days was lost.
If anything, it indicates that the folks who appeared to grab Tallbloke’s computers and stuff weren’t exactly “experts” themselves – just following orders from above and winging it as they looked around…
=8-)
roh234 says:
Yeah well at least he has the guts to nail his opinion to the masthead. He also seems to have a certain love and admiration for the Congolese. That probably makes him a very interesting ‘bigot’ (whatever that really means)
Honestly, I don’t know how a person could function without stereotypical generalizations. First impressions are rapid discriminators …
For me, it’s not the impressions that are harmful. Rather it is the reluctance or inability to see beyond the singular or premature viewpoint.
One day later:
1 police raid
2 computers taken
3 police forces
6 cops
9 updates
505 comments and counting
…and an exploding blogger in a pear tree!
All the best Tallbloke, thanks Mr Watts, and blessings from whatever gods may be.
I guess after intentionally arming the Mexican Drug Cartels and overtly waging war on Arizona, Eric “Hitman” Holder thinks he got to Solyndra’s computers just in time, too, to prevent discovery of Robbinghood’s cronyism and money laundering at taxpayer expense.
Holder’s still trying to get Sheriff Joe Arpaio declared incompetent for enforcing Federal and State laws so effectively, when the roundups done by the Fed raids on produce handlers have nothing to do with any kind of proof of citizenship at all, but only what skin color and apparent nationality the workers have – and probably whether or not the businesses have “payed to play”.
The bedrock of the Obama Commies denial mechanism is that they all think they’re invisible, when it’s really only people like John Corzine telling them so.
Laden is quick and keen to seize upon and ridicule the subjective bias and limitations of others. He has strong sensibilities in that regard.
I cannot speak for him but I cannot call him blind stupid or ignorant either. That’s because I respect people for who they are .. for their own individual subjective ability.
I cannot speak for him. He mocks other people for being subjective in their own right.
Raving says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:32 pm
“Yeah well at least he has the guts to nail his opinion to the masthead…”
===============================================================
In Laden’s case it has nothing at all to do with ‘guts’ or courage. I went and read some of his blog. The guy is a wild ranting unbalanced mental-masturbator, aka flaming narcissist. Courage has nothing to do with it at all. He gets off spewing his nonsense and that’s the story. To call what he does courageous is to abuse that virtue.
Norfolk’s finest? J-esus wept. In the frequent occasions I’ve linked to ‘Talkshop’, it’s been because it’s a politics-free site, consistently offering something new, and always positively discussive.
An earlier commenter akined this to a ‘Stalinist’ state. Well, just too bad. Truth will out when Mann, Jones, Schmidt et al are brought to book. Justice, then, might be served.
roh234 says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:17 pm
You know this new health care bill? Actually, a big part of the change that will happen is pulling your stupid-ass nuts out of the fire, because those of us who live in the progressive states fixed half those problems you are living with a long time ago. Yet you are the states that seem to be sending more than your share of testicle dangling tea-baggers to DC to complain about the very progress that is going to keep your 11 fingered offspring from the misery that your created environment imposes on them.
Yep, we’ve observed how you OWS parasites and California sure do get it all fingered out, and o’so “naturally” without the need of any TP at all! Now all you need is some more of Robbinghood’s and Little Moonbeam’s all purpose magic manna to more completely fill your quavering fingers to the brim with more of that same old Commie crappola that has “sustained” you so well thus far, forevah! No doubt it tastes as good as it does in North Korea? Where they apparently haven’t learned by echoing fragmented noises in the streets to count beyond “4”, either? And, please, don’t you be going and telling Maiden Michelle on me while she and the PBS Teletubbies are trying to achieve a new jumping jack record. Otherwise you just might could be outed as a raaaaacist!
VERY IMPORTANT CORRECTION!: many (or probably most) newer home routers do have the capability to record a list of MAC addresses. It is a critically important security feature found in the wireless settings when you admin your router.
Most people know all about setting a security algorithm with a passphrase that needs to be entered once on each wireless access device. However, this is just one half of the local security needed to fully lockdown your router from drive-by bandwidth thieves.
The other half is less known and involves turning off access to all computers not listed in your custom whitelist. This is usually found under a section called Wireless MAC Filter. By enabling it and selecting ‘Permit Only’ access to your list of MAC addresses, you ensure that even someone knowing your security passphrase cannot use your router without you first adding their MAC to your whitelist. Likewise, anyone in your MAC whitelist cannot access the router without knowing the passphrase. They work hand-in-hand.
The MAC whitelist (BTW there is even a way to invert it into a blacklist) is also kept in the Router non-volatile memory along with the Router logs someone mentioned above. And there is room for plenty more data to be stored, since we’re talking mere byte strings here.
This is exceedingly important nowadays. The typical whitelist will have MAC addresses for all their iPhones, iPads, Laptops, Notebooks, eBook readers, and more. To *not* utilize MAC filtering means you are relying completely on the passphrase for local security. It is very possible to obtain this passphrase if someone has a few seconds alone with your laptop who has a thumbdrive with certain utility software. (NB: it can be tricky to admin the whitelist because you need to determine the MAC of all your devices, which since it is not always printed on a sticker on the device or found in a menu, usually means turning off the MAC filtering temporarily and recording the device’s MAC seen by the router by selecting this MAC in a list, then re-enabling Filtering. This procedure can vary for different routers and firmware releases.)
What does this mean for Tallbloke or anyone else that has their router confiscated or stolen? It means that if the whitelist is in use, the cops have the MAC addresses (think fingerprint) of each device he allowed to talk on his router. Since such devices necessarily broadcast this information when speaking to a router (e.g., another router compares your MAC to their whitelist), well now picture the cops checking routers at an Internet Cafe, or airport lounge or school or hospital. Picture anyplace that your Cellphone or Laptop or iPad connected to Wi-Fi (as opposed to Celluar). There are many ways to skin a cat. And yes, this would seem to suggest that when the coppers ask for your router, that you accidentally press the little ‘reset’ before you unplug it and dump the non-volatile memory.
P.S. To Tallbloke, as I mentioned above, you should be writing a diary and recording everything. You were just handed a book deal (get Willis to co-write unless he soon joins you in the ranks of the confiscated :-). You also were handed the keys to a new car (even an expensive electric one) with several potential libel cases. But you must lawyer up. And don’t forget that you can easily crowd-source anything you missed like screencaps for example. Stay safe, stay happy, but stay busy. You’ve got more work to do.
Tuci 78 says:
“No expressions of hatred for Mr. Laden and his co-religionists, please. Let’s all try to remain Sicilian and remember that “Revenge is a dish best served cold”
Hot or cold I have tasted it from the chalice of righteousness, smelt its enticing aroma as it nears its quest, silky smooth as it passed my lips, a full luscious texture of pure sweetness that invigorates your body and warms your soul.
But I digress, you are right, a good Sicilian will bide his time.
“Sometimes I’m hard on an entire state. Like Texas. Or, recently, West Virginia.”
Chuckles all around. What a completely self-unaware solipsist. Like the people in TX or WV give a rodent’s derriere what some random creepy dude thinks of them.
Payback is a beotch. With such OTT self-important loony-tunes parenting, the generation gap/teenage rebellion thing will probably have his kid collecting and driving rebuilt 25-yr old 5mpg SUVs, and Hawgs.
>:)
Myrrh says:
Under which law did they do this?
It’s not the Theft Act because the perp didn’t deprive them of their data he merely copied it. They are not accusing him of anything so it must have been an evidence gathering exercise with a presumption that he would destroy that evidence if they simply asked for it. If a police constable simply wants to get you off the streets he arrests you for Breach of the Peace, maximum penalty being bound over to keep the peace. Their new fall back for everything else is the Anti Terrorism Act, a hastily drafted piece of legislation, much abused and loathed by the liberal press. Unlike the US our law enforcers are obliged to be “reasonable”, but sometimes they seem to overlook that.
It’s a worrying use of police resources. I can only imagine that had the same “breach” happened to a large private company the authorities would have looked on it as a security issue to be addressed by the private company, i.e. the fault lay with the company’s IT infrastrucure.
One wonders if Lord Moncton could not add mann’s laden tweet to his case against them?
It’ll take a while to read this lot. I’ve been pretty busy running my blog and answering email with nothing more than a mobile-phone and palmtop ‘pooter (Nokia N810).
Big thanks for all your support, suggestions, advice, comment, and humour.
Keep it coming.
Cheers
Rog
This has opened a can of worms as we say in the UK.
Lord Monckton has every right to ask for proceeding to be taken against Jones & Briffa for their fraudulent actions on Climate, in cahoots with others in the USA. What is right is right and full power to him. Others I am sure will be taking the same line and I will be cheering them on. My MP is goping to be sick of hearing from me on this subject, I promise.
@ William Old
Hi,
“Speaking as a retired senior police officer of some 30 years service…”
And so these are your credentials.No involvement in the actual case, though, same as everyone else here.
“there are indeed many puzzling facets of this incident but none of those involve the actual legalities of the operation or the SOPs (standard operating procedures) that were followed. ”
How do you know this?
Even on a cursory glance at the warrant itself and the provisions of section 8(1)(d) PACE and the case of R. Bates (On the application of) -v- Chief Constable of Avon & Somerset Police [2009] QB (paras 23-28), there might indeed appear to be something wrong with the “legalities”.
Anyway, from one armchair general to another, all the best 🙂
Everyone should remember that FOIA / RC’s first leak attempt was at RealClimate. Gavin Schmidt was the first person to know about the leak.
I’m sure there will be a raid at RealClimate/GISS/Fenton Communications next.
Ministers could be forced to hand over their private emails following a warning that all correspondence is subject to freedom of information laws.
be aware Phil Jones- if for them, you as well.
What is it with people called Laden always wanting to crash into towers ?
Good luck TB
How will the Norfolk police get all that kit on their bicycles?
Dear Greg Holmes,
I am a useless writer, send what you send and i will sent it to my MP.
If we read about THE MULE, we will be surprised of Isaac Asimov´s prophetic ability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_(Foundation)
Has the University of East Anglia (UEA) commented on any of the following types of questions?
Why has there been no indication of the custodians et al being under investigation for the unlawful conversion and/or destruction of public property or data for which they had a custodial and/or fiduciary duty to preserve at the CRU and/or for public access?
Does the Climate Research Unit (CRU) and/or the University of East Anglia (UEA) need to first file a criminal complaint agaisnt the custodians et al? If so, is there some reason/s why UEA-CRU have not filed a complaint against the custodians who removed the public data from the publicly owned property and converted the public data to personal custody and personal use while denying the public FOI (Freedom of Information) access to the public data?
Is there any reason to suspect the current custodians may still be removing public data from the public property of CRU/UEA in an effort to deny the public FOI access to the public data or property, and would such actions constitute a violation/s of law? If so, is there some reason why CRU/UEA should not and/or have not filed a complaint?
Somebody high up must be really worried about THAT password getting out.
Are you following the work being done on Chefio’s forum?
He is not so much looking at the data the rest of the sites have been looking and what he is finding looks like political dynamite.
Let’s look at the humorous aspect of this daring police raid.
The Keystone Klimate Kops seized the computer of an innocent man, in an attempt to identify another innocent man who leaked emails that clearly implicate prominent scientists, journalists, government officials and others in criminal fraud that has caused society to squander a trillion dollars on the global warming scam. Other illegal activities identified in the leaked emails include counseling and practicing the destruction of evidence by deleting emails, and conspiracy to breach FOI statues. In addition, vicious attempts at academic intimidation and the deceitful corruption of academic journals were identified in these emails…
… and the KKK are pursuing the leaker!
This is so insane, it could be a new chapter in Alice in Wonderland, complete with a madd klimate scientist playing the Queen of Hearts! FIND THE LEAKERS! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! Nothing to see here. Move on.
But … … it’s not really that funny, is it?
.
! wrote this jokey post this time, last year – http://merovee.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/the-ministry-of-global-warming/ .Doesn’t seem funny any more !
Skiphil says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Raving says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:32 pm
“Yeah well at least he has the guts to nail his opinion to the masthead…”
===============================================================
In Laden’s case it has nothing at all to do with ‘guts’ or courage. I went and read some of his blog. The guy is a wild ranting unbalanced mental-masturbator, aka flaming narcissist. Courage has nothing to do with it at all. He gets off spewing his nonsense and that’s the story. To call what he does courageous is to abuse that virtue.
——————————————————————
And Laden has since rewritten his opinion and re-nailed it to the masthead. What guts…
BUT, if they catch FOIA will he not divulge the password in open court if they don’t cut him a deal? You might think it in their best interests not to find him, unless he is trying to use the password for leverage or they plan to “disappear” him.
Re “Getting traction in the press” It’s now on the Norwich local paper’s website:
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norfolk_police_raid_home_in_yorkshire_as_part_of_uea_climategate_inquiry_1_1155467
According to the Churnalism search engine, this a copy/paste of the BBC article.
Why didn’t they use the well knownj Freedom of Information Act .
We all know why there is none when it comes to obvious criminals in UoEA,UP etc.
When it comes to finding a whistle blower,the police and men in suits go beserk.
Lets see them try this with jones ,man and co. lawsuits galore paid by the government.
@Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 12:33 am
===========
Tallbloke’s laptop relates to his activity, not to WordPress server activity. If they are running down IP address activity related to FOIA, the first place to look would be on the Russia download server related to the uploaded file of emails. The uploaded file’s ISP address, or a portion of it, can then be used to confirm if the WordPress comments came from the same geographic location and or the same ISP service provider. Unless he was using a dedicated IP, which I highly doubt, they will not be able to pinpoint an individual but will be able to determine the geographic location and possibly an ISP.
The only reason to lift the laptops is to poke around in emails, contacts, activity?
sorry for my mistake about home routers – my ‘knowledge’ was obsoleted without my awareness.
but that’s not an excuse for spreading bad info – i’ll have to double check everything i think i know before posting next time.
Green policies have bankrupted Europe, in special by losing money building Windmills with a real power yield of 2.35%
Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 12:33 am
Excerpted What does this mean for Tallbloke or anyone else that has their router confiscated or stolen? It means that if the whitelist is in use, the cops have the MAC addresses (think fingerprint) of each device he allowed to talk on his router. Since such devices necessarily broadcast this information when speaking to a router (e.g., another router compares your MAC to their whitelist), well now picture the cops checking routers at an Internet Cafe, or airport lounge or school or hospital. Picture anyplace that your Cellphone or Laptop or iPad connected to Wi-Fi (as opposed to Celluar). There are many ways to skin a cat. And yes, this would seem to suggest that when the coppers ask for your router, that you accidentally press the little ‘reset’ before you unplug it and dump the non-volatile memory.
Agree with the value of implementing a white list on the home router. However, unless they suspect that FOIA was locally connected to Tallbloke’s router, all the MAC addresses they might harvest are just this side of worthless. Perhaps they might serve to confirm a manual catalog of addresses gathered from TB’s individual devices, but that list wouldn’t get them one step closer to FOIA’s identity even if they compared it against the arp cache on every internet cafe router in a 50 mile radius. On a typical Cisco router, a given entry is going to time out and disappear after 4 hours, so unless they are right there when the connection is being made, they’re getting bupkis for their efforts. And since we’re talking MAC addresses, the cafe’s ISP is unlikely to ever see that info, as it stays on the LAN side of the router. And even if the ISP were to record the MAC of every device that ever connected to that router, the very best they could hope for would be some sort of log of sites/addresses visited by the IP address that was assigned to the device with that MAC address at that time. And good luck chasing those geese through a proxy or 3. Besides, if you really want to avoid even that slim risk, all you have to do is find the poor slob down the street who didn’t secure his network and borrow some bandwidth.
the world is after FOIAA,
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!!!!!
what a hero.
My conclusions: 1) the email leaks are having a profound effect and are effectively frustrating the scammers behind this entire hoax 2) the frustrated scammers know full well that there is another load of grapeshot in the breach and fear its release 3) authorities either do not know the identify of the leaker, or if they do, lack evidence 4) authorities are desperate to prevent CG3 5) authorities did not act between CG1 and CG2, and therefore, are responding to a complaint after the horse has left the CG2 barn.
If those trying to prevent CG3 will think for a minute, they will realize that strongarm tactics and propaganda through media will harm their cause, rather than help it. Allow them to consider for one moment whether they would board a commercial aircraft if they suspected that the engineering and manufacturing processes behind the aircraft were agenda-driven in a corrupt environment rather than pure, objective science. They would not board.
We will not board their AGW airplane, as we no longer trust the engineering and manufacturing processes behind it – which is a proper response on our part given a) the impact on our well being should they be wrong b) the emails expose the corruption of scientific process.
If AGW crowd really wanted to be sure their agenda was advanced, they would attend to this matter of trust immediately. Else the public will further cease boarding your aircraft. Repair the trust: a tedious and difficult process, but necessary. Repair it by discovering and disciplining those who put personal gain ahead of objective science. Repair it by conducting research openly. Repair it by allowing all of the emails to see sunlight – there is nothing to hide in science, correct?
What we have now is a case of “beatings will continue until morale improves” – or, “you will trust us, or else”. Only a tyrant proceeds in this line. So, if AGW is so compelling, and personal gain is not the agenda, why the tryannical approach?
This news cycle has served only to amplify my belief that behind this scam are operatives seeking massive personal gain. They sell it using deception – Mr. Gore – why have you not shrunk your footprint? Mr. Suzuki, same question. IPCC chair – disclose your financial interests.
Shame on those who have corrupted science. Shame on you pliable tools. Shame on you illiterate lay people in the media that promulgate the propaganda of the crooks behind this scheme.
Tallbloke seems computer savvy. I’d be surprised if any important information of any kind would be found outside a well encrypted TrueCrypt volume.
As far as treating the Climategate events as “theft” I’d argue that not only did the person behind this not steal the data (as in taking it away), they’ve actually provided a special service (above and beyond exposing the shenanigans of the scientists involved) to to society and UEA in particular: they made a more extensive backup of the mail database available so UEA can fully comply with their FOI requests.
My first thought when I saw that the police had been to Tallbloke’s home and had taken some of his electronic equipment was that the Norfolk police were reacting to the tremendous pressure to finally do something (after 2 years). The police may have been pressure to do something publically by the high level global publicity that resulted from the Nov 2011 CG2 release by the person or persons that have consistently called themselves “we” in CG1 and CG2. As to why Tallbloke was the one visited, perhaps the reason was that Tallbloke was merely the most convenient to visit of the blogs receiving CG2 from “we”.
After some further solitary thought, my focus drifted to the idea that the Norfolk Police (and the UK authorities assisting them) maybe are not as uninterested and/or incapable of investigation as they appear. I am considering the scenario where they (police) are goading the CG1 and CG2 releaser(s) “we” to carelessly release some of the info in the encrypted file ‘all.7z’ which is said to contain ~220,000 more emails. Police intimidation of skeptical bloggers could be a deliberate attempt to push “we” to do an impromptu release soon while the police could potentially be at a very high level of active surveillance to try to identify “we”. This train of thought assumes the police are both clever and actually interested in doing a serious investigation; both assumptions are arguably inadequate. However, this train of thought does open the doors to discussion about the current publically unknown police strategies.
John
Still, this event gives a new meaning to “PC Plod”.
Anthony,
On your home page I see that your blog stats are:
I think your Christmas present this year will be 100,000,000 views. Merry Christmas.
John
No they won’t. If the people who enforce the law are the same people who have have backed this shoddy research, then you will find obstacle after obstacle set up to prevent the law from being obeyed.
John,
(12/16 8:59)
I respectfully disagree; no amount of active surveillance could detect the release of the key.
Anyone could release it through printing 50,000 copies of the key and the download address on 8.5×11 paper and ‘dropping’ them at a few college physics labs. Someone would pick one up and take a look. It would be out in a matter of days if not hours.
There’s absolutely no way to trace that IP, especially if I mailed it to my friend (or several) in another town and asked him to do the dirty work.
The file is already available, all it needs is a key. That is simply untraceable.
If the bobbies are on their game, that is not their line of reasoning.
“Big thanks for all your support, suggestions, advice, comment, and humour.”
Tallbloke, if it comes to legal proceedings, don’t hesitate to ask for $$$$.
Meanwhile, enjoy the notoriety.
I’m as puzzled as everyone else about what they think they’re going to find. It’s a fair bet that FOIA is sophisticated enough to use proxy servers. Unless FOIA is a complete cyberyutz, there isn’t going to be a trace. Period.
John from CA and niall,
Agree with your comments just above. There is very little that we can say for sure about what they are trying to do with Tallblokes’s equipment. There are too many unknowns. For example, we don’t even know if he is the only one so far with private equipment confiscated, in the UK or in the USA or anywhere else. On the server side we don’t know what ISP’s or blogs have given up their log files and other information, nor would I automatically believe them if they said they did not. Seriously, we don’t even know what co-operation occurs between the Feds and locals in a given country, nor do we know the extent of international co-operation.
For us, operating in this near vacuum of intelligence I think it makes sense to assume that because of the post-2001 anti-terrorism enhancements, that nothing short of ’24’ CTU or ‘Alias’ levels of resources are available when someone deems it necessary. Whether these resources are available for the ClimateGate event is the question, so perhaps it is paranoid but logical to expect that someone somewhere bent someone else’s ear due to the embarrassment to powerful people, and we therefore should assume that everything that is possible, is happening.
Just to recap for any newcomers, all we really know is that in the recent ClimateGate II, the FOIA whistleblower posted a comment with a link to a file on Tallbloke’s blog and then several others. This is also what occurred in ClimateGate I two years ago at other blogs including WUWT and RC. (Note to the laughing climate trolls, this is what blogs are designed for, comments with links! It could easily have been your blogs too. Do you understand it yet Greg Laden?) To our public knowledge this is the extent of the involvement of the so-called skeptic blogosphere with the FOIA releases. Nothing more! The new development with local cops in the England confiscating a blogger’s (Tallbloke) equipment, stuff that is common to all of us, is what makes this strange and worrisome to all bloggers and really everyone that uses the Internet.
What I pointed out above are some of the possible bits of information the local cops can learn (in addition to the obvious like reading his email, having his bank records, family photos, etc. Worrisome to any normal human.) Some of the possible extra bits include the MAC addresses (fingerprint) of every device he allowed to talk on his Wi-Fi router and some rolling router IP logs. In truth, only Tallbloke knows what the router gave them, so I hope he saw and understood the part about a whitelist I mentioned above. Theoretically, having his MAC addresses allows them to place him at a scene where some Wi-Fi system recorded his connection (airport, cafe, hospital, school). This may be their thought process or maybe not.
I could easily envision (due to anti-terrorism) something more sophisticated than off-the-shelf routers being installed covertly in internet cafes (airports, schools, hospitals, etc.) around London (NYC, LA, DC, etc), something that sniffs and records all signals and just logs them to an offsite server for access by authorities (remember Google Streetview vans logging Wi-Fi signals?). Anyway, this might be used to track the movements of someone who has a smartphone, Laptop or iPad. For example, if a terrorist bombing occurred, and they recovered their phone or laptop, they might be able to backtrack all the locations they were previously at. Just assume it is possible, even though not necessarily probable. And remember that we are talking about the Wi-Fi equivalent of backtracking cellphone roaming from tower to tower (that is, if the battery is in place 😉
We all know that the thrust of the investigation is/was at the ISP and blog server side. The sudden interest in local consumer equipment is what has lead to all the speculation here and all the theories, and the perhaps correct suspicion that there are keystone cops on the job. I’m just trying to tamp down that latter suspicion (keystone cops) and point out that anything is possible.
If his MAC addresses were compromised (this is for sure for the laptops they took, and also for everything else if they were listed in the router) Tallbloke should be able to buy all new equipment when he writes his book on getting sucked into the ClimateGate tornado. If those smear merchants that libeled him get convicted, he might be able to buy lots of other stuff.
Personal data security tip of the day: SDHC, Mini, Micro-SD, etc. These tiny cards which easily fit inside a book on your shelf are not just for cameras 😉
Ok, lets assume that they are correct in trying to determine the source of the leak. Under that circumstance, I could understand the contents of the hard drives might disclose something. But what in all that is right and proper do they think they will find on the router? The only thing that my router logs is the port scans that come once every 5 min or so trying to find something to zombie. The only possible explanations are that they are either incompetent or were trying to knock him off the air.
Maybe the US DoJ is involved because, as Monckton has pointed out, the emails provide prima facie evidence of a massive fraud by “the team.” Maybe what DoJ is really looking for “the key” to the remaining emails. Or maybe I’m way too optimistic!
Markus
We probably all start off thinking to ourselves the words you posted at Greg Laden’s website. However, “the trick” is to concentrate on the facts alone, and not write from the emotions as Greg does. If Greg still chooses emotional rant, let him hang himself. But leave nothing on which he can come back to attack you. Revenge may seem to taste sweet but it never leaves lasting satisfaction.
Here’s a suggested rewrite.
You phobic little prick.Some of us with integrity will hold youYou are personally responsible for supporting the fraudyou haveClimate Science has committed against humankind. I have a familyyou f**ktoo, and maintain that yourinsaneessentially religious beliefs about AGW harm them.Some of us see that as enough reason toWe cannot terminate your existence within climate science but your material is libellous and we will fight for the restoration of good science that you are obstructing.And here’s a follow-up you can use (if you don’t want to be banned both here and there)
Greg, I apologize for my foul use of language. However, I do not apologize for my feelings. My last sentence was not a death threat, merely a wish to see you removed from the arena of climate science, which is quite corrupt enough as it is without your libellous support.
Sigh. The armchair generals are still here.
Jeremy: “Why would any self-respecting computer criminologist need to confiscate any computer to clone a hard drive? You can easily do that with handheld devices these days, it could be done over tea time. Either the law enforcement who visited Tallbloke are poor and incompetent (technically) or its just intimidation.”
Well Jeremy, one current job going through forensic imaging at the moment involves a seized 8TB array. Even assuming that a hand-held device with 8TB of storage existed, do you REALLY think that two forensic images could be “done over tea-time”? Did you even READ the document to which I posted a link, or the need for the sealed evidential copy? Sigh, again…
And… “Judges’ Rules”, Robin Hewitt??? Come on! You are only TWENTY-FIVE YEARS out of date with that…! “Failure to comply with these rules results in the case being instantly slung out of court” – no, it doesn’t. Read the PACE Act 1984, Parts 5 and 8, then look at Section 78 – “.. may refuse…” (permissive) – there’s no “instantly slung out” whatsoever.
Myrrh – “British Common Law”? No such thing – did you mean English Common Law, or Scottish Common Law? There are quite different.
RB – You have me very puzzled… I’m assuming that you are actually referring to Bates & Anor v Chief Constable of the Avon and Somerset Police & Anor [2009] EWHC 942 (see http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2009/942.html), and I can’t understand the relevance – are you saying that Tallbloke acts as an expert witness in criminal or civil proceedings? If not, neither of the grounds for the successful appeal have anything to do with this case… ???
Please, please, please, folks… much of this is uninformed rubbish from grandstanding idiots… aren’t you guys supposed to be concerned about FACTS? Why not follow the excellent advice from gnomish at December 16, 2011 at 7:05 am? “… that’s not an excuse for spreading bad info – i’ll have to double check everything i think i know before posting next time.”
Anthony Watts got the last word;
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/16/complicit-in-climategate-doe-under-fire/
Blade, a really sophisticated computer user can change his MAC to anything of his choosing. It may or may not be possible with mobile devices, but I’m pretty sure most if not all laptops can be MAC spoofed. Somebody who really knows what he’s doing can circumvent all of that.
Bob Kutz,
Your comment does show some impracticality of my ‘police goading “we” to do something stupid‘ scenario. Thanks.
Maybe the bobbies aren’t so sophisticated as to expect to trace the next communication by “we”, maybe they just are poking a stick in the skeptical blog beehive to see if anything useful starts buzzing around. I have sometimes heard of the police shaking up stalled investigations with intimidations just to see what new info comes up. How about that scenario?
John
I’m sure there will be a raid at RealClimate/GISS/Fenton Communications next. at Fenton, surely you jest, you would have better luck getting a search warrant for personal files of a sitting, judge on the Supreme Court.
Bill Illis says:
December 16, 2011 at 4:51 am
Everyone should remember that FOIA / RC’s first leak attempt was at RealClimate. Gavin Schmidt was the first person to know about the leak.
I’m sure there will be a raid at RealClimate/GISS/Fenton Communications next.
Right, but fortunately Gavin’s been made invisible just like our own long suffering Robbinghood* himself still thinks he is**. Unless perhaps Gavin is also in criminal possession a Gibson Guitar or has any of Robbinghood’s own ~”illegal for my purposes” = not illegal, Indian or Madagascar “pay to play” wood on his green keyboard or, just like their Hitman, implanted within their own “unprecedented and reconstructed before it’s too late!” flat lined and now obviously diverging steeply downward Communist brain functioning, as per usual.
h/t *Mad Magazine of ye olden days and Ralph Ellison’s **The Invisible Man
Same D.O.J. same stuff only on the Fast and Furious deal on Brain Terry’s death.
The guy who is the one putting the A.T.F. leaks on line and handing the leaked e-mails on operation Fast and Furious to Congressmand Issa.
He post on his blog today that he to is geting his e-mails and computers reviewed by the Goverment, F.B.I. or D.O.J. . He got notice some how and expects the courth order today.
This blog here is way away from the topics on sipsey street, but there is a pattern with this .
http://www.sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/
@ChE, I am envisioning computers round the world suddenly showing up with the MAC address 00-01-F0-1A-20-11 or some variant thereof… 😀
Only 27 years late so far, but coming soon:
… just change “thought crime” to “any AGW crime”/
John Whitman says:
December 16, 2011 at 11:12 am
maybe they just are poking a stick in the skeptical blog beehive to see if anything useful starts buzzing around. I have sometimes heard of the police shaking up stalled investigations with intimidations just to see what new info comes up. How about that scenario?
Plop plop fizz fizz, smells more like only some more of their own horse chestnuts falling not far from the Treem, Gringo.
Who “owns” those CRU – UEA emails anyway? The individual(s) who received/sent them? The account from which the emails were taken? The entity that owns the server upon which the emails were backed up on? Does ownership matter in a UK court case? If individuals own their emails, does their employer have a responsibility to keep the emails safe (expectation of a safe workplace) and could they seek damages against their employer if, through carelessness, their private emails were hacked into the public domain?
The “debate” at Greg Laden’s place has now completely departed the realms of rationality now. There is zero point in commenting further as he is now editing comments to change their meaning. He’s just done it to one of mine.
Yep. So many things are possible, some are difficult to believe too. The discussion above wasn’t really targeted at uber-hackers. However, the average user that is only casually aware of these things might pick up some defensive knowledge and be inclined to learn more. Current events demand situational awareness.
Blade,
Very well said.
At 2:47 AM on 16 December (Happy Tea Party Day! Fling a hot mugful into the face of the nearest tax collector to celebrate) Robin Hewitt responds to Myrrh’s question (“Under which law did they do this?”) with:
Please! We’re talking about Tallbloke here – a “climate change denier” – not Prof. Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia.
Lucy Skywalker says:
December 16, 2011 at 10:49 am
Quite ! – when I posted on Ladens bin for a blog, I had to calm down to make sure I used decent language too (#45) but in reality, had the bar steward been within arms reach…………
William Old;
Well Jeremy, one current job going through forensic imaging at the moment involves a seized 8TB array.>>>
Well William, Jeremy’s reference was to making a copy of the hard drive of a personal computer, not an 8TB array. Easily done over tea with a multitude of hand held devices, so what does an 8TB array have to do with the discussion?
William Old;
Even assuming that a hand-held device with 8TB of storage existed, do you REALLY think that two forensic images could be “done over tea-time”? >>>
LTO-5 tape drives are capable of about 1 TB/hr in compressed mode. Depending on the storage array in question, it might take more than 8 hours to create a full copy because the array itself may not be fast enough to drive that much data that fast to the tape drive. On the other hand, a dual controller array delivering data over NDMP to two tape drives and capable of keeping them both streaming would be done in about 4 hours. A bit long for tea I suppose, but not exactly problematic.
Before sniping at the arm chair generals, perhaps you should consider that IT is ugly complex, and the document you rely on to justify your opinion, while a decent start, was obsolete the day it was written, as all technology documents invariably are. The pace of technology is far too fast for anything to be 100% valid beyond the day it was written (and probably sooner).
At 4:20 AM on 16 December, Greg Holmes writes that:
I wouldn’t know how that works. Over on this side of the Atlantic, my district’s career “representative” (11 two-year terms and counting, before which he was a member of the county government) is much more concerned about his recently exposed history of campaign finance law violations.
I don’t even think I could leave a message on his local office’s voicemail, much less sicken him with hearing about anything – except maybe a call to the newspaper that’s investigating his criminal offenses.
William Old says:
“And… “Judges’ Rules”, Robin Hewitt??? Come on! You are only TWENTY-FIVE YEARS out of date with that…!”
Actually I am FORTY YEARS out of date, I did the course back in 1970. This is the curse of Aspergers. It’s very nice coming top of the class when you are young and I like the money, but sometimes I look forward to senility as a bit of light relief.
At 5:55 AM on 16 December, A. C. Osborn had written:
For the sake of completeness, the link to Chiefio’s forum (Musings from the Chiefio) is herewith provided.
In the most recent of his posts, the Chiefio quotes from one of the Climategate 2.0 e-mails a communication addressed by one Lynn Videka (at that time Vice President for Research, University at Albany, State University of New York) to Wei-Chung Wang:
Chiefio’s comment:
…and later on, anent one of Prof. Jones’ communications:
Damn. I’ve gotta start following this guy’s blog.
At 6:38 AM on 16 December, Robin Hewitt had submitted:
Well, for all the “Liberal” idiots’ fantasies about how their Mombasa Messiah was gonna “Change” everything, the Gitmo madrasah is still open and going strong, and there are those renditions still going on under the administration of our Hopenchangey Hubshi.
If H.M. government wishes to “disappear” the guy who derailed Barry Soebarkah’s bid to retire from the White House as one of those “carbon billionaires” on the warmista side (look into his involvement in the Chicago Climate Exchange), I should think that our President-With-an-Asterisk would be only too happy to accommodate ’em.
At 8:03 AM on 16 December, enneagram had written:
You got a source for that specific figure on power yield? That could be extremely useful, but if anybody’s gonna cite it there’s gotta be a solid support behind it.
If you’re gonna shove something up a warmista’s nose, shove it hard.
At 8:27 AM on 16 December, niall had written about the confiscation of Tallbloke’s router:
Just what the hell gives you to think that they’re after “FOIA’s identity,” anyway?
If they can pull from Tallbloke’s router “the MAC addresses (think fingerprint) of each device he allowed to talk on his router,” then every damned time Tallbloke uses any of those devices, the warmunist Geheimesicherheitsdienst can not only track his location but monitor any communications he might undertake.
While that’s not likely to get los warmistas any closer to punishing FOIA – who is almost certainly not in direct or even indirect contact with Tallbloke – it will certainly provide them with potentially actionable intelligence on the activities and identities of the “deniers” with whom Tallbloke communicates.
Let’s all hope that Tallbloke gets a-churning with that libel lawsuit against Laden et alia ASAP, and that he also seeks civil action for compensatory and beaucoup punitive damages against the local and national governments. He’s gonna need to replace every gadget he’d ever had connected to that router.
Also, he should donate those previously-connected devices to some charitable service which will distribute them to other folks who can’t afford the purchase of same. This will, of course, leave the warmistas chasing people texting about plum duff recipes and accessing “furry” pr0n, and more power to ’em.
Hot Damn! This is gaining further traction, in main stream press!
Climategate Bombshell: Did U.S. Gov’t Help Hide Climate Data?
By Maxim Lott
Published December 16, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/16/complicit-in-climategate-doe-under-fire/?test=latestnews#ixzz1gjmemjzx
@ William Old
My comment to your original post was supposed to be polite and finished with a cheeky grin – or at least it did in my brain. Your reply is rather over the top.
Sorry – didnt mean to set you homework, but your reply certainly confirms what I have professionally known for years – that coppers generally dont know the law beyond quoting statutory provisions parrot fashion. All coppers can regurgitate the statutory definition of theft, or their powers under PACE, but almost none of them know any caselaw. You have even read the pertinent extract from a relevant case and haven’t been able to identify the straightforward legal principle at play. I am not surprised.
Might I suggest that you read the main paragraph of the judgment relating to a section 8 warrant again?
“Given their knowledge of the first claimant‟s role as an expert witness over many years, I do not consider that either the officers or the justice could have been satisfied that there were reasonable grounds for believing that the first claimants‟ computers would not contain material subject to legal privilege or special procedure material. It seems clear that they did not address the question. Had they done so, they must have come to the conclusion that the first claimant‟s computers might contain such material. …………… Accordingly in my judgment there was no jurisdiction to issue the warrant in the form in which it was sought and issued. Accordingly I would quash the warrant on this ground, and grant the relief sought, namely a declaration that the entry and search of the premises, and the seizures made in the course of the search, were unlawful.”
Remembering that special procedure material includes journalistic material, then please substitute “expert witness” for “journalist blogger”.
The case provides that if a magistrate can be shown not to have had a reasonable belief under PACE section 8(1)(d) that there was NOT special procedure material (which includes journalistic material) on computers mentioned in the warrant, then he had no jurisdiction to issue the warrant in the first place.
The police here knew TallBloke is a blogger. They sought a warrant for “computers and associated equipment” – that means all computers at the address. The police were under an obligation to tell the magistrate that his computers were likely to contain journalistic material (for which a warrant under section 8 PACE is not available), since they knew he is a blogger/journalist. They almost certainly did not. That is evidenced by the fact that they obtained a section 8 warrant – if they had told the magistrate this then a section 8 warrant would almost certainly not have been granted.
So it is arguable that the magistrate cannot have had a reaasonable belief that there was no special procedure material on the computers. If this is so he then, as happened for these reasons in the case I mentioned, the warrant can be held to be unlawful.
“Please, please, please, folks… much of this is uninformed rubbish from grandstanding idiots.”
So, again, from one grandstanding idiot, to another……………
Tucci78 says:
December 16, 2011 at 1:37 pm
>>>>Well, for all the “Liberal” idiots’ fantasies about how their Mombasa Messiah was gonna “Change” everything, the Gitmo madrasah is still open and going strong, >>>>
Seems Obama just signed in to law the bill that allows the President to declare a person an Enemy of the State and disappear him. And most of our traitors in DC did too.
I am sorry Anthony but a Congress Critter that votes FOR a bill denying an American citizen his Constitutional right to a trial is a traitor to that document IMHO.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december152011/defense-bill-tk.php
At 8:42 AM on 16 December (gotta beg the readers’ pardon; I’m playing catch-up here) CaffeinatedSheep had posted:
Tsk. You’re making the mistake of thinking that these warmunists are smart instead of demonstrating the feral cunning so common among petty criminals. To continue:
But los warmistas haven’t got anything in the way of “science,” damnit. That’s been their problem since this whole preposterous bogosity got started back in 1974.
There really isn’t anyone of senior rank among los warmistas who hasn’t “put personal gain ahead of objective science,” meaning that there’s absolutely nobody out there in this complex confidence game who can “Repair the trust.”
The very few climate scientists who aren’t numbered among the C.R.U. correspondents who got pantsed in the Climategate disclosures – i.e., those who weren’t actively participating in the suppressio veri, suggestio falsi scam perpetrated in a simulacrum of scientific proceedings – are either “lukewarmers” like Dr. Judith Curry or implacable “deniers” like Dr. Richard Lindzen.
The latter have already been extensively demonized by the warmarxist MSM, and review of the Climategate communications (especially in the FOIA2011.zip tranche) indicate that the “lukewarmers” were being schemed-against by the members of “Mike’s Hockey Team” in the years before the events of 17 November 2009 yanked down their drawers to expose their shortcomings.
To put it simply, there is no professional ethical integrity among the credentialed quacks who make up the warmista “science” establishment. The more we look into it, the more certain we become that there never was.
They can’t “Repair” a structure that never had any substance to begin with.
Forget about making bricks without straw. On the warmunist side, they never even had decent mud.
Gail.
Couldnt agree more. Its an absolute disgrace.
Anyone stop to think this might be a tactic in the strategy to climb-down from seriously over-reaching and suicidal financial/climate policies by government.
Expose the corruption in climate science and then claim to have been misled.
David Cameron using Tallboy as proxy to flush passkey without appearing to confront the team directly?
Re; davidmhoffer says @ 12:49 pm
True, but now make that portable. It’s still not entirely practical to use in the field and would be far better to do as the police have done and take the drives back to a controlled and secure environment.
Tucci78 Dec 15th 1.43pm –
Here you go – http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/
Scroll down to “Generation by Fuel Type”. As at 23:00 UK time, wind is producing 2.1% and we’re importing 4.3% from France (nuclear of course).
John Law says:
December 16, 2011 at 5:03 am
How will the Norfolk police get all that kit on their bicycles?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Why do you think they only took two lap tops and a router??? It was all they could carry!
JOSH, new cartoon to go with your last one.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/15/josh-on-the-skeptic-computer-raid/
If Tallbloke were to enter into libel cases separately against Doctors Laden and Mann in their respective countries, would that not be a “can-opener” that would potentially require exposing documents that here-to-fore have remained behind legal barriers?
My take on Tallbloke and Greg Laden:
http://blackswhitewash.com/2011/12/16/im-back-things-just-got-serious/
JPeden says:
December 16, 2011 at 12:02 am
roh234 says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:17 pm
You know this new health care bill? Actually, a big part of the change that will happen is pulling your stupid-ass nuts out of the fire, because those of us who live in the progressive states fixed half those problems you are living with a long time ago. Yet you are the states that seem to be sending more than your share of testicle dangling tea-baggers to DC to complain about the very progress that is going to keep your 11 fingered offspring from the misery that your created environment imposes on them.
Yep, we’ve observed how you OWS parasites and California sure do get it all fingered out, and o’so “naturally” without the need of any TP at all! Now all you need is some more of Robbinghood’s and Little Moonbeam’s all purpose magic manna to more completely fill your quavering fingers to the brim with more of that same old Commie crappola that has “sustained” you so well thus far, forevah! No doubt it tastes as good as it does in North Korea? Where they apparently haven’t learned by echoing fragmented noises in the streets to count beyond “4″, either? And, please, don’t you be going and telling Maiden Michelle on me while she and the PBS Teletubbies are trying to achieve a new jumping jack record. Otherwise you just might could be outed as a raaaaacist!
They weren’t my words and neither would I say that to any American. I was pointing to Anthony that Greg didn’t change his bigoted rant. Don’t accuse me of being a watermelon and read everything.
LOL!! we should root for the hackers to be caught and prosecuted! [read and you will understand]
Dilingpole of the Telegraph wrote:
“If a whistleblower leaks information in the public interest – as Climategate and Climategate 2.0 clearly are – then he is pretty much immune from prosecution. (Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998”
I read the ACT, key line: “(b)that a person has failed, is failing or is likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation to which he is subject,”
Defense Witness #1 Phil Jones
Defence witness #2 Keith Briffa… etc……
They would have to explain every FOI email and every delete email!
Tucci78 says:
December 16, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Just what the hell gives you to think that they’re after “FOIA’s identity,” anyway?
If they can pull from Tallbloke’s router “the MAC addresses (think fingerprint) of each device he allowed to talk on his router,” then every damned time Tallbloke uses any of those devices, the warmunist Geheimesicherheitsdienst can not only track his location but monitor any communications he might undertake.
Fair point, if a bit scary in its implications. At this point, I’d guess somebody knows they can’t contain FOIA, so they’re hoping to shut up some of the people who turned the leak into News, perhaps get people to think more about them as “bad, nasty hackers don’cha know?” and think less about the contents of the emails and what they mean, though that is unlikely to be communicated down the line to the PC-nappers in such blunt terms. The disposition of ridiculous amounts of money, prestige and power depend on the “science” or lack thereof, so it probably isn’t realistic to discount such ideas as paranoid fantasy anymore. It’s not like there aren’t history books full of precedent for this sort of thing. Still, we know so little about what is really happening behind any given curtain and there are so many players, factions within factions even, (and still the chance that the leaker is a defector from The Team) that the best play would seem to be to continue turning up the heat on the Warmists and see who sweats (a kerchief, Mr Mann?). Talk about it and keep it out there and see who sweats the most. And of course, we could wake up in the morning and find that FOIA has adjusted the thermostat all by himself again.
Atomic Hairdryer;
True, but now make that portable.>>>
Ask, and ye shall receive.
http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Search.htm?term=TC-L52BN-AR&DefSort=Y&findin=allproducts&SearchType=1
Maybe if we ALL start mentioning that a certain “someone” has contacted us with a passcode, things might get very interesting. Sort of like shouting “bomb” at an airport. 🙂
.
NORFOLK POLICE TO FOIA: GIVE YOURSELF UP OR THE CUTE LITTLE PUPPY GETS IT!!!!
Bravo to Lord Monckton! I would urge anyone who has information to help him in this vital effort to bring some accountability to this cabal.
@tallbloke
I would recommend getting new equipment if they bugged it.
clipe says:
December 16, 2011 at 3:00 pm
“Expose the corruption in climate science and then claim to have been misled.”
Then the political leadership would have to admit that they let themselves be misled.
Has that ever happened in the past? I do not remember any such case right now…..
Send them a picture of a huge crowd,
caption.. “Where’s FOIA”
Make sure Jones’s and Mann’s and Big Al’s faces are in the crowd..
Jockdownsouth says:
December 16, 2011 at 3:04 pm
No fair!
Currently producing 1059Mw from metered capacity of 4006Mw. 26.4%
Be honest when running something down!
DaveE.
Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 10:04 am
All good information…. but now we also perhaps know why FOIA11 put this second tranche of files out in the way he did. The encrypted section may well hold something VERY embarrassing for someone with the power to wake up the Norfolk Constabulary and get them to cooperate with the Met (not a simple telephone call) and presumably some of the ‘police’ were not from either force.
So FOIA11 has a large collection of extremely politically threatening emails that might deprive people of their Agenda 21 privileges and access to significant amounts of several governments’ funding…. Leaving it on her/his hard drive is NOT secure as said ‘police force’ could arrive at dead of night and remove it. So encrypt it with almost unbreakable encryption and put it out on the ‘net with tips to sites you _know_ will download and publish what they can read – it is now immortal. The sites and their visitors will also comment on the large impenetrable encrypted file. This FOIA11 knows will cause considerable if not unbounded concern in the circles trying to hide what they believe is in that encrypted folder – as they perceive it as a significant threat to their plans.
The key would have been loaded to several places on the ‘net unobtrusively – say hidden in images of muffins on multiple recipe sites – before the main CG2 tranche was published, using a cell phone, netbook or tablet that has now been physically destroyed. Perhaps there is a bot somewhere on the ‘net that is checking that FOIA11 has logged on in the last 10 days and if not the ‘bot will email the key to all available emails found on say Tallblokes Talkshop, WUWT, RC or The Air Vent and perhaps even hard coded to Lord Monckton.
The files and the key are already on the web – going around pulling hardware from the skeptic blogs will not work – even if ‘they’ find FOIA11 or foment enough annoyance, all FOIA11 needs to do is stop logging into the web or a particular site – and their worst nightmare may occur.
At 5:09 PM on 16 December, Ian W writes:
Hm. Let’s travel back to 17 November 2009, at which time FOIA2009.zip hit the ‘Net.
Right then and there, among los warmistas there had to have been a classic “Omigawd, they’re on to us!” moment in which they realized that EVERY GODDAM THING that had been archived on the servers at the University of Easy Access’ C.R.U. had fallen into the hands of those they had condemned as “deniers,” many of whom (myself happily included) would like nothing better than to put them off a pier into deep water with cured quantities of Quickrete® ’round their ankles, and then make bets on how long it’d take for the bubbles to stop coming up.
Those complicit in the AGW fraud knew right goddam then that the supposed-to-be-confidential communications of their credentialed “climate science” charlatans were off the reservation and running wild through the badlands.
They either knew right away that what had been “stolen” (i.e., copied) from those servers was stuff that would implicate them, or they learned shortly after FOIA2009.zip’s release got them steppin’ and fetchin’ to comb through the sources of that file’s contents just precisely what the “hacker” had gotten access to.
And it’s obviously stuff that can perp-walk a lot of expensively-dressed warmunists out of their offices and into durance vile, live on TV.
Continues Ian W:
Which begs an important question. If anybody had knowledge of what was lurking in those hard drives at the C.R.U., it was the same warmistas who’d been criminally evading the Freedom of Information statute demands for access to specific portions of those materials. The operators of the henhouse knew precisely what the “Foia” foxl had gotten in among, right?
So how the hell come these government-connected bastids are only now moved sufficiently to desperation that they’re starting to send their uniformed thugs to harass Tallbloke and – eventually, we can presume – the rest of that “Army of Davids” who have been exerting themselves in the blogosphere to press for honest skepticism in the consideration of the great gaudy “We’re All Gonna Die!” man-made catastrophic globular worming fraud?
I mean, we know that los warmistas are stupid.
Cunning, sure. All criminals are cunning in direct proportion to how successful they are in their thefts and scams and serial murders. But smart?
Nah!
But are these warmarxist whackjobs better’n two years slow on the uptake?
Hairdryer, apples and oranges. Removing a multiTB drive array for archival isn’t the same as doing the same with a processor. The issue of claims for civil damages remains, but the drive array does not have perishable, location or connection specific information on it. The laptops likey do: remote drives, vpn connections, network mounted volumes, etc. My mobile and my laptops both gsm location aware applications that configure the wick and network settings based on location, if the coppers wandered off with those machines- then they would lose data. Not to mention the possibilites for a location aware corruption tool. The portable disk duplicators, which have a significant law enforcement market, are purchased to preserve information and protect officers.
I called the IT cops at my friendly ticket writer’s local, they archive and log everything onsite; before removing EVERYTHING, to include bringing in an electrician to pull hard wired power supplies. They scoffed at this article, if they had a warrant, they wouldn’t have left the mobile, servers, old pc, any media, Tallblokes collection of bagpipe tunes on cd, notwithstanding. Tallbloke would have spent hours signing inventory logs as they filled the truck.
Their opinion, halfhearted fishing expedition to make someone with a white shirt happy. Taking the router was laughed at, if you weren’t taking everything, what would it have that wouldn’t be at the teleco/isp.
Off topic.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but a common bit of fun some friends of mine have is playing Bait The Warmist. The game is played every time it’s cold and you say: “So, how about that global warming, huh?” while pulling your coat tighter.
Warmists present will immediately shriek: “Climate isn’t weather!” or somesuch.
Well, I happened to notice in the latest email leaks that 0248.txt contains some interesting debate between the warmists. During the course of the debate
Kevin Trenberth wrote:
Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here
in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal
is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about
18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather
(see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last
night in below freezing weather).
Which seems to be exactly the same sort of comment. Straight from their mouths. And in the responses nobody seemed to shriek that weather and climate aren’t the same.
@Tucci78 says:That figure is from a page in Finland which was mentioned time ago here in WUWT. It was an official site.
At 5:37 PM on 16 December (when we celebrate the Boston Tea Party [1773] and contribute funds to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in yet another one of those “money bombs” that shock and dismay the Republican establishment) Jean Parisot writes about how:
So the Norfolk puds – or is it “prods”? – et alia simply aren’t smart “Liberal” fascist goons, then?
Well, it seems Tallbloke needs to get busy with the lawsuits because it looks like he is going to need the money.
Climate Audit [ http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/16/the-tallbloke-search-warrant/#comment-316788 ] has a photo of Tallbloke’s search warrant.
In the comments there is mention that because the Guardian has printed in it’s article tallbloke’s line of work at the University of Leeds his job is now on the line. http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/16/the-tallbloke-search-warrant/#comment-316598
Perhaps THAT was the reason for the search, to allow pressure to be placed on a heretic blogger and get him fired.
If Scientists and Journal editors have come under this kind of attack why not bloggers?
Gail,
Although I agree with you about being concerned about much of what you have commented upon, I must bring to your attention the factual mistake you are making in regard to the Constitutional powers to detain a U.S. citizen without trial.
The U.S. Constitution and the international law of armed conflict has always limited the protection of the writ of habeus corpus and trial by jury with respect to combatants engaged in hostilities. The laws regarding the indefinite detention of a a person who is a foreign citizen owing allegiance to a foreign sovereign or a domestic citizen volunteering allegiance to a foreign sovereign or a domestic insurgent exist for a good and humane purpose designed to protect the health and safety of the public and the detainees during the period of hostilities.
Yes, it is possible and even likely that a bad domestic or foreign government may abuse the laws and use them contrary to their intended humane purposes. Nonetheless, the laws exist and exist for good purposes. People who complain about the effects upon habeus corpus and trial by jury are only greatly harming the very people they meant to help with their complaints. While you may not understand and see why this is so at present, I can only urge you to learn why it is so and why it is necessary to respect the need to give effect to the original purpose of such laws while finding better ways of helping the innocent. The objections which you and other people have towards the indefinite detention and insistence for having a prosecution and trial of a combatant can result in the foreign and domestic trial, imprisonment, torture, and capital punishment of U.S. civilians and members of the armed forces by enemy governments and by a hypothetical outlaw domestic government using false prosecutions.
Before you renew your complaint about the writ of habeus corpus and trial by jury, I must urge you to at the very least make yourself acquainted with the laws of armed conflict and the reasons why they make the criminal trial of belligerents illegal except for prosecutions of violations of the laws of armed conflict. These laws exist to protect you and me from the very types of governments and governmental crimes you fear. You should note for example that the Constitution has always granted the President and Commander-in-Chief the power to indefinitely detain a belligerent during the course of hostilities. The current bill only tinkers with that original Constitutional power, perhaps for ill purpose as you fear. In any event, please don’t make the mistake of wrongly assuming there never was such a Constitutional power to detain a belligerent without trial, or the mistake of wrongly assuming the original purpose was improper and must be contrary to the best interests of the falsely accused innocents. If you wish, I’ll explain further.
Tucci78 says:
December 16, 2011 at 6:21 pm
You are making the assumption that the encrypted files are only ‘more of the same’ – the ‘nothing of interest move along’ meme being repeat chanted — that may be a flawed assumption.
Yup. When you get your crap back from the police, put it on ebay. Let them end up tracking some gamer in Liverpool.
Maybe Patchy Morals is FOIA and has shorted every thing the numpty of Nashville has got his fingers in!!!
I’m not a conspiracy theorist…In fact I find most, if not all of it bunk. However, if I were one I might pose some of these questions.
Why is Obama’s inept DOJ (i.e. the Fast and Furious, “stealth pardons” of two Weather Underground terrorists, Voter ID BS) involved?
What is the administration trying to cover up?
Why was the Keystone XL pipeline delayed until after the November 2012 election?
A conspiracy theorist might figure that there are e-mails that show the White House complicit with “The Cause” and Obama wants to consolidate his green vote (and his average guy who has never heard of Climategate vote) hoping another email dump doesn’t happen before November 2012.
But what do I know, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. It’s just a lark, but an interesting one.
eanagram;
% of national consumption
vs.
% of nameplate wind capacity.
Totally different numbers and issues.
Doh.
Encrypt your entire hard drive. Use a passphrase not a password. Passphrases are very easy to remember and much more difficult than passwords to crack (due to far greater length). Any passphrase combination of at least eight words (eg a book title or some lines from a poem) is effectively impossible to crack (billions of years with a supercomputer).
Kwik:
Then the political leadership would have to admit that they let themselves be misled.
Has that ever happened in the past?
Look up George Romney and ‘brainwashed.’ Honesty may be the best policy but it does not guarantee political success. Unfortunately.
crazy old men who want everybody off their lawn
I resemble that remark!
D. Patterson on December 16, 2011 at 7:15 pm said:….
So you are claiming that the President has always had the power to detain, indefinitely, US citizens on US soil when there is no current armed conflict occurring on US soil? Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t believe that is true yet I believe that is exactly what this new law allows. For example, maybe you are an outspoken critic of the president and have a widely read political blog. Under this new law, perhaps it would be politically expediant for the sitting President to declare you a belligerent or “terrorist” and detain you indefinitely. You can’t tell me that this has always been possible and legal.
I wish you all the best, Tallbloke, and a merry Christmas to you, to Anthony, the moderators, and all the countless sceptics out there.
If FOIA ‘Deep Climate’, has a sense of humour, he would send the encryption key to Mann, Travesty, Hansen, Voodoo, Santer. And to the Norfolk constabulary.
I must admit I am having difficulty understanding what is going on here. Definitley no criticism intended of Tallbloke (it was not me who answered to door to six plod) but the whole episode has a strange gentlemanly, pip pip cheerio atmosphere. I think some of our academic brethren need to be a bit more hard. It might be because I am Australian but if six Jacks turned up at mine they wouldn’t be crossing the threshold without resistance (and I would inform them so very bluntly) until my lawyer was present and all the documents, and relevant law, had been scrutinised with forensic detail. Even then I may still refuse permission just so they must use force and justify it later.
Unless you are seeking immediate help, never, ever, voluntarily speak to a policeman without legal representation present. Ever.
And this business of receiving a letter from the US Department of Justice!? As much as I think the US one of the greatest countries on earth my response would be I am not a US citizen and into the rubbish bin it would go.
This war, and it is a war even if cold, against the UN and IPCC will take many years. History shows having taken root fascist ideas can take decades to destroy.
@ BrianH.. and a bit OT, sorry
In 2004 two major German studies investigated the size of contribution that wind farms make towards guaranteed capacity. Both studies separately came to virtually identical conclusions, that wind energy currently contributes to the secure production capacity of the system, by providing 8% of its installed capacity.
As wind power capacity rises, the lower availability of the wind farms determines the reliability of the system as a whole to an ever increasing extent. Consequently the greater reliability of traditional power stations becomes increasingly eclipsed. As a result, the relative contribution of wind power to the guaranteed capacity of our supply system up to the year 2020 will fall continuously to around 4%
In concrete terms, this means that in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of traditional power production can be replaced by these wind farms.
From here…http://www.timhunkin.com/a125_arch-windpower.htm
All the time it has been a matter of “agnosis” and “gnosis”: “We know, you don´t….we are clever, you are not, so we rule upon you…if we say “global warming” it is so…then give me your sinful computers!
http://www.green-agenda.com/globalrevolution.html
http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=326
Eternal Optimist~
Voodoo and Travesty? Are these people Trying to be ironic?
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
December 17, 2011 at 3:37 am
Now that I will go along with! Even though average output of the stock in the UK is around 24% of plated capacity, I’ve seen it drop to 2%. You have to account for the minimum output from total stock with backup.
DaveE.
Tucci78 says @ December 16, 2011 at 6:21 pm
……I mean, we know that los warmistas are stupid.
Cunning, sure. All criminals are cunning in direct proportion to how successful they are in their thefts and scams and serial murders. But smart?….
________________________________________
The guys pulling the strings of the rent-a-scientists and politicos like Al Gore are not dumb. We also know they are long term thinkers. This scam was set up back in 1972 with Maurice Strong and the First Earth Summit giving marching orders (and funding) to Greenpeace and brethren and
There is a heck of a lot of fire power funding the CRU.
On this side of the big pond we have old money bags himself, David Rockefeller and family squarely behind CAGW.
The other big money bags in the USA – JP Morgan had a lot of the news media sewn up starting in 1917.
http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/congressional-record-jp-morgan-co-purchased-all-major-media-for-propaganda-1917-and-now
http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/forum/topics/jp-morganour-next-big-media
http://www.newsandtech.com/dougs_page/article_f3a45be0-4717-11df-aace-001cc4c03286.html
Most recently:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is raising a $500 million to $750 million fund to invest in ventures being spun out of social media….
Das reports:
It isn’t clear whether JPMorgan plans to invest directly in target companies or buy and sell shares on behalf of clients. But the investment fund will target “late-stage” private companies, or those with an up-and-running business model, steady revenue, and cash flow, according to people familiar with the situation.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/pressed/2011/02/14/jpmorgan-new-media-fund-targets-convergence/
Later ENRON got into the act: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/seriously_inconvenient_truth.pdf
Do not forget our good friend Al Gore: “The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade” http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22663
Tucci78 says:
December 16, 2011 at 6:21 pm
….So how… come these government-connected bastids are only now moved sufficiently to desperation that they’re starting to send their uniformed thugs to harass Tallbloke….
But are these warmarxist whackjobs better’n two years slow on the uptake?
________________________
If my last comment did not get through see :http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22663
OK so why, if there is this much fire power behind the scam (and the brains that go with it) are they leaning on Tallbloke??
LOOK AT THE TIMING!
The knock on the door came AFTER Durbin torpedoed but there was at least the agreement to talk next year. If World Wide Carbon Trading (And the UN’s wet dream of direct taxation) is to get off the ground they have until next year to do it. Otherwise the change in the PDO, ENSO and possible change in the AMO coupled with a lethargic sun are going to kill their dreams DEAD. Therefore they have got to muzzle the sceptics starting NOW
Letting “Deniers” into the IPCC review process is a publicist’s very well calculated move IMHO. I am sure they will allow/encourage as many as they can because they WANT THOSE NAMES ON THE NEXT REPORT!
Most people are to lazy to do more than skim the leading news articles so it does not matter if Anthony or others see the sausage making this time around because they are now bound by a secrecy agreement and after the tame propaganda outlets get done using their names it will be WAY TOO LATE.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/15/register-to-become-an-expert-reviewer-for-ipcc-wg1/
I think what we are seeing is the final battle for the minds and freedom of the populous. The targeting of Tallbloke was part of the strategy to scare the blogosphere into either shutting up or at least smearing them with “Police Involvement”
How this is handled will be closely watched. Laden and Mann, loose cannons that they are, may have messed things up if Tallbloke sues. For that reason that lawsuit is an absolute MUST.
Because if Leeds University can now be pressured into terminating Tallboke’s employment They will have “won” this round at least in their minds and go forward to target the next blogger.
Friends:
It is not known why the police raided the home of Tallbloke. This may be revealed when the reasons presented for the Search Warrant are made public. Until then all suggestions for the purpose of the raid can only be speculation.
It seems to be generally assumed that the search was aimed at determining – or appearing to attempt to be determining – the identity of ‘FOIA’ who released the Climategate 2 emails. This is plausible.
But another possible reason seems to be being ignored. The police may have been seeking evidence of nefarious activity by the Team which is in the public domain.
The AGW-scare met the beginning of its end two years ago in Copenhagen. The scare was always about taxation in countries and resource transfer between countries. But at the IPCC Meeting in Copenhagen most countries who are ‘major players’ withdrew from the game. At that point it was clear to all involved that the writing was on the wall;
Mene mene tekel u-pharsin.
The IPCC meeting in Cancun last year was a farce and no leaders of major nations attended.
The IPCC Meting in Durban this month reduced the issue to complete farce. It discussed a document which is so insane that no politician could sign it without committing political suicide. Discussion of that document would not have happened if anybody thought there were any real possibility of ‘progress’: the discussion would have been about methods to adopt the next realistic ‘step’. So, at Durban it was decided that talks (in nice places) should continue with a view to getting something adopted by 2020 (i.e. in the far distant future after most existing politician have left office).
Canada has recently gained a new generation of politicians who do not have a record of being tied to the AGW-scare, so Canada has announced that it is withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol process.
The AGW-scare is dead but – like a headless chicken – it continues to ‘run around the farmyard’.
A scapegoat is needed if the movement of the dead issue is to be stopped. The Team make a very useful scapegoat (and would deserve all they would get as a scapegoat).
Scapegoating the Team by use of information already in the public domain minimises risk of the scapegoating causing damage to politicians with whom the Team has been associated. And the information on Tallbloke’s computer is a good , collated summary of the pertinent information of Team activity which is already in the public domain.
Richard
PS The OT subject of windfarms needs to be stopped before it destroys this thread. One way to stop it is for everybody to click on the link provided by ‘Pete in Cumbria’ to support his assertions and to judge the worth of the assertions for themseves if that is the best available evidence he chooses to provide.
I, as many of the posters above have had a very nasty experience with the Norfolk Police, ( they lost ) Tallbloke, take care, if they can do you ill they will, they will lie under oath and distort evidence to there advantage. When they lost there bicycles they lost touch with humanity, all the very best to you Sir, and thank you Sir Anthony, you are more than appreciated,
Fred
And they thought I was crazy when I reported a visit this past summer by the Jack Boots … warning me to moderate my criticism of the administration in general and Barry specifically …
EternalOptimist says:
December 17, 2011 at 3:13 am
“If FOIA ‘Deep Climate’, has a sense of humour, he would send the encryption key to Mann, Travesty, Hansen, Voodoo, Santer. And to the Norfolk constabulary.”
=========================================================================
LOL!
Good one, but I would send it too them individually. Even more fun!
D. Patterson says:
December 16, 2011 at 7:15 pm
I am well aware of the US being able to detain an “Enemy Combatant” foreign or domestic.
The problem is that it never needed to be specifically put into a law and this new law widens the interpretation allowing the president to do the finger pointing.
It reminds me too much of “pollution.” The law against criminal trespass has been available for decades well before the EPA. All that was need to stop pollution was for citizens to use the EXISTING LAW. Instead we now have the EPA depriving us from the use of our private property based on dodgy and in some cases down right fraudulent science. Old Animal cruelty laws and the New Animal welfare act are another example of gilding the lily that causes a loss of rights.
After seeing what went on behind the “Food Safety Modernization Act” of 2010 I do not trust the criminals in DC one tiny little bit.
This is from a lawyer and is written about the new food law but his warning should ALWAYS be in our minds:
Another lawyer warned that even the placement of words in a sentence can have meaning that the lay person would never catch. So the fact that a law is being written to cover something that is ALREADY legal in the USA makes me highly suspicious that what we see on the surface is not the whole truth of the matter.
A second thing that most people do not realize is the LEGAL importance of the president “Declaring a War on Drugs” or a “War on Terrorism” or whatever. What will those “Declarations of war” have on the “Enemy Combatants” in those “Wars” I am not a lawyer therefore I do not know the legal ramifications of a such declarations of war. However I do know that the declarations have allowed police the license to kill without fear of legal repercussion. http://www.altdaily.com/features/news/opinion-news/similarities-in-the-war-on-drugs-and-war-on-terror.html
Shielding the giant – background to the food safety law and the criminal back scratching that went on. http://www.whistleblower.org/storage/documents/Shielding_the_Giant_Final_PDF.pdf
A Christmas Pantomime….Ding Dong Merrily on high…
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/211/
I second TrueCrypt, very easy to use, you can even make a hidden volume inside a TrueCrypt volume for added safety so even if they waterboard you to expose the key they will find nothing
Truecrypt is Free open-source software (They do accept donations)
The emails may have been obtained legally.
Here is one way it would be all above board, and East Anglias own fault.
Suppose East Anglia gets large grant to continue its studies into global warming. They figure that they should upgrade their computer systems including the old unix mail server.
The old system is replaced and stored in a closet somewhere.
Then, they get another grant and use that to upgrade their office spaces. In the process, they discover some old servers in storage and decide they will be green and recycle the servers.
The old mail servers end up being sold for scrap.
The new owner decides to see whats on the disks and finds a trove of emails.
The rest is history.
There is another varient of this and it is East Anglia had a storage shed and did not pay their rent
Or they were storing backup tapes in a shed and did not pay rent, Or they changed the backup tape format and sold or threw the old tapes away.
IMHO, it was probably some tree hugging grad student who was in charge of getting rid of the old stuff.
Harry Won A Bagel says: @ December 17, 2011 at 3:32 am
I must admit I am having difficulty understanding what is going on here….
…..I am Australian but if six Jacks turned up at mine they wouldn’t be crossing the threshold without resistance (and I would inform them so very bluntly) until my lawyer was present and all the documents, and relevant law, had been scrutinised with forensic detail. Even then I may still refuse permission just so they must use force and justify it later.
Unless you are seeking immediate help, never, ever, voluntarily speak to a policeman without legal representation present. Ever…..
__________________________
Unfortunately that is no longer an option here in the USA because you are likely to get shot.
I think I might, perhaps, maybe, be onto the passphrase …. testing it now … yep, got it ….
See what the Constitutional Convention had to say:
Note how the Constitution is written to say “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Also note the Constitution does not say “armed conflict occurring on US soil”, “armed conflict”, “armed Rebellion”, or “armed Invasion.” It does say “Rebellion” and “Invasion” without requiring them to be an “armed Rebellion” or an “armed Invasion.”
Yes, the suspension of the writ of habeus corpus and detentions without a trial in a civil court has already happened a number of times in the past. There is no particular historical or Constitutional reason why a pamphleteer of the 19th Century, a newsletter publisher of the 20th Century, or a blogger of the 21st Century cannot have a suspension of their privilege of the writ of habeus corpus in the event of certain activities by themselves and/or by the members of their community. Note, you don’t even need to be involved in a rebellion yourself to have the writ of habeus corpus suspended, if your community is found to be in Rebellion.
The Democrats of Maryland engaged in a conspiracy to murder and assassinate the President Elect Abraham Lincoln while he was aboard the railroad train carrying him from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C. on the approaches to Baltimore, Maryland and another attempt in a planned civil riot while changing trains in Baltimore. On the eve of an attempt by the Maryland state administration to compel the secession of Maryland from the Union, President Lincoln issued Presidential orders for the arrest and internment of Maryland and Baltimore officials engaged in these conspiracies to rebel against the authority of the Federal Government and to guarantee the citizens of the State of Maryland a republican form of government as demanded by the articles of the Constitution. When attorneys for the arrested officials procured writs of habeus corpus, the military commanders denied the privilege of the writs citing President Lincoln’s suspension of the privilege of habeus corpus. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney attempted to countermand President Lincoln’s Presidential order to no effect. President Lincoln subsequently sought and received Congressional legislation approving the suspension of the writ of habeus corpus another three times during the American Civil War. Martial law was used to enforce Federal law in a number of states where it was deemed that civil disobedience endangered public Safety, such as interference with labor relations, solicitations to sabotage military recruitment and military desertion, and other unarmed acts of Rebellion. In 1862:
Richard S Courtney says: December 15, 2011 at 1:22 am
“… Thirdly, it is very, very probable that UK security…”
DirkH says: December 15, 2011 at 3:26 am (response to Richard)
“No, Richard, at the moment nobody on Planet Earth can crack…”
Jean Parisot says: December 15, 2011 at 6:02 am (response to Richard)
“…encryption compromised by the large amount of known plaintext…”
======================
Part A.
1. Trace the line of authority from the top of the national gov’t down to the local constabulary. Once the locals have information (e.g. server backup image) then everyone above them in that line of authority has access. They will avail themselves of that access if it is in their interest to do so. The only (and rare) exception to this rule is if a higher-level of authority assumes custody of the information, cutting out those below.
2. Anyone outside that line of authority has potential access. They will aquire actual access if they can make it “in the best interest of” someone in that line to provide it. So, the “spooks” have not been wasting their time trying to “break the encryption”, anyone with the authority to order such an effort already knows the contents.
3. Any provision of law precluding the above is window-dressing for the general public, as it requires persons in the line of authority to honor/enforce it, and they will only do so when that is in their own best interest.
Part B.
1. The encryption only keeps the taxpaying public from knowing what they have paid for.
2. The public, outside the line of authority, will only learn the truth if the key is made public
(possible?), or if they can avail themselves (fat chance!) of the option in Part A. 2. (above).
Part C.
1. The public domain contains a wealth of information about cryptology, but not everything that is known about cryptology is in the public domain. There is no provably unbreakable system (other than the impractical one-time-pad) so, do not assume otherwise.
2. However, there are systems (e.g. AES-256) which are provably secure against “Brute Force”, so don’t bother with that approach. A 256-bit key gives a key space of 2**256. Apply the 3/10 rule and the keyspace is (approx) 10**76. There are, roughly, 32 million seconds in a year. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
3. While known, or assumed plaintext is necessary to break a non-trivial system, it is not sufficient. One also needs the algorithm which will recover the key, given the plaintext and ciphertext as input. Of the three needed components, the algorithm is the hardest to come by,
so no, the system is not yet compromised.
—dadgervais
======================
p.s.
Jose Suro says: December 15, 2011 at 4:59 am
“What is it… that ties them together…”
Er, wordpress, perhaps? I assume that other service providers have recieved similar notices, but that info hasn’t (yet) been made public.
RB:
“… then please substitute “expert witness” for “journalist blogger… ” Detail is important – I think that you mean ‘replace “expert witness” with “journalist blogger”‘ or ‘substitute “journalist blogger” for “expert witness”‘ …! 🙂
It’s a fair argument, and it would (genuinely) be interesting to see if that flew in this case if Tallbloke decided to sue. But given that he isn’t the subject of a criminal prosecution, and that he agreed to the seizure, it will be a very generous pro bono lawyer that picks up the bill and the Court fees for commencing the civil action!
You might regard Tallbloke as a “blogger/journalist”, but that’s not “a Digital Content Manager for the University of Leeds”, so I think we will disagree about whether this would be “journalistic material” in these circumstances, but let’s not argue about it – we won’t agree, and no-one will thank us for rehearsing the argument here… 🙁
By the way, it wasn’t a magistrate that authorised the warrant, it was a District Judge, but I agree that it doesn’t change the legal thinking other than the fact that the DJ can be regarded as better informed about Bates – so it is perfectly possible (likely?) that the DJ was fully aware of the facts and granted the warrant anyway.
“… and finished with a cheeky grin – or at least it did in my brain…” “You have even read the pertinent extract from a relevant case and haven’t been able to identify the straightforward legal principle at play.” Hey – yellow card! I’m not REALLY a telepath, you know… and I’ve already declared that I don’t regard Tallbloke as a journalist, so it’s a bit unfair to regard the principle as straightforward if I have to guess what you are thinking, especially if the DJ knew all the facts (see above)!
Slightly OT… but I’m very interested in the pejorative way that you state: “I have professionally known for years – that coppers generally dont know the law beyond quoting statutory provisions parrot fashion. All coppers can regurgitate the statutory definition of theft, or their powers under PACE, but almost none of them know any caselaw” This SURPRISES you? It certainly supports my view that a Royal Commission on policing is decades overdue, if that’s what you expect of police officers… of course they don’t – if they did, there would be very few left – they’d all leave and train to be barristers (England and Wales) or advocates (Scotland). Your use of the word “professionally” is tantalising… this is a discussion worthy of inclusion in a Setting The World To Rights discussion over a pint – I’d love to know to which profession you are referring, because most criminal lawyers (with respect) understand how policing and police officers “tick” – I therefore don’t think that you are one, so I’m curious…?
Gail Combs says:
December 17, 2011 at 6:34 am
‘Letting “Deniers” into the IPCC review process is a publicist’s very well calculated move IMHO. I am sure they will allow/encourage as many as they can because they WANT THOSE NAMES ON THE NEXT REPORT!’
That is a valid observation, Gail. I would be very cautious about accepting an invitation from that lot if I were a prominent member of the skeptic community. The intent may be merely to coopt and neutralize.
I am shocked , shocked that Mike Mann might have retweeted
libelous statements and allegations which have probably damages the
professional and academic reputation of a man otherwise innocent of
violating British law.
I would be horrified, yes, horrified to find that Mike Mann,
among or along with other associates, had made the same claims (verbally or
in writing) to various justice and law enforcement officials here in the States or
there in Great Britain, upon which the search warrent and subsequent raid of
Tallbloke’s home was based.
I would be even more dismayed to find that Mike Mann and/or other members
or friends of “The Cause” had made such allegations and representations of
crininal activities upon which search warrents were issued for Tallbloke’s
counterparts here in the United States, Canada, or Australia.
/sarc ???
officials
Charlie K says:
December 15, 2011 at 5:28 am
“I would go on, but for some reason this news has me paranoid about voicing my views online.”
————————–
Perhaps the chilling effect they are looking for?
reposting from SDA
I hate to say it, and I’ve spent too many sleepless nights worrying about it.
Godwins’ Law be damned [SNIP: Understood, but let’s keep this one under wraps, OK? -REP]
dwright.
Bob Kutz says:
December 15, 2011 at 6:03 am
When does Klimatenacht begin?
—————————————————-
It has already begun.
It is good to see so many people on this thread having their eyes opened regarding the powers of the police, internet freedom and free speech. Nothing like a ‘close to home” issue to make you realise what’s really going on in the world.
There is much to be concerned about.
Appreciate the comment Gail. We are a bit lucky in Australia. I recently (two years ago) let two detectives interview me in my home because I witnessed a violent crime. Having spent two full days sitting outside a court room with them waiting my turn to speak, I found their views on the issue of personal liberty very similar to my own. I saw how deeply they felt the obligation to protect me from these villains (one of the miscreants had spoken to my wife) even when I told them I was an enthusiastic consumer of mild elicit drugs. My faith in the intelligence of the younger generation was reinforced by this young lady detective who said to me “bugger that, these people (the fellow on trial) hurt people, you don’t count on that scale.” As the son of a law enforcement official I was comforted. I have enormous faith in our younger generation to protect us. We just have to allow them the tools.
Harry Won A bagel.
maximum respect mate. But ,
TB is a smart dude, there is no doubt about that.
The best way to fight fire is not with fire. It’s with water. Let’s slowly smother them
Does it? Where in the legislation does it say the President may engage in “finger pointing” at a U.S. Citizen or legal resident? I’m getting the impression you made an uncritical acceptance of the distorted propaganda in the MSM news article without reading the actual legislation?
You also should note the privilege of habeus corpus was suspended for U.S. Citizens in a number of historical instances, and the affected U.S. citizens included non-combatant U.S. civilian Citizens taking no part in a Rebellion or Invasion other than being present in the community subject to the suspension of the writ.
D. Patterson says:
“You also should note the privilege of habeus corpus was suspended for U.S. Citizens…”
But that was during a Civil War.
…oh, wait…
Gail Coombs says:
I think what we are seeing is the final battle for the minds and freedom of the populous. The targeting of Tallbloke was part of the strategy to scare the blogosphere into either shutting up or at least smearing them with “Police Involvement”.
I’ve had some personal experience with illegal searches, one violating the 4th Amendment in order to make an “example” of me in order to intimidate others re: possible State Accident Ins. Fund fraud, and another which was essentially a fishing expedition which would have translated into the suggestion, without any evidence whatsoever, that I was filing false income tax statements, in a civil child support case for [unwarranted] increase in child support itself where I was already doing more than double support to begin with, which itself eventually made no difference to the “fixed”, totally bogus “single mother” meme support system anyway. I essentially had over 40% physical custody, needed virtually no “baby sitters” and was paying for at least two complete households, although my own was much better, since Mama was simply funding herself excessively.]
In the first case I simply called their bluff when the State threatened over and over to “arraign” me if I didn’t settle by pleading down to some “minor” offense, but which would have then set me up for an alleged Medicare fraud investigation, another thing I’ve never done. The State never did arraign me, because they had no case, even though and precisely because they had wire tapped me and wired fake patients I saw in the ER in order to “prove” I was telling people to file false claims, which I surely wasn’t, as the wires also proved conclusively. The original wire and wire tap granted by a Judge was based upon two “cases”, both filed on the last day of the year when the statute would have expired and one of which involved a real patient I’d never even seen! and another real patient who was filing the false claims herself, and we were the ones who caught her by feeding back her false claims within 48 hrs. to her employer! In the phone wire taps between myself and another “mark”, I kept laughing at them and telling them indirectly how freaking stupid they were, since I knew they were still tapping me because they hadn’t arraigned me. There were several other devastating facts about their “case” – for example one simple one, the monetary amount of about $600 [for about 8 fake patients] didn’t meet the Statute! But I even had the State Atty. General himself behind their whole scam. I could have proven that the “patients” themselves were lying. And probably that their whole operation was some kind of fraud.
In the second case the Plaintiff’s Atty. was allowed to ask for all my financial records beyond the required tax records via something called a “Request for Production” So I simply snowed them with everything I had. I had nothing to hide, but what the hell was the justification for asking for them if I didn’t and had already supplied the required tax forms? My dumb ass lawyer told me they could ask for everything “because it wasn’t a criminal case”! Huh? I was also the one who always had to figure out and correct any settlement I’ve ever had using my own lawyer.
Anyway, my advice to Tallbloke is to increase his retirement fund if anything “funny” is going on here. I didn’t, because I wasn’t getting too much encouragement from my own lawyer who apparently thought that since I’d totally beat the original “rap/the charges”, which was never even officially stated since I’d not been arraigned – I had to catch that fact, too, in the “settlement agreement” – I should be content with that. Unfortunately, his wife had just been diagnosed with a very bad cancer, so maybe he was a bit preoccupied by that time.
Ins.Fundfraud [workers compensation fraud], and another which was an allegedly “legal” fishing expedition essentially trying to uncoveralleged unreported alleged covr up of unreported
Yes, the Constitution said in 1797, 1862, and today: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
Al Qaeda has issued two declaations of war upon the United States, and Al Qaeda and its allies have executed and planned a number of invasions and rebellious attacks upon the United States and its Citizens. These attacks have resulted in the death of thousands of U.S. Citizens and legal resident Aliens. The latest legislation limits its authority to certain persons it describes as being covered in accordance with the Constitutional duties to protect and defend.
SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED
STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE
AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
(a) In General.–Congress affirms that the authority of the
President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the
Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) includes
the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain
covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition
under the law of war.
(b) Covered Persons.–A covered person under this section is any
person as follows:
(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or
harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported
al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in
hostilities against the United States or its coalition
partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent
act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such
enemy forces.
The legislation is far narrower in the persons covered than the already established precedent suspensions of the writ of habeus corpus exercised in the nine counties of South Carolina in 1871, in Hawaii during the Second World War, and the American Civil War..
Closing barn doors after…throwing babys and bathwater…aiding and abetting foxes…sitting on nests…strange bedfellows….
So will someone tell me again there aren’t powerful political people involved in “global warming”?
From the scientific point of view, water is not “the best way to fight fire” when the fire is fueled by phosphorus, grease, or petroleum distillates.(gasoline). Just sayin’…(grin).
Richard S Courtney says:
December 17, 2011 at 6:40 am
…
_______________________________
That’s an admirably creative scenario which you’ve given, sir, but it strains plausibility when one considers that the typical bureaucrat who’s been at the forefront promulgating the AGW fiasco, probably isn’t that smart.
However, get into the the deeper and darker conspiracy theories hinting at the ‘elite puppet masters’ who wish to depopulate and seize control of the planet and you might be on to something.
No. The latest meme memo says “there aren’t powerful political people involved in Climate Change,” which is a Progressive project for the new Millenium.
Has Judith Curry had any thoughts on this yet?
D. Patterson says:
December 17, 2011 at 10:50 am
For what it is worth the passed law was a milder version and the text surrounding “belligerent” was changed. In the original it seemed to be a “Stand Alone” and not connected to “al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces”
That was what the lawyer whose stuff I read was fussing about.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
December 17, 2011 at 10:56 am
So will someone tell me again there aren’t powerful political people involved in “global warming”?
________________
Depends on whether or not you consider the Department of Energy and the EPA powerful political people and whether you consider them funding CRU as being “Involved.”
Luther Wu:
Thankyou for your comment on my suggestion that you provide at December 17, 2011 at 11:09 am but I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.
However, ‘cockup’ and ‘damage limitation’ are common.
Richard
Moderators:
My reply to Luther Wu has vanished and I would be grateful if it were to appear.
Richard
[REPLY: Richard, it had to be fished out of the spam bin, but it is displayed now. -REP]
Actually, a very good way to fight fire is with CO2.
Rhoda Ramirez says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Actually, a very good way to fight fire is with CO2.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, one of the best. No Oxygen, No fire. CO2 is heavier than air and darn cold too. You just need to have an air pack to use it in quantity.
Another nice thing about CO2 is it is pretty non reactive and does not pollute since it is a plant food. It also does not make the type of mess H2O does.
Moderators:
Thankyou.
Richard
I will second all those who have praised Roger for his aplomb. It is, simply put, amazing.
For any who may be interested, the expansion of my HuffPo piece of 2009 is finally available as a paperback book: http://amzn.to/w3FQx8
Apparently Luther is another who just doesn’t believe people mean what they say, even when they act on it. H. and S. had much easier sledding because of such attitudes. So, come to think of it, did O.
“666 Responses to UK police seize computers of skeptic blogger in England”
You know, any comment I might make about the above would probably only be something you are already thinking.
🙂
Rhoda Ramirez says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“Actually, a very good way to fight fire is with CO2.”
Nice one.
Another good way is to cut off the oxygen supply of course. Extending the analogy to “climate science” would be to cut off the funding…
Markey isn’t smart enough to learn from Saul Alinsky’s adaptation of classical Leninism to modern American society. Actually, most of the Left has not shown intelligence enough to deploy Alinsky’s ideas as he intended. It is something of a shame because the work is a work of genius worthy of a Nobel Prize in Letters. Apparently, all Markey can do is shout that the human race is only two or three years from committing the equivalent of self-destruction through nuclear war. I wonder if he really thinks someone might believe that?
Ski Lodges, Chairlifts, and Learjets: Some Scientists Have All the Luck (While Skeptics Have Their Laptops Seized)
http://zekeunlimited.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/ski-lodges-chairlifts-and-learjets-some-scientists-have-all-the-luck-while-skeptics-have-their-laptops-seized/
Yes, that seems to be what a lawyer and the MSM often do to their audiences, keep them in the dark deep underground and feed them fertilizer.
This meme they try to promote that indefinite detention without trial during a belligerency can only be wrong and even evil is a very worriesome, especially people with good intentions are deceived into adopting the meme. There are countless people whose lives have been saved by this international law. Yet, you’ll have a difficult time finding such stories in the MSM or from the usual fellow travellers.
Rhoda Ramirez says: December 17, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Actually, a very good way to fight fire is with CO2
Touches one of my hobby horses: the Ice Core CO2 proxy records that
* show a very low and smooth CO2 level,
* were spliced onto the direct (not proxy) CO2 records from Mauna Loa, to make another suspicious Hockey Stick – actually a lot more suspicious-looking IMHO, if you compare the shapes closely
* were held to be highly suspect, on multiple counts, by Prof Jaworowski, who has been rubbish-binned in similar ways to Soon and Baliunas, Monckton, Tim Ball, etc.
The MLO CO2 “stairway to heaven” was the start of the whole AGW fairy tale. Quite a story there.
@Zeke: But…do you know what will their future be? There are two doors to pass away from this world, tradition tells: One, the “Deva loka”, the gate of the gods, way up to the Sun, for those who have attained higher energy bodies; the other, the “Asura loka”, the gate of the demons, way down to the moon…. 🙂 Ya know: The moon is hungry, it needs the heat abandoning those bodies for her to warm and develop an atmosphere.
” And…there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth….”
I think I figured it all out.
The whole man-made global warming/boogieman under the bed stuff is all Dr Phil’s fault !!
One only has to read Laden’s manic oestrogen inspired rant to observe that there is a decided lack of testosterone involved.
It is therefore my conclusion that Dr Phil has created the whole man-made disaster thingy. Jones, Mann et al are all off the hook./sarc on
A 7:59 AM on 17 December, ITguy had speculated:
…and goes on to offer a number of plausible ways in which this could have happened, all of them owing to the University of East Anglia’s really stupid disposal of “unsanitized” computer hardware, and concluding:
Might could be, but weren’t quite a few of the communications contained in FOIA2009.zip and the open tranche of FOIA2011.zip created not too long before the 17 November 2009 date when the first archive hit the ‘Net?
I’m as the beasts that perish when it comes to information technology, but it would seem that a “gleaned from junked hardware” explanation for this embarrassment of riches isn’t very likely.
William Old: I’ve already declared that I don’t regard Tallbloke as a journalist, so it’s a bit unfair to regard the principle as straightforward if I have to guess what you are thinking, especially if the DJ knew all the facts…
Quoting from another High Court decision:
Under English law, it matters not whether Tallbloke is a “journalist,” only whether he was engaging in journalism. I think there can be no reasonable doubt that his blog is “directed to informing public debate” with the intent of “imparting information and ideas on political questions and on other matters of public interest.”
At 8:04 AM om 17 December, the estimable Gail Combs had written:
Ever since this matter afflicting Tallbloke came up, I’ve been wishing I knew how to write an HTML “embed” code permitted by WordPress to put a graphic element in these comments. I’ll just have to use a couple of hotlinks.
Courtesy of The Libertarian Enterprise:
1) Doormat the first
2) Doormat the second
While we’re admiring The Libertarian Enterprise, as a bonus for all American readers, permit me to suggest a measure you need to put to your so-called “representatives” in the Congress: the L. Neil Smith Nullification Act.
We do need to expunge Barry Soebarkah – or “Jean Paul Ludwig” or “Harrison J. Bounel” or whatever the hell his name really – completely from our nation’s history.
Except, of course, to the extent that any such stench tends to persist.
Get ’em Tallbloke!
You will ALWAYS be my friend. Godspeed. Let me know how I can help.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
sharkhearted@gmail.com
I have not read all of the above, but I see that Lord Monckton plans to pursue a fraud case against Climategate scientists:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/14156/Fmr-Thatcher-advisor-Lord-Monckton-to-pursue-fraud-charges-against-Climategate-scientists-Will-present-to-police-the-case-for-numerous-specific-instances-of-scientific-or-economic-fraud
Well done Anthony! You are doing a really great service here in keeping up the information and news. I’m in the UK like Roger (Tallbloke), and I’d like to thank you and all our American friends for your wonderful support. I am moved beyond words…..
I’m not convinced by your suggested USB secure stick.. it doesn’t say the data is encrypted. It wouldn’t be too hard to pop the flash memory off the board and then read it without the security.
Proper secure sticks are a lot more expensive: Google Ironkey.
Well you cannot use the IMG tags needed for static images on most WordPress blogs (only moderators and administrators can use them as you can tell from the top posts and some article comments). I looked at the two links and grabbed the direct URLs for the doormat images you mentioned.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515g9i2fyfL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31ggjaUllrL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
You can use those on other blogs and sites anywhere that the IMG tag is allowed (well as long as Amazon maintains the images on their servers naturally).
The HTML code would be like so …
<IMG SRC=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515g9i2fyfL._SL500_AA280_.jpg”>
<IMG SRC=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31ggjaUllrL._SL500_AA280_.jpg”>
Note that there is no closing tag for IMG. You would just copy and paste either of the above literally into the comment and the picture will replace the code (when permitted). To see what happens when those tags are not allowed, I will paste them immediately after this sentence …
and Vaclav Havel dies …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/vaclav-havel-dies
I have donated.
Sorry to see that Vaclav Havel dies.
That Concressman Markey says what he does, togheter with Obama signing this new law, is really sad news. Many sad news at the end of 2011. I guess that law is meant for FOIA when they find him/her.
Regarding my speculation that, in Tucci78’s words, “East Anglia’s really stupid disposal of “unsanitized” computer hardware”.
This happens every day to hundreds of corporations. Thats why Infomation security is BIG business. Because if its not done properly, there are sometimes severe consequences.
Read this from the British version of computer weekly.
=================
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240082250/Government-IT-disposal-poses-security-breach-risk
Some 70% of central government departments do not check that data has been wiped from IT equipment they are disposing of, exposing them to potential security breaches, a report released yesterday by the National Audit Office has found.
The report said that although 90% of central government organisations wipe data from IT equipment before it is recycled or resold, most do not obtain evidence that data wiping has been carried out.
“Inadequate data wiping could give rise to security breaches if classified data is not properly removed, or the equipment on which it is held is not handled in a secure manner,” said the report.
==============================
If this is the case, it explains a lot.
1) why the archive is so somplete
2) why they never apparently caught the hacker
3) why the archive ends so abruptly
4) why the trail is apparentely cold
ITguy
ITguy, that’s a plausible theory, but ‘FOIA’ still appears to know his way around the innertubes. At least well enough to drop these files without leaving a trail. Most people wouldn’t be able to do that.
@MJW says:
Before all, Tallbloke´s blog, it is and it was, taking into account his background:
I’m a qualified engineer and a graduate of the History and Philosophy of Science. I’m interested in finding out how the solar system works and how Earth is affected by changes in it.
An “Agora” of philosophy, of philosophy of science, as in the times of the ancient Greek “Agora”, an open temple under the Sun, a corner of a city`s square where free citizens congregate to talk about what the rest of “commoners” do not care or can not care, because of having to deal with the daily struggle for survival. A source of higher energy to be transmitted, shared, given, to the confused and afflicted by current conflicts and personal enigmas.
Such a phenomenon has repeatedly arisen in the history of humanity as a beacon to guide with its light to real knowledge in order to answer to answer the old burning question: Who am I?
A reiterative Delphi fighting against darkness.
Then it is not about “freedom of press” or whatever it may be called in our “modern times” ,this “Age of the Feuilleton”, as the “Magister Ludi” could call it (*), it is about the fight between the forces of good, of negentropy versus the forces of evil, following the involutionary tendencies, of entropy, the self indulgence of thanatos, the self destructive desire. Eros vs. Thanatos (Thanatos (Greek: Θάνατος (Thánatos), “Death,”[1] from θνῄσκω – thnēskō, “to die, be dying”[2]) was the daemon personification of death.)
The thanatophile can not bear himself a lonely death, he wants us all to follow him in his self destructive quest, thus he associates with others sharing his irrational tendencies, and, while he is convinced he is doing the best for the rest, he and his comrades, destroy the fruits of the labour of the normal and sane people: This is why liberals, free thinkers of the west, in special after the so called democratic “French Revolution”, share common ideals with those fanatics of the east.
Then let us be clear about what it is happening now in the world and let us not worry about: Life, eros, always prevails.
(*)Herman Hesse´s “Magister Ludi” or “The Glass Bead Game”
Richard S Courtney says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:04 pm
… I don’t believe in conspiracy theories….
___________________________
Nor do I, sir (too much), and yet, here we are.
The whole effort of the CAGW race to tyranny certainly has it’s conspiratorial elements, but is better likened to a bandwagon of deceit with powerful hands on the reins.
You are correct that many will use this opportunity to back away from previous support, but others have just doubled down, e.g. Sen. Barbara Boxer.
As mentioned, most of them just aren’t that smart.
Still, without the internet and the noble efforts of Anthony Watts, et al, we would be much closer to universal enslavement, as there would otherwise be no equitable dissemination of information to the majority of people in the world.
The calls of the faithful to just ‘give up our freedoms for a little while’ (until the world is saved), would be enforced with iron fists (as is already apparent), instead of reliance on the willing submission of the “concerned”.
Whether the man in the street is aware of it or not, the dark forces have been set back and they know it.
Their next move, already underway, is to suppress the voices of the internet.
______________________________
Brian H says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:23 pm
…
_______________
No clue, really
Wrong Vaclav. It is Vaclav Klaus who is the climate realist.
Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 10:04 am
=========
I completely agree, its silly to speculate given the lack of information but its an interesting mystery.
I’ll never understand why they simply don’t make the data and code available, in a limited way, to replicate the basis for their conclusions. This would end the current debate and move the issues onto a more logical path for resolution under AR5. I’m probably missing something obvious.
Fenbeagle comments!
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/211/
Yes, you are missing the obvious example of Harry in the Climategate I e-mail trying to torture the data at the behest of his superiors and finding that neither he or his superiors could make any reasonable sense of the messed up artificial construct of data they were creating, adjusting, and recreating through a number of iterations. How can they afford having the public see the actual data they worked with when they can’t even accurately reconstruct their own data sets much less reproduce the methods and actual data adjustments used to reach their reported results?
For those who “don’t believe in conspiracy theories”, please get a grip.
Do you not think that lots of people go to jail throughout the UK/US for conspiring to commit criminal acts? Do you think all such conspirators get caught? Do you think everyone in government and its agencies is an angel? Do you not understand that many thing which were once thought to be ‘conspiracy theories’ have since, due to the release of previously classified documents /the efforts of proper journalists/ other events, been shown to be the truth.
Stop regurgitating the “we will not tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories” meme you’ve been brainwhashed into believing. Spare me. Think for yourself. Here’s a hint for starters: define (to yourself) what you mean by a conspiracy theory.
Sorry to be so blunt.
Kitefreak says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:25 am
define (to yourself) what you mean by a conspiracy theory.
Exactly! There are, of course, real conspiracies. Then there are the kind which their advocates simply won’t let be challenged or falsified – such as, “the gov’t or Big X is [always] hiding the secret to the 200 mile/gal. fuel system in a 5000lb. car, the cure to cancer, or whatever strikes my fancy” – but which makes such apparent claims linguistically meaningless, because in practice the claims can’t be destinguished from the possibility of the gov’t or Big X not having the info. According to their advocates, “having it” and “not having it” mean the same thing. Zilch.
As already quite well established by their use of terms and the actions of its advocates, the “climate change” = “CO2=CAGW” propaganda op. functions as both kinds of conspiracy theories: its advocates simply won’t let their apparent claims or “theory” be challenged by any evidence whatsoever, and they are conspiring to keep it that way.
Kitefreak:
At December 17, 2011 at 1:04 pm I wrote:
“… I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.
However, ‘cockup’ and ‘damage limitation’ are common.”
You have replied at December 18, 2011 at 11:25 am saying;
“For those who “don’t believe in conspiracy theories”, please get a grip.
[snip]
Stop regurgitating the “we will not tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories” meme you’ve been brainwhashed into believing. Spare me. Think for yourself. Here’s a hint for starters: define (to yourself) what you mean by a conspiracy theory.”
I don’t do ‘Humpty Dumpty’ definitions.
The On-Line Dictionary gives this:
con•spir•a•cy (kn-spîr-s)
n. pl. con•spir•a•cies
1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.
Clearly conspiracies do exist. But they rarely last long. Only one conspirator needs to break ranks for a conspiracy to fail.
The AGW-scare has existed for 30 years. Several countries have supported it and some have opposed it. Two years ago in Copenhagen most abandoned it. If the AGW-scare were a conspiracy then those who have opposed or abandoned the scare have reason to proclaim the conspiracy they have opposed or abandoned. None has.
The AGW-scare always was a bandwagon travelling towards what many hoped was justification for new taxation justifications or for wealth transfer between nations.
Nobody needs to conspire to get others to stay on or to join a bandwagon which is going in the direction they all want to go.
Why suggest the existence of a conspiracy for which there is no evidence and whose existence is denied by the failure of ex-AGW-supporters to mention it when all that has been seen is a bandwagon?
Richard
Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?
http://planetsave.com/2011/12/…
Now Planet Save is going after Tallbloke, with a title “Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?” and a large image of him underneath.
You will have to scroll down the page to see that they say “Not Exactly”. But the idea is to create the impression about Tattersall first and then declare well really it’s not true but the reader only discovers that if they the article, which may not happen. It seems the blog post and image is intended so that the message gets repeated that Tattersall is the person behind climategate and the blog post is being used to create a viral falsehood. Planet Save are walking a fine line by using an image of him as if he was the person that “manufactured climategate”.
The damage is done before the article is read. They have smeared this man’s good name. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and a judge may feel the same…….
John from CA says:
December 18, 2011 at 10:18 am
Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 10:04 am
=========
I completely agree, its silly to speculate given the lack of information but its an interesting mystery.
I’ll never understand why they simply don’t make the data and code available, in a limited way, to replicate the basis for their conclusions. This would end the current debate and move the issues onto a more logical path for resolution under AR5. I’m probably missing something obvious.
Perhaps that releasing code and data has done no such thing?
Phil. says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:35 pm
======
Phil, has the code and data been demoed and released to a group of critics for review that are not hand picked proponents of the AR4 conclusions? A group of qualified skeptics who would logically then help to put the debate in perspective and on a more supported path.
Did they publish their findings?
D. Patterson says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:22 am
How can they afford having the public see the actual data they worked with when they can’t even accurately reconstruct their own data sets much less reproduce the methods and actual data adjustments used to reach their reported results?
=========
Exactly if it proves to be true, either way it would allow both sides to agree on the degree of accuracy, the real issues, and to dismiss this endless waste of time related to the definition of the problem we already understand.
700 comments. Time for a Part II?
Footnote to my comments:
I’m down with a bug that had me planted in front of the tube yesterday and watched the History Channel’s Little Ice Age: Big Chill special. My logic may be as running as my nose but I thought I’d share.
I was struck at the writer’s willingness to document the various warm and cold periods and the impact the little ice age had on the northern hemisphere and century’s of social change.
There was one segment of the program that gave me pause; ‘Imagine the Unthinkable’. ‘Imagine the Unthinkable’ was a worst-case scenario developed under a Pentagon research grant and the part that gave me chills was the idea that natural global warming trends can cause ice ages.
They proposed several scenarios related to the several camps of scientific thought which all appear to fail to see the issue in the context of a complete system of interactions and understanding, yet fresh water input can stall the thermohaline circulation and its impact jumped out.
Have we dammed to many fresh water sources that fed the system? Robbing fresh water from the Indian Ocean would logically cause an increase in thermohaline circulation in Greenland. Robbing the Pacific of the same will cause increased salinity into the Arctic and more melt thus counterbalancing the lack from the Atlantic? The combination could thus cause a drag to the point of unusual climate cycle phases.
Is fresh water input a big problem and will it cascade to the point the Earth simply compensates with an Ice Age to start the cycle over in search of equilibrium?
It would be “swell” if the IPCC’s AR5 team can finally put some system context in front of their regionalized conclusions?
PS I honestly don’t care who screwed up in the past, is this AR5 round Designed to deliver Trust and insight?
John from CA~’Exactly if it proves to be true, either way it would allow both sides to agree on the degree of accuracy, the real issues, and to dismiss this endless waste of time related to the definition of the problem we already understand’
—–
In other words, we will be able to get back to real situations, and not this hocus-pocus they’ve been trying to foist upon us for 30 years.
So glad you agree!’
Why would the AGW prponents ever want “to agree on the degree of accuracy”? If “it”, whatever it may be, “proves to be true”, agreement on the “degree of accuracy” would provide a firm value which the opposition could then target for obfuscation and falsely discredit, or so they think. If “it”, whatever it may be, “proves to be [not] true”, agreement on the “degree of accuracy” would provide a firm value which the opposition could then target for enlightenment and truthfully discredit, or so they may think. So, disclosure of the “truth” and accurate data sets improves their current ability to garner political support just how?
What is this “definition of the problem”, and on what basis can you claim “we already understand” it?
“This is clearly an attempt to sabotage the international climate talks fo a second time, and there has not been enough attention paid to who is responsible for these illegal acts,” (Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA)), and;
“If this happened surrounding nuclear arms talks, we would have the full force of the Western world´s intelligence community pursuing the perpetrators. And yet, with the stability of our climate hanging in the balance with those international climate treaty negotiations, these hackers and their supporters are still on the loose. It is time to bring them to justice.” (Ibid.), via http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/crackdown-u-s-representative-ed-markey-d-ma-its-time-to-bring-them-to-justice/ , December 17, 2011.
Mr. Markey, and other AGW alarmnists, climate change is a natural fluctuation. (There is no anthropogenic global warming (AGW).)
Global Warming Hoax is a Junk Science, as well as, Eugenics/Racial Hygiene, Malthusianism, and Lysenkoism.
Global Warming Hoax are destroying Rationality, the Scientific Method, and Science.
SAY NO TO GLOBAL WARMING HOAX
SAY NO TO JUNK SCIENCE
SAY NO TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Rob says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?
http://planetsave.com/2011/12/…
Now Planet Save is going after Tallbloke, with a title “Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?” and a large image of him underneath.
Yes, they themselves are manufacturing an Alinskying of Tallbloke and also implying that he manufactured all the Climategate emails and files to boot. So there, Sceptics! Who ever said that Climate Science’s materials and methods are not transparent!
Thankfully, it’s unlikely the police department will post Tallbloke’s emails on the net.
Here’s what’s really happening:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/map-the-climate-change-scare-machine-the-perpetual-self-feeding-cycle-of-alarm/
The black booted, AGWer Orwellian thought police [SNIP: Sorry, Scott, but this really is Over The Top. Step back, take a deep breath, and think it through again. -REP]
Kick the bastards out!
That is a false analogy which serves to miislead and deceive the readers. The Climategate e-mail are messages which appear to have been lawfully subject to disclosure in response to lawful Freeedom of Information requests according to the UK Government communication which said they were unlawfully withheld by CRU et al. Tallbloke’s e-mail was not paid for by public funding, was not subject to Freedom of Information requests, and there is no present reason to expect their release to be lawful. So, your troll like concern is inappropriate and deceitful to any extent to which you would try to persuade the readers that some hypocrisy is involved by not releasing Tallbloke’s e-mail.
Tallbloke’s e-mail was not subject to disclosure to the general public in response to a Freedom of Information request, while the Climategate e-mail appears to have been unlawfully withheld despite being lawfully subject to disclosure in response to the Freedom of Information requests. What is your next deceitful and false analogy?
What happened to update 17?
Still obfuscating Barry?
Still conflating two diametrically opposed concepts:
PUBLIC :: emails and data written by taxpayer-funded employees, on taxpayer-funded company equipment, on taxpayer-funded company time
PRIVATE :: emails and data written by private citizens, on privately owned equipment, on private time
Why would you knowingly do that?
barry:
At December 18, 2011 at 8:04 pm you say:
“Thankfully, it’s unlikely the police department will post Tallbloke’s emails on the net.”
Of course not, Tallbloke’s emails are personal communications made on his personal computers for his personal purposes and at his own expense. So, nobody except the police has any right to read them and they are not subject to FOI law. The “police derpatrment” could be sued if it posted Tallbloke’s emails on the internet without his permission.
But the Climategate 1 & 2 emails are proffessional communications made on employers’ computers for proffessional purposes and funded partly or in whole by taxpayers. Thus, they are public property and everybody has a right to read them because they are subject to FOI law. Many have published those emails on the internet and nobody can sue the publishers for publishing this public property.
Please try to engage your brain before making a post.
Richard
Super bombshell if true can this be double checked?
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/12/science-by-lubchencos-noaa-fake-global-warming-by-changing-historical-temperature-data.html
This would be definitely taken up by mainstraem media far too juicy not too
[MODERATOR’S NOTE: Things like this belong in Tips and Notes where they are more likely to be noticed by the management and won’t distract from the thread topic. Thanks. -REP]
Richard S Courtney says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:19 pm
You can repeat it as often as you like about it not being a Conspiracy, but when after reading the emails the consensus says it is a conspiracy the science is settled.
JPeden says:
December 18, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Rob says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?
http://planetsave.com/2011/12/…
—
It’s gone, I couldn’t find it there.
Fitzcarraldo says:
December 19, 2011 at 4:45 am (Edit)
==============================
The three series showing change of data are interesting. The histograms are really quite definitive regarding reason driven adjustment. I am just not sure where the adjustments are. Here on this C3 site ore further back up the data river.
How reliable is this site? I ask because their use of many terms in a pejorative way is indicative of a political position and in politics it seems there are no constraints regarding lying.
My bullshit detectors are quivering I have to say.
MJW says: “Under English law, it matters not whether Tallbloke is a “journalist,” only whether he was engaging in journalism.”
I don’t disagree with anything that you say, but (a) I was outlining a fact – that I don’t regard him as a journalist – to explain why I hadn’t understood the point that was in RB’s mind, but not actually mentioned in his comment; and (b) it’s quite possible that, at some stage, some or all of the material on Tallbloke’s drives might be found by a Court to be special procedure material, but it remains a fact that the District Judge did issue the warrant, and ipso facto the actions of the officers undertaking the search and seizure were (in the legal sense, and at the present time) lawful.
If the police, in considering whether or not to do some act, had to take into account whether or not at some point in the future that act might possibly be held to be unlawful, and refrain from doing it if such a possibility – however remote – existed, then nothing would ever be done. One of the reasons why the disorder in English cities in August was not dealt with more rigorously by the police was directly because of the Tomlinson case – every PSU officer involved was well aware of the position of PC Simon Harwood, who wasn’t available for duty because he has been charged with manslaughter and the case will not be heard until next year.
Almost every briefing included the advice “Remember Tomlinson” – and, because the only legal provision for dealing in practice with the disorder in the way that 20:20 hindsight demanded is S.3 Criminal Law Act 1967 and the (unwritten) Common Law, you saw what resulted. Society, especially when it is being perverse and duplicious, gets the policing for which its legislature provides, with due regard for any resulting ambiguity!
D. Patterson says:
December 18, 2011 at 6:10 pm
1. So, disclosure of the “truth” and accurate data sets improves their current ability to garner political support just how?
2. What is this “definition of the problem”, and on what basis can you claim “we already understand” it?
========
1. The Science is the basis for the Policy but should not propose policy. The Science with proper governance and transparency can become a Trusted foundation for Policy decisions. Without Trust, there isn’t any basis for political support. Defining the limits of current understanding doesn’t undermine the theory nor the need for ongoing research. It also fosters an open dialogue related to appropriate policy solutions.
2. Its only a problem is the true cause is unknown. GHGs are the byproduct of natural and man-made processes. Even if they don’t have a significant bearing on warming, many are still pollutants. Addressing decisions to minimize pollutants by improving processes which in turn conserve resources will improve the human condition and can potentially save the taxpayer money if properly crafted. Example: a nano material used as a frictionless bearing. The climate debate is about defining a potential problem that has very little to do with appropriate solutions and is basically unnecessary in the face of a common sense approach to minimizing pollution.
A. C. Osborn:
At December 19, 2011 at 6:24 am you say to me:
” You can repeat it as often as you like about it not being a Conspiracy, but when after reading the emails the consensus says it is a conspiracy the science is settled.”
I can, do and have been pointing out for decades that the evidence denies the AGW-scare is a “conspiracy” but it is a bandwagon; for an example of my saying this in the 1990s see
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
Demonstably untrue claims that the AGW-scare is a conspiracy hinder serious attempts to oppose the scare because the claims encourage ridicule of that opposition.
But American conspircacy nuts see what they think to be a conspiracy wherever they look.
The fact that the Team fulfils their employment by working together to usurp the scientific process does not show a conspiracy. If you think it does then you must also think people employed by Burger King are in a conspiracy to make burgers.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
December 19, 2011 at 8:24 am
“But American conspircacy nuts see what they think to be a conspiracy wherever they look.”
Richard, I think you are correct. In fact, it seems you are correct in most of your sayings here at WUWT.
BUT; there is a funny thing about this conspiracy thing.
If I mention to someone that the UN tried to get a treaty signed in Copenhagen, where the UN gets control over energy consumption in all UN countries, and a policing ability on top of it……and that all this is based on a report from the IPCC…..and that all is based on shoddy science…..where those behind the report do all they can to hide their methods and data…..and it is based on 30% non peer reviewed reports from climbing magazines and the like……and so on, and so on……what will the response be?
Aha, I am a conspiracy theorist!!!! And therefore to be laughed at.
But I didnt mention the word conspiracy at all. I just mentioned the treaty, and the methods behind it.
It was the listener who concluded that I was talking about a conspiracy…..
So who is a conspiracy theorist ?
Richard, perhaps you’d like to do a post on “Is AGW a conspiracy?” because I don’t think it’s quite as open-and-closed easily-dismissed as you imply. I think there are important subtleties.
For instance, whilst I don’t think there has been a conspiracy to deceive, in any way beyond what’s normal in politics, I do think that people in Climate Science have got bitten by “Noble Cause” corrupting influences, and have allowed ends to justify means, including the ruthless silencing and active/complicit tarring of dissenters. Heck, Mann speaks of “the cause”. Jones tried to handpick sympathisers for his workshops, journals, reviewers, IPCC panel, etc. He does NOT pick according to scientific ability. And, Richard, I’ve just love to hear you bring out the important issue you taught me – how Thatcher skewed research. Personally I think her move was a real “sorcerer’s apprentice” moment in the sorry history of Climate Science.
I guess you laudably want to avoid creating a “them baddies – us goodies” divide. Great.
>JPeden says:
>Unsurprisingly, your post is irrelevant to the issue except insofar as confirming your own Religious >belief in a bunch of Climate Jabberwocky which hasn’t made a successful prediction about reality >yet but still continues right on with its usual “methods”. Congratulations on another “success”!
You mean predictions like plant hardiness zones moving Northward across the United States during the last 30 years? Or the lengthening/earlier arrivals of first/last frosts? Or the increase in number of extreme rainfall evens, as expected from the basic Clausius-Clapeyron relation?
Oh right, all those predictions DID come true. But I’m sure you knew that, since you obviously are familiar with all the literature, correct ?
Lucy – I think the divide is “accountable vs not accountable” and I’m afraid it is real and obvious.
kwik:
You make a very good point in your post at December 19, 2011 at 9:18 am.
You describe your being accused of being a conspiracy theorist because you described the putative Copenhagen treaty, and the methods behind it. Then you ask me;
“It was the listener who concluded that I was talking about a conspiracy…..
So who is a conspiracy theorist ?”
I, too, have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist for the same and similar reasons. Indeed, on one occassion the BBC cut short an interview of me, then immediately broadcast that what I had been saying was a conspiracy theory and refused to allow me to broadcast a rebuttal of that assertion. But (as again in this thread) I have consistently denied that such a conspiracy exists.
The smear of the truth of the AGW-scare being a conspiracy theory is a smokescreen used by propogandists to obscure the truths which you stated in your post. Indeed, the fact that AGW-propogandists use that smokescreen is the reason it is important to explain the reality of the bandwagon, and to avoid ‘dressing-it-up’ as being some kind of conspiracy because the existence of sucha conspiracy can simply be shown to be untrue.
Anyway, that is my view of it.
Richard
First ‘win’ for Roger. Email message just in from Zachary Shahan, Director of Planetsave who seems a nice guy but was taken in by the initial defamatory reporting.
“Hello Guys,
Given the actual request of the DOJ order and the changes in some of the Guardian text I quoted, it’s more worth my time (and everyone else’s probably) to just remove the story — there wasn’t much of interest in the story anyway (except that the police are trying to find out who the hacker was — but that’s nothing new), but I’m curious to hear what you find as to why they seized your equipment. That’s still completely unclear, right?
On the misinformation bit: there’s no intention on my part to make you (Roger) look like you have nefarious motives. I think you are genuine in your thought that the science is not settled (while, obviously, I am confident that it is — certain key parts of it, of course). As I think I mentioned before, I have one or two good friends in your boat. I don’t consider them nefarious and don’t think they or you intend to misinform people. I think there are nefarious people in the fossil fuel industry or working for them that originate much of this misinformation, but I have never assumed you are such a person (and I don’t assume most people who ascribe to your beliefs are). And I think it’s a shame people get carried away in that type of thinking!”
Perhaps some good can come of all this ?
Lucy Skywalker:
Thankyou for your post at December 19, 2011 at 11:06 am.
I have made a post in reply to kwik (Moderators: it seems to have vanished) and I think it covers why I think this matter of ‘conspiracy’ or ‘bandwagon’ is important.
As you say, there are several “subtleties” and they do deserve a serious assessment. But in the context of this thread they are not significant for the reason explained in my post which has not appeared (but I hope the Moderators will recover).
I think the Thatcher issue was adequately covered in the discussion of it on WUWT some time ago, but if Anthony were to ask for a summary then I would provide it early in the New Year (this week is very busy for me).
As for the Good vs Bad thing, I am one of several whom AGW-propogandists proclaim to be the spawn of Satan. But I think it would be a mistake for us to adopt their methods. Nobody is a perfect Saint or a Devil, and now the AGW-scare is ending we need to behave in a way that will assist its rapid demise and not stall that demise with personal arguments.
The seeking of justice as a methd to inhibit future corruption ofv science can wait until the important matter of rapidly finishing-off the AGW scare is assured.
As I said to kwik, anyway, that is my view.
Richard
John from CA says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Phil. says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:35 pm
======
Phil, has the code and data been demoed and released to a group of critics for review that are not hand picked proponents of the AR4 conclusions? A group of qualified skeptics who would logically then help to put the debate in perspective and on a more supported path.
Did they publish their findings?
Why didn’t a ‘group of qualified skeptics’ use the data and code and publish their findings?
If they need their hands held in the manner you describe they wouldn’t meet my definition of ‘qualified’.
Phil.,
I recommend you click on Climate Audit on the right sidebar.
Phil:
At December 19, 2011 at 12:57 pm you say;
“Why didn’t a ‘group of qualified skeptics’ use the data and code and publish their findings?
If they need their hands held in the manner you describe they wouldn’t meet my definition of ‘qualified’.”
Don’t be silly.
If skeptics such as Steve McIntyre had held the hands of Michael Mann when he was generating his hockey sticks then Mann would not now be up to his neck and sinking fast in ordure.
The fact is that ‘climate scientists’ dabble in statistics, material science, ecology and vatious lother disciplineswhile authorities in those disciplines gasp in awe at the incompetence of the dabblers.
Richard
Jerky says:
“You mean predictions like plant hardiness zones moving Northward across the United States during the last 30 years? Or the lengthening/earlier arrivals of first/last frosts? Or the increase in number of extreme rainfall evens, as expected from the basic Clausius-Clapeyron relation? Oh right, all those predictions DID come true.”
Those ‘predictions’ are based on the long term warming trend from the LIA. And keep in mind that the planet still has not warmed up to the higher temperatures of the MWP, as evidenced by the fact that medieval farms in Greenland are still in frozen permafrost. When those medieval farms are warmed up and producing again, wake me.
Lucy Skywalker to Richard Courtney:
Aha, that’s a bit of the history of ideas that I’d missed till now. I’d read Richard’s 1999 piece on John Daly’s without ascribing it in my mind to him and I’d crossed swords (a little, in a loving way, of course) with Lucy on Margaret Thatcher’s role at the beginning of the IPCC and John Houghton’s role therein. But the one led to the other – that is worth knowing.
Whether one should say something is a conspiracy or not, I take a totally tactical view: whatever clears up the evil concerned in the shortest time. Notice the word evil. Almost as unfashionable as conspiracy, perhaps more so. Whatever, it’s the word that won’t go away for me in the climate situation, especially as I consider again the effect on the poorest and the uncaring attitude of so many to that (thanks again Willis). Some of what we see in the Climategate emails is also clearly evil, whatever other word one uses. This reminds us of the need to clean our hearts too.
curious says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Lucy – I think the divide is “accountable vs not accountable” and I’m afraid it is real and obvious.
=========
Fascinating comment, I’m still under the weather (pun intended but true) and musing about the accountable holiday and reflecting on this year.
When the warrant was served at midnight on Tallbloke (ridiculous time of day) I wondered if I might be next. Has the world rolled back to a dark ages Witch Hunt?
Yet, the constant personal attacks in the past few years are not equal to what we all care about most. The attacks search for what we all have lost and an honest solution.
I relentless attacks on Jones, Mann, et. al. to be counter-productive.
Meet in the middle and resolve this foolish debate! To be painfully honest, no one really cares at this point. Who has defined the terms for resolution?
Best to You and Yours,
John from CA
PS I’d be happy to supply the pistols should you choose to dual. ; )
I relentless attacks on Jones, Mann, et. al. to be counter-productive.
s/b
I find the relentless attacks on Jones, Mann, et. al. to be counter-productive.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/#comment-833534
Richard S Courtney mentions a newish Canadian government. The U.K also has a newish government.
I think everyone (at the top) knows that political dynamite may explode at any time. So let’s manage the fallout. Pin it on the other guys.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/#comment-834191
Phil. says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:57 pm
=======
You’d make a heck of a bird dog in the desert ; )
“Phil, has the code and data been demoed and released to a group of critics for review that are not hand picked proponents of the AR4 conclusions?”
Richard Drake:
Re: your post at December 19, 2011 at 1:36 pm
I completely agree. Thankyou for hyour saying it.
Richard
“Anyone stop to think this might be a tactic in the strategy to climb-down from seriously over-reaching and suicidal financial/climate policies by government.”
Looks like that crook Zachary Shahan stole my question mark.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:43 pm
“First ‘win’ for Roger. Email message just in from Zachary Shahan, Director of Planetsave who seems a nice guy but was taken in by the initial defamatory reporting.”
Stephen,
Thanks for the update!
Stephen Wilde, that is good to hear. I’ve been expecting to see a rash of apologies with appropriately placed retractions. I believe the people involved would be foolish in the extreme not to do so. I read the original post on Planetsave and, other than the headline and an unnecessary photo, it was not nearly as irresponsible as what was posted on the Laden site which was subsequently re-tweeted by somebody who should have known better, surely, given the current legal action against Dr. Tim Ball.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:43 pm
==========================
Kudos to you for taking up Tallbloke’s case.
The article in Planetsave may be pulled, Stephen, and Zachary may “seems to be a nice guy”, but the damage is already done.
Is he going to publish and maintain an equally shocking retraction and apology?
Richards Drake and Courtney, I appreciate nearly all your posts. Thank you.
Anthony, your “Update 16” needs updating I think.
Planetsave article has now gone down the memory hole.
Smokey says:
December 19, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Phil.,
I recommend you click on Climate Audit on the right sidebar.
For what exactly?
John from CA says:
December 19, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Phil. says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:57 pm
=======
You’d make a heck of a bird dog in the desert ; )
Whatever that’s supposed to mean?
“Phil, has the code and data been demoed and released to a group of critics for review that are not hand picked proponents of the AR4 conclusions?”
Nothing to stop them from reviewing it, do they need a special invitation?
William Old: [I]t’s quite possible that, at some stage, some or all of the material on Tallbloke’s drives might be found by a Court to be special procedure material, but it remains a fact that the District Judge did issue the warrant, and ipso facto the actions of the officers undertaking the search and seizure were (in the legal sense, and at the present time) lawful.
My interest in the case I cited and the Bates case RB cited is mostly that taken together they suggest a basis for challenging the warrant. The warrant in the Bates case differs in an important way from the Tallbloke warrant. For the Bates search, the special procedure material was incidental; the search was for child pornography, not for items subject to legal privilege. For the Tallbloke search, the purpose was to seize special procedure material. The warrant was specifically intended to obtain information on Tallbloke’s blogging activity, which I believe is plainly “journalistic material.” Journalistic material is at least special procedure material, and may be excluded material if held in confidence. Yet the warrant declares the material sought does not consist of or contain excluded or special procedure material.
Katabasis says:
December 19, 2011 at 4:38 pm
“Planetsave article has now gone down the memory hole.
Here you go (from the miracle that is the Google Web Cache)…
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FX1bWU6WGMcJ:planetsave.com/2011/12/16/criminal-who-manufactured-climategate-caught/+inurl:http://planetsave.com/+tallbloke&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk
N.B. Not sure if this is the original article or an edited version???
Jerky, no such thing will show up in the USDA hardiness zones. The new map will be GPS based instead of “connect the dots” based (something that the National Weather Service did a couple years ago). It will fine tune the hardiness zones because of the finer detail. Trust me, greenhouse sales are dependent on the accuracy of such designations and will be quite hot under the collar if hardiness labels turn out to be worthless. Most zones will not change at all other than in the finer detail afforded from GPS mapping. Some may recede while others move North. Again, thanks to GPS.
What can be counted on is the fact that the USDA designations sing to the tune of growers, not climate alarmists. Unless the long arm of stupidity has reached even that last bastion of “smart”.
As for me and mine, we will trust the knowing finger, joints, and nose of one very smart grandmother. If you live in NE Oregon, expect a killing frost on or around May 7th. Do not put out starts before then or plant seeds that break to the surface before that date. That wisdom was solid for about 80 years plus. In the past 5 years, anyone thinking that we had warmed and disregarded that sage advice ended up with frost bit dead plants.
Ae we to understand you are compleely clueless about the implications of your comment and why those implications make your remark highly offensive?
I am Spartacus.
I being of reasonable sound mind tho’ not a lawyer nor a scientist, a couple of days of this development rattling around the inside of my head leads me to a conclusion, that may have some merit.
Many years have passed with those in opposition to this AGW being cajoled threatened and even careers crushed, almost all rolled over and played dead for fear of worse.
I think Fenbeagle nailed it for the Empire is striking back, and as in the movie it is the real people, those of integrity that are manning the trenches.
The sidling movements of politicians of many persuations around the world show a shift to a more rational thought without admitting they may have erred.
This open attack on non believers is a new tactic that shows the signs of a cornered animal that fears for their future, they by their previous behaviour have created their own future.
These people are about to find out why politics and religion are separated and why the judiciary is above all of them. Take no prisoners Tallbloke. We need a running commentary on the proceedings so that funds remain adequate.
As I was interviewed by Norfolk police for making a legitimate FOI request my MP has kindly offered to ask the Norfolk police why I was interviewed. I have outlined the facts of Tallbloke’s case and my worry that this is a campaign to silence critics. If you were contacted by Norfolk police please contact your MP and ask him to ask why.
wayne Job says:
December 20, 2011 at 3:12 am
“The sidling movements of politicians of many persuations around the world show a shift to a more rational thought without admitting they may have erred.”
Wayne, I think that is about the best we can expect from politicians, especially if we keep reelecting the same ones.
Adrian Kerton, It might be worth your while contacting Lord Monckton re. his attempt to bring criminal proceedings to bear on the various climate frauds. It may be possible for his lawyers to link your experience with the Norfolk Police to that.
Phil. says:
December 19, 2011 at 6:05 pm:
I told Phil. to check out Climate Audit. Phil. asked:
“For what exactly?”
Phil., let me explain so even you can understand. You asked: “Why didn’t a ‘group of qualified skeptics’ use the data and code and publish their findings?”
You don’t understand the scientific method. The scientific method says that a conjecture or a hypothesis must withstand falsification. But the CO2=CAGW conjecture is repeatedly falsified. Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre has thoroughly falsified the alarmists’ conjectures and hypotheses. McIntyre is a scientific skeptic – the only honest kind of scientist. There is no obligation for skeptics to publish their own hypothesis; falsifying alarmist conjectures and hypotheses is sufficient, and Steve McIntyre has done so repeatedly.
Furthemrore, it is not the job of skeptics to produce their own code, methodologies and data. It is the job of skeptics to falsify the code and data of others if they can. It is also the responsibility of those proposing a conjecture or a hypothesis to try and falsify it themselves – a job the climate alarmist crowd of pseudo-scientists has routinely shirked.
You really need to get up to speed on transparency and the scientific method, because you’re way behind the curve. Without the scientific method, the “carbon” scare is nothing but alarmist propaganda. The question is, why are you carrying water for the promoters of this fake scare?
Stephen Wilde says: December 19, 2011 at 12:43 pm
from Zachary Shahan, “I think you are genuine in your thought that the science is not settled (while, obviously, I am confident that it is”
Can I suggest that you or Roger ask Mr Zachary if he has read the Climategate 1 & 2 emails and if not why not?
They might shake his faith in the science just a little bit.
Smokey,
I think you meant: With (proper use of) the scientific method, the “carbon” scare is nothing but alarmist propaganda.
By the way, that’s a great explanation to Phil.
Regards,
Luther
Ps I completed freshman English composition classes 40+ years ago, so…
… my sense of sentences may be slipping if sentience is measured by other senses.
Or something.
overheard: “What, speak up, I can’t hear you'”. “what’s that say? I can’t read that small print”. “No, I don’t smell anything, it doesn’t taste funny to me, it doesn’t taste like anything”.
Looks like Planet Save removed his posting although I thought his apology was quite alright
In fact I think he may be getting a bit skeptical about his extreme position by now LOL
OT but the coldest summer in Australia story might be worth posting about The Telegraph *UK(
I doubt there to be any sincere apology for any AGW campers with regard to the severity of their coarse behavior. It is not possible for them to do so being their minds are not normal; they believe in themselves to the extent that no matter how high the tide becomes their blindness will prevail.
Witness their abortive Occupy North Pole efforts…sorta like a post turtle.
A troll called BJ at Dellingpole gleefully points to this story …
Tallbloke is mentioned by real name of course.
Forgot to post the link …
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/12/20/guest-post-bring-uea-email-criminals-to-justice/
Burgers as boogered science is a really feeb analogy. Unless all the burgers are deliberately infected with E. Coli.
Priceless:
“Concerned insiders, distressed in 2009 about lies being disseminated by “global warming” purveyors, hacked and released their incriminating emails. In 1969, concerned insider Daniel Ellsberg, distressed about lies being told by the U.S. government regarding Vietnam, stole and released the Pentagon Papers. ”
From the comments at
http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/12/20/33938/probe_into_climate_scientists_stolen_emails_gets_serious
stephan says:
December 20, 2011 at 8:33 am
OT but the coldest summer in Australia story might be worth posting about The Telegraph *UK
Yeah, we might be seeing the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of the Gore Effect. You could call it the Gillard/Combet Result (GCR). Since announcing the introduction of a carbon tax in Australia to take effect from 01 Jul 2012 we have an instant reaction from Mother Nature that would even impress King Canute.
But the coldest December day in Brisbane in 123 years is even beyond Greg Combet’s wildest dreams:
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16133817?f=rss
And even better news for Greg – the price of carbon in the EU has “soared” to €8.81 per tonne just when it looked going subterranean. Wait until the carbon tax really takes hold. The BOM, who have forecast a warmer than average summer in SE Australia (because of the warm Indian Ocean?) might even have to consider the GCR in their future modelling. You never know, next year we might even have a white Christmas in Alice Springs.
Also OT, but Merry Christmas to all and keep smiling.
King Canute Correction service again:
Canute staged the tidal farce to silence court sycophants. I think he had a few of them drowned in the incoming tide to emphasize the point.
[SNIP: When you are willing to attach your name and academic affiliation to innuendo and assertion like this then we will approve the comment. -REP]
Greg Laden latest:
There’s lots more following that, like grovel and don’t sue me.
Greg Laden latest:
“I want to make it clear that I do not think that the blogger “TallBloke” a.k.a. Roger Tattersall has broken British law.”
Nice set of changes there.
However he is wrong to say that we agreed not to sue. We just agreed to a damage limitation exercise.
I’ll be clarifying that with Greg tomorrow in the course of refining a few points.
A full settlement may well be possible with a bit more common sense applied.
“Looks like Planet Save removed his posting although I thought his apology was quite alright”
Zach tried to save face a bit with a few residual comments that I didn’t like so in the end we agreed it was tidier to remove it altogether.
Zachary Shahan did not appologise.
Greg Laden did not appologise.
Apologies are emotional constructs personal to each individual and largely worthless.
I deal in corrections, retractions and proper compensation for loss and suffering.
Good work Mr Wilde
The climbdown is an admission that they got it very wrong. We should also welcome some respectful dialogue with these people. Particularly Greg Laden as his blog is a hateful thing of shame. I hope that some polite discourse with Tallbloke will help him learn him the error of his ways.
Dead on. All the best with the mopping up operation.
Brian H says:
December 20, 2011 at 11:06 am
King Canute Correction service again…
Sincere and unreserved apologies to the followers and descendents of the great King Canute if there was any impression given that he was a denier (of Nature). Whether he was a believer or denier I am sure that he would still be impressed with the astounding feat of Gillard and Combet to turn back the tide of the normal Australian Summer with just the threat of an impending carbon tax.
But I have no doubt that King Canute was an outstanding and wise ruler who was truly respected and loved by his subjects and the world would be a better place if he was alive today.
Seems like the Antarctic is also shivering at the thought of a Southern Hemisphere carbon tax or is it more global warming?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/douglas-mawson-centenary-trip-to-antarctica-frozen-as-cold-reality-sets-in/story-e6frg8y6-1226227156367
Akademik Shokalskiy, a veteran of 50 trips to Antarctica said: “I’ve never seen it like this.”
Just in case, you’d better see to it that Al Gore doesn’t come to visit the Southern Hemisphere and invoke the Gore Effect.
Stephen Wilde:
Well done! Thankyou, and please keep up the good work.
Richard
Brian H:
At December 20, 2011 at 10:06 am you quote my having concluded my post at December 19, 2011 at 8:24 am by saying :
“The fact that the Team fulfils their employment by working together to usurp the scientific process does not show a conspiracy. If you think it does then you must also think people employed by Burger King are in a conspiracy to make burgers.”
And you reply saying;
“Burgers as boogered science is a really feeb analogy. Unless all the burgers are deliberately infected with E. Coli.”
Sorry, but you really do not ‘get it’.
The Team were commissioned by their employers (i.e. politicians) to provide justifications for political actions. They were NOT employed to conduct real science. Indeed, their responses and actions to negate scientists and scientific information which negated those justifications were normal for political actions. The behaviour of the Team is NOT science (be that science “boogered” or of any other kind). It is political machination.
If the politicians had wanted science then they would have commissioned science, and they would not have exonerated the Team from wrong doing.
The Team fulfilled the duties of their employment and provided the product they were required to provide (as employees of Burger King provide the product they are employed to provide.
Richard
King of Cool says:
December 20, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Akademik Shokalskiy, a veteran of 50 trips to Antarctica said: “I’ve never seen it like this.”
A veteran of 50 trips to Antarctica is actually Howard Whelan. Akademik Shokalskiy is the ship.
Note that the ABC blames the problems with the Mawson Centenary Expedition on a giant iceberg:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-21/mawson-expedition-stalled/3742012?section=tas
I ‘get it’ just fine. But I think the IPCC and supporters have been pretty much full-out working to create the consensus that their reports and efforts are fully backed by the ‘science’, and that the WG1 assessments are truly representative of the best science available and form the foundation of the summaries for policy makers.
So pleading that they were just commissioned to concoct ‘justifications’ for predetermined policy is definitely feeb. It’s also their last resort, and rarely made explicit.
Seems like Zac Shahan’s page (Planetsave) has been Kim Jong-il-ed
Moderators …just a little nit to pick.
What happened to UPDATE17? Lost in the bit-bucket?
Blade, thanks for the link to the climatecrocks.
On my first reading, one of Halpern’s statements stuck out so I posted a comment:
Let’s see if the comment gets posted and the article, in all its incarnations including the one at the Union of Concerned Scientists is corrected.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 20, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Apologies are emotional constructs personal to each individual and largely worthless.
I deal in corrections, retractions and proper compensation for loss and suffering.
===============================================================
I like your thinking, Mr Wilde!
Mind you, a nice humiliating apology will go a long way exercise future emotional constraint by the miscreant Laden. And make us feel a little warmer. 🙂
I offer tattersall asylum in NH USA (state motto live free or die) P.S. I am Sparticus
REM:
Over the top? With the report of Chris Horner of the Washington Examiner on the DOJ’s hand in this. Big O is as guilty as Big Holder Co in this Orwellian exercise in thought control and suppression of personal liberties. Big O and Holder Co is over the top.
It very obvious what’s going on with the AGW propaganda machine and Joanne Nova covers that with her excellent graphic pictorial of the gravy train machine. Thing is, it’s not only limited to climate scientists and other science organizations, it can be applied to across the board spectrum of government cronyism with various entities. The climate consortium is just another facet of this.
I just made a parity to the past Catholic Inquisition which has been replace by the ‘government inquisition’. Or maybe I’m just getting too old school about this, but I refuse to go gently into the dark night.
[REPLY: I understand perfectly, but please get my initials right. Also, keep in mind that Horner is editorializing. Only the DoJ and Norfolk Plod know who was responding to who’s request and they haven’t said, so far. The guys who called on Tallbloke probably don’t wear jackboots, have no clues about agendas, and really wanted to be somewhere else. -REP]
REP;
I’m pretty sure the usual “whose” is needed there. “who’s” is best reserved for “who is” abbreviated.
[REPLY: You are absolutely right and I stand chastised and humiliated before all. -REP]
The National Post has an article about this topic by Donna Laframboise.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/12/20/fp-comment-climate-crackdown/
John M Reynolds
[REPLY: You are absolutely right and I stand chastised and humiliated before all. -REP]
It wasn’t that big of a mistake. It’s not like you were using who when you should be using whom.
The link “Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?” is not working and there is no mention of the article at Planetsave, it appears both Planetsave and Zachary Shahan have gone all bashful.
bob richards said: I offer tattersall asylum in NH USA (state motto live free or die)
I suspect that the DoJ might be trying to find enough evidence to extradite Tallbloke in which case he would be far safer in Russia or China. Sad but true.
“Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught”
Looks like they pulled it
Didn’t know if this item had come to your attention yet or not:
U.S. Justice Department request puts chill on skeptical bloggers
by Donna Laframboise
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/12/20/climate-crackdown/
This post gives a great timeline history of ClimateGate 2, starting with the blogger “FOIA,” who left the zip file on tallbloke and two other skeptic sites, includine Steve McIntyre’s.
New developments are occurring with the local police. See Tallbloke’s most recent page …
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/breaking-news-norfolk-police-to-hand-over-climategate-inquiry/
Also, Roger is asking for someone in country to record the BBC as he will be appearing in an interview. Details are in that blog post.
Shouldn’t that be” … hand over the enquiry to another farce.
Lord Monckton’s actions in contacting the Norfolk Constabulary were shrewd. If they could pursue a hacker, why can’t they investigate the crime documented in the hacked e-mails? Well, here’s one way around FOIA.
http://www.acpo.police.uk/
Can they be “invited” to investigate the real criminals?
ACPO FOI policy:
From TallBloke
UPDATE 5.43pm GMT I’ve got my wires crossed on this it seems. Apparently the Norfolk Constabulary, along with the assistance of the Metropolitan Police and the National Domestic Extremism and Terrorism unit (Golly!) are to revue the evidence so far assembled in order to decide the future direction of the investigation.
So will the terrorist unit shoot me first and ask questions after?
I still haven’t seen anything to refute the possibility that the Tallbloke search
warrant was a result of a requst for cooperation to the Brits (and subsequently
the Norfolk Constabulary) orginating with the U.S. DoJ.
Consider this, the DoJ may be looking into possible grant fraud, wire
fraud, and tax evasion activities on the part of some of the Climategate e-mailers
that involve NOAA, EPA, DoD, DoA, and DoE grants or contracts. There wouldn’t
be any reason to share that level of detail with the British courts or the Constabulary.
DoJ would not fully disclose to “outside” department and agencies (including
British law enforcement entities) if they were looking into such possiblities,
including or especially RICO violations.
Should a U.S. citizen, organization, or state official (such as a state Attorney
General) file a complaint with DoJ for such possible criminal activiies, they
(they complainant or the DoJ) sure wouldn’t broadcast it.
Hopefully this delivers a package of paranoia for the Team’s Christmas.
If they can get the real Climategate files, they may settle for 2nd best.
Bill Parsons says:
December 21, 2011 at 10:14 am
If you go to the ACPO website, at the top, they have a FOIA page that reads:
“The Association of Chief Police Officers came under the Freedom of Information Act on 1 November 2011.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities, sets out exemptions from that right and places a number of obligations on public authorities.
Any person who makes a request to a public authority for information must be informed whether the public authority holds that information and, subject to exemptions, supplied with that information. Individuals already have the right of access to information about themselves under the Data Protection Act 1998.”
http://www.acpo.police.uk/FreedomofInformation/ACPOpublicationsFoI.aspx
So, they came under FOIA in November. They also have an exclusion for material “subject to exemptions”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-16294420
The first BBC article on Climategate 2 by a non environmental activist BBC journalist was published at 20:20 GMT tonight
Concerns over Climategate inquiry
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-16294420
UPDATE 5.43pm GMT I’ve got my wires crossed on this it seems. Apparently the Norfolk Constabulary, along with the assistance of the Metropolitan Police and the National Domestic Extremism and Terrorism unit (Golly!) are to review the evidence so far assembled in order to decide the future direction of the investigation.
UDPDATE 9.04pm GMT The Niiki Fox article on the Beeb website also ahs a short comment from the police at the end http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-16294420
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/breaking-news-norfolk-police-to-hand-over-climategate-inquiry/
“the National Domestic Extremism and Terrorism unit”.
Playing with the big boys now.
Everyone her must be aware that NDETU will monitor this blog – amongst hundreds of others – and that they are not short of funds to do so?
The threat of legal action (and all the public disclosure that may have created) really does seem to put have put the cat in amongst the pigeons. Extremely well done to everyone involved.
Sorry, missed Adrian Kerton’s post at 10:36 am
NOW ON THE CASE:
Jerky says:
December 19, 2011 at 11:33 am
>JPeden says:
>Unsurprisingly, your post is irrelevant to the issue except insofar as confirming your own Religious >belief in a bunch of Climate Jabberwocky which hasn’t made a successful prediction about reality >yet but still continues right on with its usual “methods”. Congratulations on another “success”!
You mean predictions like plant hardiness zones moving Northward across the United States during the last 30 years? Or the lengthening/earlier arrivals of first/last frosts? Or the increase in number of extreme rainfall evens, as expected from the basic Clausius-Clapeyron relation?
Oh right, all those predictions DID come true. But I’m sure you knew that, since you obviously are familiar with all the literature, correct ?
Well, Jerky, even accepting the dubious reliability of your claims, yes, I’m familiar with the 100% failure rate of CO2 = CAGW’s relevant predictions. But you are most obviously either not familiar with them or simply don’t care about what they mean about your hallowed Religion’s “science”.
Or else perhaps it’s only that your own brain’s “Jerky” is becoming more hardy by becoming still more dried out or even petrified by the increased desperation of your “faith”?
I wish Tallbloke all the best. He never asked to find himself in the situation where his house is raided by the police, lots of other stuff happens in quite a short period of time and then he finds out the NDETU are getting involved and will no boubt be looking up his digital arsehole in the new year. I bet this is not the Christmas he expected.
I feel for his family; the violations which have been endured – men in uniform poking about your house. Over what – a climate blog and a link on it?
Why would climate data have anything to do with national security,domestic extremism or terrorism ?
Let’s not forget that this whole mess began with a concerted, deceitful, pretextual conspiracy to obstruct and wrongfully deny lawful FOIA requests made by taxpaying citizens seeking DATA to REPLICATE the findings of various PUBLICLY FUNDED scientists published in PEER REVIEWED journals which had failed to enforce their own DATA ARCHIVING requirements upon the published authors.
FOIA, outraged that the world’s poorest inhabitants will be further immiserated by future climate policies, took matters into his/her own hands to expose the bias of the most influential climate scientists and their relentless contempt for anyone who uttered the unforgiveable words- “PROVE IT”. The release of emails by FOIA is virtuous civil disobedience, and should be judged as such. The recruitment of governmental power in furtherance of a conspiracy against scientific transparency, dissent and the free exchange of information should be a cause of deep concern to anyone who values liberty.
I have to say that I find it incredible that so many people who obviously have a keen interest in the facts behind the science of climatology (or other more correct terminology… sorry, I’m no expert) can be so reckless and/or cavalier with comments relating to the seizure of your computers. “Voted best science blog”?
I referred to them elsewhere as “armchair generals” but I think that I need to amend that rather pejorative term to “armchair sergeants”… they’d never be promoted any further!
A simple Google search (please… NOT Wikipedia…!) would have revealed that “NDET” is an acronym for “National Domestic Extremism TEAM”, the “T” doesn’t signify “Terrorism”. I was waiting for one of the informed participants to correct the ongoing mistake but eventually got too depressed and fed up to wait any longer. See http://www.acpo.police.uk/NationalPolicing/NCDENationalCoordinatorDomesticExtremism/NationalDomesticExtremismTeamNDET.aspx – if the Blog software allows the link. I don’t think that there’s even such a thing as the “NDETU” so why is that term being used so much?
And KevinUK – “You have every right to know what their ‘probable cause’ is and why the search warrant was issued i..e to know what is the crime that has been committed which has led to your property being seized as evidence. ” I hope that the use of quotation marks is your way of acknowledging that you got the phrase from watching too many US television shows, because being from the UK (as implied by your tag) you should know better. Please, at least do some basic research before foaming at the mouth. That phrase means nothing in English Law or in Scots Law, and as you are so certain, perhaps you will post a reference to the specific legislation or other legal provision underpinning your fervent belief? Or, you could just wait until Tallbloke’s solicitors fulfill their instructions and revert to him with the response from Norfolk Constabulary?
Sigh. But I will remain interested in the issue, despite the tedium from certain types of post, because the issue is too important.
William Old says:
December 21, 2011 at 3:31 pm
——————————————-
I got the abbreviation “NDETU” from Tallbloke’s own blog:
“National Domestic Extremism and Terrorism unit”,
For the sake of clarity, with which you seem to have a problem, that means I essentially quoted Tallbloke, so your pathetic comment means nothing, OK?.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 21, 2011 at 3:11 pm
“Why would climate data have anything to do with national security,domestic extremism or terrorism ?”
That I think I can answer.
If you follow the logic applied by the “warmistas” it seems to be as follows;
-We are getting closer to a “Tipping point”. (Yes, many actually believe so)
-When we cross it, the world goes under, we are all fried. (Yes, they believe so)
-That a nation is fried, is a threat to the nation. (If it was true, sure)
-A threat to a nation has to do with national security.
-Pentagon is put on the case, since it is a threat to the nation.
-Anyone disturbing the actions to counteract this threat, is a national security matter.
Now, whether the people involved here really believe in this, I am not so sure. But when dicussing this with my colleguaes at work, I can tell you that many otherwise very intelligent people really believe this story.
So The Team have been very successful to spread this scare via the media, at least here in Norway. (There is no opposing views presented, not one climategate story in the news)
Just look at what that Ed Markey said, and you realise that there are people that actually believe in this. People in powerful positions.Or at least gives the impression that they do.
And therefore, if you really do believe in it, logically speaking, the world must stop pumping out CO2, right?
And this is why we were in such a dangerous situation before Copenhagen. If the politicians had signed in Copenhagen, the world as you know it, would have ended.
But not because any tipping point. It would have been quite the opposite; Because societies would eventually stop working under the control of the UN. Famines, people freezing to death, no transportation of food, no powerplants, no cars, nothing.
You may laugh at what I say, but believe me, It doesnt take much to create such a situation, and when it happens, then extremists seize power….. Dont forget that Pol Pot got his education at Sorbonne.
So in my opinion, FOIA did the world a great favour, and will be thanked for it in the history-books. And I understand why many on the “opposite” side, like Ed Markey, is angry.
Here is one powerful man who lead the way;
http://www.scotsman.com/news/brown_fifty_days_to_save_the_world_1_779582
I’ve just left the following on TB’s site:-
In every social and scientific maelstrom such as ‘climate science’ in its present state, there emerges a catalyst around which the storm is slowly settled. Oft times that catalyst is an unassuming person who sees himself as being on the periphery of the storm but who suddenly finds himself flung into the turbulent eye through no action of his own.
The depositing of the link to the FOIA2011.zip file onto your blog was nothing to do with you. But you were chosen. Why? Probably because of your reputation as a solidly dependable and honest man. This subsequent Police action has served to drive home to everyone that true scientific endeavour has been totally subverted and that any questioning of this subversion now has official bad consequences.
That is the fatal step too far for the advocates of the CAGW ‘theory’.
It is unfortunate that you have become, albeit unwittingly, the catalyst in this storm; however you are aware of the international support which you have. You are now the rallying point for all who question the supposedly ‘settled science’ about our planet’s climate. That so many around the world now know about you and are actively supporting you should strengthen your resolve. Your responses so far have been measured and appropriate which is the direct opposite of what we could expect from the CAGW proponents.
All we, your supporters, can do is to cheer from the side-lines for you. Rest assured that the crowd numbers many thousands!
To you and your partner, a very happy Christmas and, I am sure, a very, very great New Year; always remember, although we might not be there with you, you are not alone.
JPeden did not try to refute Jerky’s alternate explanations, instead goes straight to insult and name calling, pathetic and childish.
Well among normal people the climate hoax has nothing to do with national security or terrorism. However, within the twisted minds of the hoaxsters and their sycophants they are one and the same. For this scenario to be plausible (i.e., that ClimateGate has been bumped up to National Security status) it would require someone, somewhere to officially make that case, issue written directives, and be prepared to take massive heat later when the bean counters tally up the immensely added cost to the investigation. Politically and financially it is a loser. For one thing it would signal that the greens finally have de facto control of all facets of government, including the national security apparatus, and are brazen enough to use it for self-preservation even in a high profile case. Not a very plausible scenario in my mind. But these are crazy times indeed.
I had some other speculation above here and here. Since you ask, here is some more quick speculation …
Accidental Classified Exposure :: Perhaps there was some black research taking place at UEA (or some nearby institution) somewhere completely disconnected from CRU and Phil Jones. Perhaps some of these folks were just stupid enough to be using the same servers or FTP or email system at one time or another. This would certainly lead to anxiety over the contents of the 200K+ emails that lay in wait.
Post-ClimateGate Developments that we are NOT aware of :: With all the emails out there since November 2009, there has probably been a huge increase in citizen correspondence to UEA and other email addresses and URLs found in the emails. Probably people writing everything from thoughtful Scientific challenges to threatening letters (stupid!) from every corner of the world. So all it would take is one terrorist threat from some idiot to drag in the national security apparatus in our post 9/11 world.
International Agency Protocol :: Since servers in Russia have been used in both ClimateGate events, it is not difficult to believe that there is some joint investigation ongoing. I cannot imagine such contact between the countries’ agencies being allowed to proceed at a local constable level, so I would infer that some ‘feds’ would be over-seeing or running the show entirely. The ‘show’ being the investigation into who ‘FOIA’ actually is. Other possibilities here include suspicion of international espionage (Russia, China, etc), or bringing in the ‘feds’ to simply plug the holes and harden the system against further so-called hacking.
Bureaucratic Diplomacy :: Since the god-forsaken United Nations is a part of this thing, it is easy for me to believe that some pinhead from the UN got their panties in a bunch and cried to the UK government. Or they could simply approach Merkel or Sarkozy or any number of them, who in turn place pressure on Downing Street resulting in ‘feds’ showing up.
As mentioned in an earlier post, there are almost an infinite number of scenarios here since we are working with no real information. Almost anything that one dreams up can easily be the correct answer or be spectacularly incorrect. Furthermore, many of us are not familiar with the current internal protocols in the UK (or even our own countries!). For example, in the USA it would be extremely rare for Langley or Never Say Anything (or similar) to be involved in a case on USA soil in any capacity. We know that pretty much for sure. However, we haven’t a clue how the FBI actually interfaces with the national security apparatus on a case like this, so we find ourselves right back at square one anyway: knowing absolutely nothing.
I saw at Tallbloke’s blog that you asked about his router. It is a good question because any rolling logs on there must be stale by now. Please see what I wrote above in those two posts a few days ago (similar to what someone wrote at TB’s today). In a nutshell, it is possible that they now know the MAC addresses for all his equipment that was allowed on his router, including iPhones or any smartphones, iPads and definitely the laptops they took. This is like a cross between a fingerprint and a phone number. It can place you at a specific scene if some device at that scene recorded one of his MAC addresses, for example when you use the internet in a hospital or school or airport or cafe. We’re talking Wi-Fi here, not exactly like cellular roaming, but a similar concept. Perhaps they figured out where the initial FOIA post originated from (through ISP logs) and simply want to rule Tallbloke in or out as the whistleblower by checking his (and anyone else we have not heard about) MAC address against what the police know from the original upload scene. Of course this wild-assed guess just might be spectacularly wrong too!
William Old says:
December 21, 2011 at 3:31 pm
“I referred to them elsewhere as “armchair generals” but I think that I need to amend that rather pejorative term to “armchair sergeants”… they’d never be promoted any further!”
================
“An’ now the hugly bullets come peckin’ through the dust,
An’ no one wants to face ’em, but every beggar must;
So, like a man in irons which isn’t glad to go,
They moves ’em off by companies uncommon stiff an’ slow.
Of all ‘is five years’ schoolin’ they don’t remember much
Excep’ the not retreatin’, the step an’ keepin’ touch.
It looks like teachin’ wasted when they duck an’ spread an’ ‘op,
But if ‘e ‘adn’t learned ’em they’d be all about the shop!
An’ now it’s “‘Oo goes backward?” an’ now it’s “‘Oo comes on?”
And now it’s “Get the doolies,” an’ now the captain’s gone;
An’ now it’s bloody murder, but all the while they ‘ear
‘Is voice, the same as barrick drill, a-shepherdin’ the rear.
‘E’s just as sick as they are, ‘is ‘eart is like to split,
But ‘e works ’em, works ’em, works ’em till he feels ’em take the bit;
The rest is ‘oldin’ steady till the watchful bugles play,
An’ ‘e lifts ’em, lifts ’em, lifts ’em through the charge that wins the day!
The ‘eathen in ‘is blindness bows down to wood an’ stone;
‘E don’t obey no orders unless they is ‘is own;
The ‘eathen in ‘is blindness must end where ‘e began,
But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man!”
–Rudyard Kipling–
(Excerpt from “The Eathan”)
Dude. I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re not helping the cause.
REP:
Sorry I got your initials wrong.
By black booted thugs I was referring to Big “O” and Holder Co. and their big boy connections, not the operatives slaves who have to carry out the directives.
And knowing how Holder’s DOJ operates, I don’t think Horner is far off the mark. But I understand the snip, it attracts attention to the thought police hell hounds (bureaucrats and dept. heads). Big “O” Co is trying to put the boot on the necks of free speech.
Sammus says:
December 21, 2011 at 4:27 pm
JPeden did not try to refute Jerky’s alternate explanations, instead goes straight to insult and name calling, pathetic and childish.
That’s what you just did, Sammus! Or , to respond to you more equally, in words you might understand, “I know you are but what am I?”
Ok, Sammus, I realize that you have no abilities above that particular level of “argument”, since you apparently have no comprehension of the scientific fact, or of the meaning of the words that say, “Climate Science’s CO2 = CAGW ‘science’ has not produced even one relevant correct prediction yet.” Therefore, I sincerely apologize for taking such an unfair advantage of you and Jerky!
Roger’s interview is on the BBC iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018j2x1/Look_East_East_21_12_2011/
BBC story inconsequential BBC “Norfolk” no one will see this.
Adrian Kerton says:
December 22, 2011 at 12:06 am
Roger’s interview is on the BBC iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018j2x1/Look_East_East_21_12_2011/
_________________________________________
“Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only…”
BBC East is the regional affiliate of the BBC
Perhaps things might be simpler than they seem. Here’s my speculation:
On release of the Climategate 2 emails the Norfolk Police had to do something. They made a list of the blogs on which foia had put the link to the emails. As three were hosted by WordPress they needed help from the US to get information about the link from WordPress. So Norfolk Police asked the British Home Secretary to use the UK/US Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to ask the US Attorney General and Department of Justice for help in obtaining the information from WordPress.
The US Department of Justice then sent the Preservation of Records request to WordPress asking for the letter not to be disclosed. They may have sent similar requests to other blog hosts which haven’t disclosed the letter
The DOJ obtained the information about the email link from WordPress using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Apparently this doesn’t require a warrant, only for there to be reasonable grounds for the data requested to be relevant to the investigation. Under the MLAT the DOJ would have sent this information to the British Police.
The Norfolk Police have a local hi-tech crime unit but have most likely passed the investigation over to the Central e-crime unit of the Metropolitan Police in London which has more expertise and investigates nationally.
Not knowing what else to do, the British police decided to look at the computers of Tallbloke, who had simply had the link to the climategate emails posted on his blog by ‘foia’ and was the first to break the story.
Tallbloke is not a suspect and as his computers might contain ‘excluded material’ such as personal records and material used for journalism, the police therefore had to get a warrant from a judge, a magistrate not having the authority.
The British and US Governments should reflect on why, after WW2 and all the horrors of Nazi Germany, they agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Sorry I haven’t been able to upload it to Youtube Windows media player keeps crashing out on me.
You might be able to download it with his app
http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html
Don’t know if it works outside the UK
What I find interesting about the article isn’t the article itself. At the bottom of the article is a section on Related Links.. Guess the links…
UEA
Climate Change E-Mail Inquiry (from their About Us page: The Review was called for and is being funded by the University of East Anglia, but its work and findings are wholly independent.) Sure..
Real Climate
Really balanced links.
FYI, The article I just referenced is the BBC article in the latest update about the incident..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-16294420
I neglected to mention that in my previous post…
BBC Report on Youtube
http://youtu.be/10lUiNvpOYM
Permission obtained from the BBC reporter
many thanks for updated links
The police would need a warrant to take Tallbloke’s computers even if they didn’t contain special procedure or excluded material; however, the warrant as issued doesn’t allow seizure of material that may be, or might contain, special procedure or excluded material; despite the fact that the purpose of the warrant was to gather special procedure journalistic material, with no doubt the hope of gathering excluded confidential journalistic material.
Phil Jones and his Hockey Team friends are undoubtedly terrified that some outsider will prove them wrong and/or that their UK and US government grants will get yanked.
Keyword: terror. Patriot Act to the rescue!
I didn’t read tfn’s comment carefully enough, and missed the part “the police therefore had to get a warrant from a judge, a magistrate not having the authority.” It’s true that a judge can issue a warrant for special procedure materiel, but the issued warrant specifically requires that the material sought “does not consist of or include items subject to legal privilege, excluded material or special procedure material.”
Roger must be feeling a bit like “The Pedestrian”, a character in a short story by Ray Bradbury. He wrote it in 1953. Cold War sensibilities were, in this case, a fair predictor of things to come:
http://www.mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1.pdf
More people should see that video.
Just on Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/22/bloggers-not-journalists/
Best,
J.
MJW says:
December 19, 2011 at 6:11 pm
William Old: “[I]t’s quite possible that, at some stage, some or all of the material on Tallbloke’s drives might be found by a Court to be special procedure material, but it remains a fact that the District Judge did issue the warrant, and ipso facto the actions of the officers undertaking the search and seizure were (in the legal sense, and at the present time) lawful.”
My interest in the case I cited and the Bates case RB cited is mostly that taken together they suggest a basis for challenging the warrant. The warrant in the Bates case differs in an important way from the Tallbloke warrant. For the Bates search, the special procedure material was incidental; the search was for child pornography, not for items subject to legal privilege. For the Tallbloke search, the purpose was to seize special procedure material. The warrant was specifically intended to obtain information on Tallbloke’s blogging activity, which I believe is plainly “journalistic material.” Journalistic material is at least special procedure material, and may be excluded material if held in confidence. Yet the warrant declares the material sought does not consist of or contain excluded or special procedure material.
&
The police would need a warrant to take Tallbloke’s computers even if they didn’t contain special procedure or excluded material; however, the warrant as issued doesn’t allow seizure of material that may be, or might contain, special procedure or excluded material; despite the fact that the purpose of the warrant was to gather special procedure journalistic material, with no doubt the hope of gathering excluded confidential journalistic material
=======
So the police lied. Blatantly so as you and RB analyse it.
Disturbing his peace and the peace of his family, in the middle of the night when likely to be asleep, and claiming they were legally entitled to enter his home and search and take his computers, when they were not so entitled, is that fraud as well as theft?
So what’s the next move for Tallbloke?
Sign of the times
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1342547462001/bloggers-not-journalists
The actual dollar value of accurate weather forecasting: High? or Low?
This is a pretty good analysis:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/socasp/weather1/macauley.html
If the value is actually pretty low, it might behoove the “keepers of the data” to cast hackers of their products as threats to national security, thus artificially inflating the value of their product and demonizing “the enemies of the cause”(?)
These recent events (of the the computer confiscations, etc) are happening with the backdrop of the (apparently real) Chinese hacker threat growing.
WSJ: Chinese hackers hit U.S. Chamber
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204058404577110541568535300.html
Actually, it seems that the visit was around 7pm, took 3 to 4 hours and the news broke around midnight.
Still, it’s bad enough having 6 Policemen around in one’s home for that length of time.
There is currently some suggestion that national security issues were involved which means that the civil liberties aspect could be somewhat restricted.Only the passing of time will reveal whether the national security aspect is reasonably relevant in relation to climate data.
We are working through the options as time goes by but I think it is important to give it a bit of a break over the Christmas and New Year period.
Roger and his partner need a rest and I imagine the individual Policemen involved do too. They appear to have been courteous throughout and are still communicating as best they can but the background is complex.
My personal thanks to all who have contributed and expressed interest. The many expressions of opinion have helped me in relation to strategic issues.
This is a novel way of conducting a legal case. It has never been done in such a way before but I just had to help a friend in whatever way seemed best at the time without regard to established norms.
I think it is more like internet based dispute resolution rather than the practice of law. Perhaps a new field is opening up?
Merry Christmas to all, including those unwise enough to suspend their disbelief when told that humanty can affect climate to a significant extent.
Let me explain, as far as I understand it, the special procedures provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
Tha Tallbloke warrant was issued under section 8, which does not allow seizure of excluded and special procedure material: that it does not consist of or include items subject to legal privilege, excluded material or special procedure material.
Section 9 allows for seizure of excluded and special procedure under conditions set forth in Schedule 1.
Shedule 1, paragraph 1 provides: If on an application made by a constable a judge is satisfied that one or other of the sets of access conditions is fulfilled, he may make an order under paragraph 4 below.
Paragraph 4 provides: An order under this paragraph is an order that the person who appears to the judge to be in possession of the material to which the application relates shall—(a) produce it to a constable for him to take away; or (b) give a constable access to it,not later than the end of the period of seven days from the date of the order or the end of such longer period as the order may specify.
Paragraph 7 provides: An application for an order under paragraph 4 above shall be made inter partes.
So in order to obtain excluded and special procedure material under PACE, the constable must seek an order from a judge in a hearing where both sides can be heard.
An order can be sought under two possible conditions, defined in paragraphs 2 and 3. The paragraph 3 condition does not apply to warrants sought under PACE. It allows for warrants to be issued under previously passed Acts, provided certain conditions are met. Paragraph 2 allows warrants for special procedure to be issued under PACE with some important qualifications. First, as provided by 2(a)(ii), the material cannot include excluded material, and second, “(b) other methods of obtaining the material—(i) have been tried without success; or (ii) have not been tried because it appeared that they were bound to fail.” I think the first condition would fail, because it’s unreasonable to believe the warrant wasn’t sought in the hope of discovering some confidential communication between Tallbloke and FOIA. I think the second condition would fail, because if the goal were only to acquire non-confidential information, and if Tallbloke isn’t a suspect, it’s unreasonable to assume he wouldn’t voluntarily turn over the material if asked.
barry says:
“Whoever originally copied the emails and passed them on has committed a criminal act…”
In two words I can destroy that fantasy: “Prove it.”
For all barry knows, it may have been Phil Jones. That said, it is deliberate distraction to speculate about who may or may not have had the authority to post the emails. That’s not important, and that is not the point. What is important is the conspiracy to evade FOIA laws and other wrongdoing that is revealed in the emails.
Hey Barry – there are a bunch of people seeking to tuck you up real bad. Some correspondence on it has come into my hands in an unexpected manner and the miscreants certainly wouldn’t approve of this finding its way to you. Should I pass it on to you? Would you or I be abandoning truth to take this any further? (for clarity this is a fictional illustrative example only)
Stephen Wilde:
Established norms are a guide; not a regulation. Alas for too many, the norms become either chains that tether freedom, or worse; the refuge of those who seek to avoid taking responsibility.
If there’s a better way to do something; use that. Applying one’s intelligence to solving problems, in full knowledge of the norms, adds to the quality of life for all.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 21, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Why would climate data have anything to do with national security,domestic extremism or terrorism ?
Why, it’s a persistent (and rather infectious) meme, isn’t it?
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
with Peter Sinclair
Climate Hackers as Cyber Terrorists
December 22, 2011
Schneier [one of the most respected cyber-terrorism experts in the country] told me: “What I’ve been thinking about is whether the hack was intended to intimidate, threaten or bully. Then the crime becomes an effort to stop people from doing legitimate research. So, it is not just a data theft, but has a goal of creating a chilling effect, a threat, an intimidation.”
desmogblog.com – Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science
GRAHAM READFEARN 26 July 11
Norwegian Terrorist Anders Breivik Reveals Climate Denial Influences
The document [manifesto of Norwegian terrorist and Christian fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik, currently facing trial for the massacre of 76 people] reveals how sceptic commentators had convinced him that the so-called “climategate” hacking of emails and data disproved human-cased climate change.
The Ernest Becker Foundation
Understanding the Violence of Climate Change Denial
By EBF Staff
Posted on September 26 2011
We continue to explore the close correlation of the denial of climate change to the denial of death.
According to Sheldon Solomon that keystone paper has greatly enhanced (quadrupled he says) the acceptance of the validity and importance of Terror Management Theory in the greater scientific community. That’s how strong her argument is. Translating that to disseminate it from our sphere of influence is our task.
The Australian
Carbon tax protesters labelled extremists as they rally in Canberra
BEN PACKHAM AND JOE KELLY
March 23, 2011 3:38PM
“It [an anti-carbon tax rally which is full of climate change deniers] is an appeal to extremism. And extremism will always be there in our community, but that doesn’t mean we should agree with it or we should give way to it.”
RollingStone
The Climate Killers
Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming
Posted Jan 06, 2010 8:00 AM
by TIM DICKINSON
But that doesn’t mean that America’s largest carbon polluter plans to stop killing the climate.
BlueVirginia – …think globally, blog locally
Clarence Thomas’ Wife Embraces The Nuttiest Climate Science Denier
by: TheGreenMiles
Fri Dec 09, 2011 at 10:00:00 AM EST
I wouldn’t even describe her guests as Republicans – most are from the extreme conservative fringe […] One of Thomas’ most recent fawning videos was with infamous science denier Lord Christopher Monckton. […] If the Founding Fathers heard someone asking a hereditarily-titled British aristocrat for advice on how to run America’s government, they’d urge that person to take the next loyalist boat back to George III’s kingdom.
crikey
Hamilton: Denying the coming climate holocaust
by Clive Hamilton
Monday, 16 November 2009
climate deniers deserve greater moral censure than Holocaust deniers because their activities are more dangerous
Berényi Péter says:
December 22, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Thanks, some good examples of nuttiness there. They will be useful to me.
If we can make a start in detaching ScienceBlogs from that sort of paranoid and desperate conspiracy theorising then that would be progress.
Berényi Péter says:
December 22, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Thanks for posting those examples of nuttiness. They will be useful for future reference.
This is all far too similar to what the Pope and the Church of Rome did to Galileo.
It all gets nastier by the minute. Here’s power to Monckton’s elbow!
Bobski
Great job there! People on the our side need to be reminded from time to time what we are really up against. This is even more than a religion, it also is a mental illness. Those good folks on the non-alarmist side who are studiously fair and balanced (and naieve) would do well to remember this.
If someone kept a blog that accumulated all the kooks’ ClimateGate and related commentary (just like Berényi Péter has shown above), it would quickly develop into a database latger than the email releases, and would probably surpass them for usefulness too.
Can you please remove this post as “sticky” at the top? it’s getting to be stale, and its annoying to have to scroll down to find the latest posts..
Smokey,
Article 8 on the European Convention on Human Rights forbids the public dissemination of electronic communications between individuals at the workplace whether the company is publicly or privately owned. A leaker from CRU or the UEA would be prosecutable under EU legislation.
UK privacy laws require that employees protect their workers by securing their communications, whether phone, mail or electronic. Server operators are required to maintain communication confidentiality. Security breaches are prosecutable.
Hacking is illegal in most countries..
Note that the person responsible has taken pains to keep their identity secret. Had they done nothing illegal, it would have been prudent to reveal their identity – especially now when police are trying to track them down.
(This is my second reply. The first was either disallowed by the mods, or the links to the above got caught in the spam filter)
barry,
There you go with that ‘hacking’ nonsense again. Got proof?
barry;
The first reply probly got caught in the StoopFilter. E.g.: “that employees protect their workers”. Employees have workers?
IAC, public funding changes everything.
“Hacking is illegal in most countries…”
GOSH, and the next time some teenager, gets into a parked bulldozer, with the KEYS left in it, and
bulldozes down a couple structures…the owners of the bulldozer will not be blamed at all.
OH WAIT, we have a “common law” precedent on this, it’s called an “attractive nuisance”.
People with inadequate protections on their servers are “attractive nuisances”.
I quite agree, the hacking “meme” is to disguise the strong possibility this is someone on the “inside”…who realizes what the REAL crime against humanity is, i.e. the promulgation of the AWG concept, with evidence(s) which even the AWG coreligionists know is non-existent. Said individual has the “cat bird seat” of being able to at least ALERT the outside of REALITY. What we choose to do with that reality (The Japanese wouldn’t DARE to attack us…!) is up to us.
I was worried that the federales stopped by and killed this important thread.
But then I just realized the URL somehow changed, from this …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/
To this …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/23/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/
Anyone that bookmarked the original page URL might also wonder if something happened!
@barry says:
December 23, 2011 at 8:29 am
“Smokey,
Article 8 on the European Convention on Human Rights forbids the public dissemination of electronic communications between individuals at the workplace whether the company is publicly or privately owned. A leaker from CRU or the UEA would be prosecutable under EU legislation.
UK privacy laws require that employees protect their workers by securing their communications, whether phone, mail or electronic. Server operators are required to maintain communication confidentiality. Security breaches are prosecutable.
Hacking is illegal in most countries..”
Actually, hacking is not illegal. The illegality is if you circumvent security, or otherwise gain access, without proper authorization.
The most problematic thing about hacking, apparently, is not that it might be illegal, but that it isn’t viewed as very serious in EU, according to the US, and specifically by the Pentagon’s standards. In EU it is still seen as the nuisance of stealing an apple, in US it is viewed as the potential, but necessary, mass-murdering crime that would preempt the stealing of the complete US treasury, in China, it is ok if you hack for the communist party, otherwise, so soi-ee dude, you die capitalis’swine.
But the act of hacking might become illegal soon though if the US socialist HQ called Hollywood gets their will through the global negotiations about online piracy. Although every carmaker still reverse engineer every other carmaker’s car, even though it is illegal to do so, so in the end, the law…has in fact no effect on the act of gaining knowledge. :p
Please, give this meme a rest. One of my father’s aphorisms applies to Galileo’s travails over this issue; “There is no sympathy for self-inflicted injuries”. He attempted to humiliate the Pope, who, to this point, had a very favorable opinion of Galileo. He had the a priori support of at least one very powerful cardinal who’s name escapes me but whose comment does not; “The bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
His theory made calculating orbits easier, but NOT more accurate than using epicylces because he wrongly and stubbornly insisted that the orbits must be circular (Copernican). He excoriated Kepler (wrongly) for suggesting that the orbits of the planest were elliptical, despite vast evidence to the contrary.
It wasn’t until Louis Foucault demonstrated the pendulum which now bears his name in 1851 that there was direct observational proof the rotation of the earth.
While undeniably brilliant and ahead of his time in so many areas, Galileo was also arrogant, a braggart, a bully, and had an unerring ability to bite the hand that fed him. He was the poster-boy for “self-inflicted injury”.
Did you pass out while reading the first half of my post?
It doesn’t matter if the perp was a hacker or an insider. The dissemination of private communications by a third party, whether co-worker or otherwise, is illegal under EU and UK legislation. The FOI laws are in place to provide an avenue to release information from public bodies, as long as conditions are met. The release of the emails subverted that process. You can argue til you’re blue in the face that the ends justify the means, but the means were illegal regardless.
So why do you think the heroic perp is still anonymous?
We don’t know who did it. Why are you so invested in the notion that it was an inside job?
1DandyTroll,
You’re right about the bureaucratic danger. This quote says it all.
Stephen, if you can say that with a straight face, without completely cracking up, everything they say about the stoicism of Englishmen is true.
Terrorists – check.
Holocaust deniers – check.
They missed an obvious one: hate crime. Where’s the accusation of a hate crime against science?
Article 8
Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others
I don’t see anything in this article that forbids public dissemination of electronic communications between individuals in the workplace except in so far as it may relate to private and family life. It does not seem to cover “business” related correspondence. Given that FOIA seems to have expunged personal communication, perhaps he/she/it is aware of this Article. I wonder, too, how Tallbloke’s search and seizure figures into this Article.
I’ve also looked briefly at UK law and I have been unable to find anything to back up what you have concluded. I’m not suggesting that you are wrong in your interpretation but again most of the legislation I’ve looked at does not cover workplace communication, only workplace communication as it relates to personnel or personal data.
Can you provide the relevant law(s) or case law?
Irrelevant in this case. If the server was hacked, it was successful and unauthorised, which makes it illegal, even in Europe.
Jan,
My post with links and quotes was barred. I’ll provide quotes here and you can google the text for the references.
Computer Misuse Act 1990
Where in the first paragraph is ‘correspondence’ limited to domestic?
Electronic communications and data in the workplace (private or public) are either the property of the authors (worker’s argument), or the property of the company providing the communication equipment (company argument). They are definitely not the property of third parties, and obtaining them without authorisation is stealing. FOI is the legal recourse to obtain data and information from publicly owned companies, not anonymous theft.
I wouldn’t know how to argue that. I was speaking generally. However, Tallbloke’s computer is the logical place to search to identify the thief.
[Correction: Nothing was “barred.” All comments that adhere to site Policy pass moderation. As we have advised in the past, it is wise to keep a copy of your comment until it is posted. If a post does not appear, re-post it. Occasionally WordPress will lose a comment. It has happened often enough that keeping a copy of your comment until you see it posted is good insurance. ~dbs, mod.]
It is very important to barry to divert the discussion away from the scientific misconduct displayed in the Climategate emails, and instead to nitpick about whether the emails were “hacked”, or simply posted by an employee working within the organization.
It requires an incredible suspension of belief to accept that some unknown ‘hacker’ would take the enormous amount of time necessary to sift certain emails from the rest, instead of simply dumping everything online. It is clear that many emails were left out of the email dump in order to protect the whistleblower. If it’s not obvious to barry, then it’s obvious to more impartial observers that the most reasonable and likely person is someone on the inside. Someone who had access.
Why this hairsplitting is important to barry can only be explained by barry. For the rest of us, it’s not important who provided the world with evidence of scientific misconduct. What is important is the widespread evidence of misconduct and collusion that was revealed; the corrupting of the FOI officer, the scheming to get control of the climate peer review process, the plans to attack and destroy those who simply had a different scientific point of view, the [successful] machinations of the “Team” in trying to corrupt the climate journals, and the complete fabrication of many years’ of temperature records, among other wrongdoing that was disclosed.
The constant harping over the trivial and unproven question of “hacking” versus a whistleblower is a desperate tactic intended to divert the discussion away from the overwhelming evidence of fraud, and the corruption of the climate sciences by a small clique of self-serving propagandists. Keep that in mind whenever one of their water carriers starts spouting their nonsense about a mythical “hacker”.
From Smokey’s link
“It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus.” Vaclav Havel
It does such a good job of this, that even the police don’t realise they’re no longer policemen..
There are two ways of viewing this Tallbloke stuff, the first is as analysed within the “police state” as Monckton called it, and in this Tallbloke is owed an immediate apology and return of his goods and any copies made, whatever ‘cloning’ means.., the warrant was illegal, and compensation wouldn’t come amiss…
The second, is that in Common Law this police state does not have any jurisdiction over Tallbloke. If Tallbloke had asked under what law they claimed to have a right to enter his home and search and remove his property, and clone his computers, and they had answered with some statute or other as, for example, detailed in the post somewhere above linking to the wiki article, then they have committed fraud, these are not laws.
Now, as I see it, the very pretense that they have jurisidiction is evidence it is a fraud, because they continue to pass themselves off a being lawful. The police state is itself a criminal organisation, organised crime, because of this. Because as Havel says they twist everything, pretending here to be real policemen, they hide the fact that they are a criminal organisation under the con that they have “legality” and pretend by default as it were to treat this as if it means “lawful”. The ‘police’ in this criminal organisation are officers of it, they are no longer policemen/policewomen upholding the peace in Common Law, but employees of a criminal organisation passing itself off as lawful.
The pity is that that those thinking of themselves as “policemen and policewomen” don’t know the difference between that and what it means to be “police officers”, which are employees of the police state.
http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_british_constitution.htm
Note well:
“Government cannot grant freedom to the people because freedom belongs to the people by birthright. Government exists not to give the people liberty, but to protect their liberty.”
and,
“The British Constitution embodies the natural rights and freedoms of the people, which are theirs by birthright. The British Constitution and British liberties will only survive if the people defend them.”
That Tallbloke was conned into believing what they, the ‘police’, were doing was lawful, is the real issue that needs to be addressed here.
Halford v. United Kingdom , (20605/92) [1997] ECHR 32 (25 June 1997)
Loosen your grip. My comments are hardly going to stem the tide of criticism here. It’s just amusing – if not telling – that you and others can’t bring yourself to admit that the action was nefarious. Doing so would make no impact whatsoever on the legitimacy or otherwise of arguments about the import of the contents of the emails. They are separate issues, and I am not in the least bit interest in trying to jaundice the latter discussion with my comments about the legality/ethics of the theft. If you think this is a ploy to distract, your best strategy would be to ignore it. I won’t be hurt if you do. 🙂
barry, I challenge you to provide proof of any “theft”. When something is stolen, it is missing, taken from its rightful owner, in this case the public. What is missing, eh?
This is just more devious misdirection; trying to make an issue out of the taxpaying public’s right to know, while hiding out from discussing the actual scientific misconduct, fraud and corruption displayed in the Climategate emails.
“Theft.” Heh. Get real.
The police had a warrant. The lawfulness or otherwise rests with the signing magistrate.
Smokey, for someone who thinks that the ethics/illegality of the email release doesn’t matter, you seem to be mighty interested in pushing an opinion on it.
Personal diaries on a publicly-owned work machine belong to the public, according to you. Nothing was stolen because the originals were still on the MP’s work computer, according to you. But not according to British justice.
But you keep ducking the question – why has the hacker/leaker striven so mightily to keep their identity secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything?
Do people really believe if a facility or institute is publicly owned then the public can just wander in and open the cupboards, copy stuff from computers and generally have unfettered access to the premises and its contents? That laws against trespass and privacy are null and void with respect to government-funded institutions? Because that is the premise Smokey and others seem to be pushing here.
barry:
At December 23, 2011 at 11:47 pm you say:
“Do people really believe if a facility or institute is publicly owned then the public can just wander in and open the cupboards, copy stuff from computers and generally have unfettered access to the premises and its contents? That laws against trespass and privacy are null and void with respect to government-funded institutions? Because that is the premise Smokey and others seem to be pushing here.”
NO!! How dare you!
The real issue is that when “a facility or institute” confiscates information owned by the public then any member of the public is justified in retrieving the information and ensuring the public is able to access it.
Either you know that and are trying to mislead or you are an idiot.
Richard
@ Barry
No one does not expect unfettered access however the FOIA effectively provides the key to the room you wish to inspect that is the law, the fact that those you seem to support dont like the law is basically tough!
WE the CITIZENS fund this “work” we are ENTITLED to inspect that which the law allows, what recipients of public funding are not allowed to do is to seek to frustrate that process!
I wonder if Barry thinks that the bible should only be available in Latin, and only priests should be allowed to read it.
Seems we had this discussion a few hundred years ago
barry says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:05 pm
That Tallbloke was conned into believing what they, the ‘police’, were doing was lawful, is the real issue that needs to be addressed here.
The police had a warrant. The lawfulness or otherwise rests with the signing magistrate.
====
I think you should take some time to read the link I put up “britsattheirbest.com” – Common Law is the natural law, the birth right of every man woman and child, it is not something that can be given by a government.. All a government can do is either act honourably according to it, to protect the rights liberties and justice of the people in Common Law, or not.
The goverment in England has long recognised this and has stated it, affirmed it, as for example in the Act of Settlement 1701 –
The Police State does not do this, it rides roughshod over Common Law. The checks and balances have been usurped by the Police State, in Britain and the US the police and judges are now employed by the Police State and no longer uphold Common Law. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think it is Congress which holds the checks which in Britain is the role and duties of the Sovereign.
It is confusing, because it is made deliberately so through the use of language to con the people into believing that the Police State and therefore its acts and officers and judiciary, are lawful, but under Common Law they are not. As Havel points out, language is used to mean what the Police State says it means, for example, if a “police officer”, i.e. not a constable of Common Law but an employee of the Police State, asks “do you understand”, you may think he is speaking English, but he’s not. In his Police Speak, affirmation that you understand what he is saying is taken to mean that you have agreed to his authority over you. That is a con. It is fraud in Common Law.
I’ve seen one US judge quoted saying he did not have to uphold the Constitution. How could he say this? Because he is now employed by the Police State in the US. All the judiciary in Britain is employed by the Police State, they no longer uphold the principles of Common Law.
There are two distinct entities here, Common Law and the Police State. The Police State is a criminal organisation passing itself off as lawful. What happened to Tallbloke needs to be analysed according to the different principles of each.
Monckton understands this difference, which is why he is arguing his case within the principles and legalities of the Police State, but he is wrong to say that Britain is now a Police State, it isn’t, this is a criminal organisation passing itself off a lawful and only by fraud does it have apparent control. It tries to make out that you have to agree or agreed to it having jurisdiction over you.., which is proof it is a fraud.
So, “The police had a warrant. The lawfulness or otherwise rests with the signing magistrate”
In all of this the Police State and Common Law have been deliberately confused. The “legality” of it might rest with the signing magistrate, but in the confusion between the two who actually applied for the warrant? If “police officers” applied for a warrant which clearly stated it that application for it was to be presented by a constable, the Police State doesn’t have constables, constables uphold Common Law. In Common Law there is no such creature as a “police officer”. [Except that “Police Reform Act (2002) granted ACPO extraordinary powers: it made ACPO the only private corporation whose employees can hold the office of police constable. Section 96 of the Police Reform Act (2002) grants the President of ACPO the powers of arrest and powers of a Chief Constable.” http://www.hmpbritain.co.uk/ ]. And, even if applied for by a constable, then RB’s analysis here shows that the magistrate was duped. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/23/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/#comment-833493
Common Law in Britain is taken for granted, it’s useful here to look to the US for details of what it means, as Blade gave earlier:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
So, the warrant was illegal, (see RB and MJW), but anyway in Common Law Tallbloke is protected from violation by the police and judiciary, is this no longer taught?
Was it “constables” or “police officers” which organised and executed this travesty of justice? Either way, they should be ashamed of themselves..
[C.O.D. travesty – v.t. and n.; v.t. Make (person or thing) ridiculous (intentionally or not) by grotesque representation.]
But I’m beginning to doubt that they are en masse as “police officers” capable of seeing themselves for what they are, a travesty of the role of constables..
http://policestatebritain.blogspot.com/
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=1205.240
I hope they can make the transition to rational adult in Common Law.
For our American chums –
http://www.rense.com/general69/police.htm
“After passage of the Patriot Act of 2001, Rep. Paul told Insight Magazine that the 2,200-page bill was not made available to Congress to read before the vote.(6) So the most corrupt Congress in history rubber-stamped the most fascist legislation they had never read.”
“The ink had barely dried on the Patriot Act when Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Rep. Paul stated that Congress also did not read the 500-page bill that gave birth to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”
etc. etc.
I was reading an article this morning about Julian Assange and the leaked Afghan files to Wikileaks. The U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning is being prosecuted for stealing the documents while Assange does not face prosecution for this crime.
In another article the claim was made that you can’t prosecute third parties in the theft of information (in the US), only the party who stole it in the first place.
I’m not sure if the UK has a similar law but this would mean Tallbloke wouldn’t face any problems for having “stolen” information on his site – let alone links to that information. As I read what Laden originally wrote it makes him look even more of a duffer.
Barry
Do you know how the Emails appeared on the Russian server? If you do then you should report it to the authorities. If you do not know than you are just speculating. Maybe you do know and you are part of the conspiracy to hide how the file appeared on the server. What has been shown from the emails is that the many of the people involved were actively making the “cause” real to the world when the “cause” was a fabrication invented by the hockey team. Splice and dice select YAD061. Confiscate an observers computers. Barry you defend the indefensible.
Barry has a point. The person who took the ClimateGate emails “stole” them, whether it was a hacker, inside job, or whistle blower – it doesn’t matter – they were stolen.
Smokey has a point. The person who disseminated the emails to the public is not a mere hacker, but someone who is keenly interested in the state of climate science and is bothered by it.
Several posters have commented about the contents of the emails. There is no doubt that these climate scientists were up to some pretty nasty tricks. Are they guilty of a crime? I’m not convinced they would be convicted of anything, other than breaking their various employers ethics rules.
Monckton is pursuing charges on the ClimateGate scientists. He likely won’t be able to use the emails as they were obtained illegally. He could subpoena to have all the emails released and the very best would be made public during his court case.
Meanwhile the funding for various “green” projects is starting to unwind worldwide due to economic woes. The US has approved off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and will likely approve two new major oil related projects in 2012 – the Keystone pipeline being one of them. America’s economy will grow on the backs of the oil companies during Obama’s next four year reign. How ironic that a left-leaning President pushing Medicare and green energy will leave behind a legacy sustained by oil and coal with a country so heavily in debt. What George Bush started Obama is finishing in spades.
barry says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:25 pm
“– why has the hacker/leaker striven so mightily to keep their identity secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything?”
____________________________
barry, the real question that everyone is asking- why have the ‘scientists’ involved in this flap striven so mightily to keep their data, methods and motives secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything- and especially since they have striven so mightily (and illegally) to refuse to comply with legitimate FOIA requests and worked so hard to denigrate the work of and cause harm to others?
Why do you strive so mightily to obscure the reality of the Climategate emails?
Steve from Rockwood says:
“The person who took the ClimateGate emails ‘stole’ them, whether it was a hacker, inside job, or whistle blower – it doesn’t matter – they were stolen.”
Before passing judgement, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions first:
Whose property were the emails? Who paid for them?
Emails were merely copied; “stolen” entirely misrepresents the situation, and is not correct. What, exactly, was stolen? What is missing? Who lost anything?
For the sake of discussion, suppose Director Phil Jones posted the emails online. He’s done it before. Was that “illegal”? Were those emails “stolen”? If anyone, including the Director, had the authority to post emails, then unless the person putting them online is specifically identified by name, you cannot state that they were “stolen”, because you lack the relevant facts.
barry is engaging in misdirection, desperately trying to take the spotlight off of the blatant fraud, scientific misconduct, and corruption revealed throughout the Climategate emails. But no one has yet shown that the Climategate emails were “stolen”. That, like other alarmist beliefs, is a baseless fantasy.
[See here for more on the Climategate emails.]
“Chief Constable escapes jail
A police chief has been forced to return 87 computer hard drives to an expert witness.
Colin Port, Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, had been facing contempt of court charges for delaying the return of hard drives to Jim Bates, a computer analyst whose home was searched by police last year.
The police search of Mr Bates’s home was declared illegal by the High Court in May because Mr Port’s officers had drawn up a warrant incorrectly and taken away legally privileged material.”
http://policestatebritain.blogspot.com/
Barry, since you seem to know so much, maybe the police should search YOUR computer(s) ? Just to follow the precautionary principle? I mean, nobody knows what they might find?
The only thing that was “stolen” was the cover of secrecy and concealment. The original files are still where they always were.
Smokey says:
December 24, 2011 at 9:48 am
Before passing judgement, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions first:
Whose property were the emails? Who paid for them?
———————————————————————————
Smokey. Let me pass judgement again. I think the scientists were engaged in fraudulent behavior and should be charged. I don’t think they will ever be charged and I don’t think even if they ever were charged they would be convicted.
I do know who does not own the emails and who did not pay for them. FOIA. The emails were stolen.
Barry has a point about that. Barry also engages in misdirection and seems to be using the fact that the emails were stolen to dismiss the bad behavior of the scientists (who should all be fired).
The fact that the emails were stolen does not detract at all from what they tell us about climate science and the people behind this fraud. But the emails constitute confidential material and the person who made of a copy of that confidential material, stole that material. This is why I don’t think Monckton could use the contents of the emails in his case. If he asked the courts to release the entire contents of the emails so that he could use the best bits in his case then knowing the identity of FOIA and the fact that the emails were stolen wouldn’t matter. You can argue that FOIA let the cat out of the bag but the cat is still out of the bag. If Monckton’s case gains traction and he gets access to all the emails we will likely see FOIA disappear entirely. Mission accomplished. That is why I am convinced FOIA is not merely a computer hacker.
Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus.
barry says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:25 pm
“– why has the hacker/leaker striven so mightily to keep their identity secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything?”
Because he/she is an employee at UEA and would be terminated for revealing confidential information.
“confidential”? Sez who? Begs the question.
Workplace communications are property of the employer/funder. Much of the money involved is public funds. FOI(A) applies, a fortiori.
Seems appropriate to mention that the police finally returned Roger’s computers.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/the-empire-hikes-back-the-return-of-the-pooters/
At 9:43 PM on 1 January, Blade had written:
Yeah, but in what kind of condition?
We have from Tallbloke:
Until someone qualified to examine those laptops and the router literally takes them apart, there is no surety that the government thugs haven’t laced the gadgets with all sorts of keyloggerish sneak-‘n-peek hardware and/or software.
Does the U.K. have in effect the same sorts of provisions our “Liberal” fascists and their RINO co-conspirators recently slipped into what was supposed to have been a routine annual national defense authorization act?
Frankly, I think this one piece of legislation now provides us Americans with grounds for converting Alcatraz Island from a tourist attraction to a working federal prison again, specifically for the purpose of indefinitely imprisoning our Fraudulence-in-Chief and every member of the U.S. Congress who voted for this bill.
No exceptions, and – thanks to H1540CR.HSE – no need for warrants, indictment, or trial.
Ain’t that nice?
Tucci78, absolutely correct! Personally I wouldn’t let them be powered up again at all, and the router needs to be replaced.
At the very minimum, the hard drives should be pulled, and their contents mirrored externally to other drives via 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter. Their contents can then be scanned and data mined independently at his leisure. The original drives can be destroyed.
With any luck at all Roger will find that his laptops use drop-in Wi-Fi wireless cards that can also be replaced manually. This should result in new MAC addresses. Other steps would also need to be taken to be 100% sure he has no surprises should he decide to continue to use the equipment.
Perhaps the best alternative would be for Roger to eBay all three (after suitable wiping of personal data) as unique collector items. Imagine this:
If the auction is not allowed to proceed we can guess that some surprises were in fact left in his equipment 😉
After having appraised us that the Norfolk goon squad had returned Tallbloke‘s computer hardware, at 6:21 AM on 2 January Blade takes note of my suspicion that Officer Friendly had buggered the equipment in one way or another, leading to Tallbloke‘s present reticence to so much as let a flow of electrons transit the circuitry, Blade writing speculatively of various measures which would be wise to undertake before Tallbloke tries to put his violated machinery back into use or – even more elegantly – wiping the hard drives and then putting the whole shebang up for online auction with an advertisement specifying their peculiar pedigree (et caveat emptor) to see what sort of bids would come across for these devices, which have now achieved the status of “unique collectors’ items.”
I’d think that there are hackerish folk out there who’d dearly like to get their hands on those laptops and that router just to see if they can suss out what sort of invidious molestations have been perpetrated thereupon by Norfolk’s Finest and the government thugs at higher pay grades in the U.K.’s Geheimewarmerbruderdienst.
I should think that “Anonymous” – whoever in hell they might be – would take great delight in running detailed diagnostics on a private citizen’s property which had been subjected to the cyber equivalent of several days in a police station’s back rooms being worked over with rubber truncheons.
As Blade has reasonably conjectured:
Meaning, of course, that we see the priority for getting thorough forensic examinations of the groped gadgetry undertaken goes way to hellangone up.
Who’s Tallbloke‘s MP? Gonna be really interesting to see what happens if this rises to one of those “questions in the House of Commons” kerfluffles us colonials read about in the mystery novels.
But consider: if the winning bidder on EBay can’t find any bugs or snoopers, would he demand his money back, and/or sue for false advertised implications?
😉
;p