This is almost as clueless as the raid on Tallbloke by the police looking for scraps. But it does underscore one thing – investigators are clueless and so is the major press.
For the record, I don’t know who “FOIA” is either and given the stunning lack of success (and poor judgement demonstrated recently) in investigation two years on, I doubt they’ll ever discover who it was. – Anthony
Guest post by Jeff Id
Their Side – Bloggers “knew” FOIA emails were coming
I just had a phone conversation with Leslie Kaufman of the NYT on the ‘hacker’. She was careful to call the FOIA people by that PC name. Rule 1 – Don’t offend the witness unless you want them upset. I didn’t really want to do the interview because these things don’t usually go well for me and it took me several days to make time. Unfortunately my Achilles heel is that I tend to say what I think. — I know you are all surprised.
She asked several questions about the hacker and said that her job was to investigate that aspect and not the climategate emails – which she believed had been covered. Of course I took a little time to explain the science of the issue and even brought up the conversations between the Dept of Energy and Phil Jones. In general, she seemed to repeat the opinions of the climategate committees despite the blindingly obvious problems in meshing any of their conclusions with reality. She said it was well covered that the researchers hadn’t been ‘open enough’. If that is the limit of the curiosity of your audience, it didn’t seem worth getting into.
One thing I did make clear and have made clear before, I don’t want to know who the FOIA gourp/person is because I’m not going to be willing (or technically able) to protect them – so if FOIA.org reads this, don’t tell me. My life is fine the way it is and the last thing I need is a leftist Justice department with an overstock of rubber gloves visiting my home. Leslie was very interested in whether I knew who the ‘hacker’ is. I had to tell her several ways and times that I really don’t know. I even told her that I used to think it was a student, to which she later questioned why I don’t think it is a student any longer. (Implying that I knew something). Hopefully, you can understand the direction of the interview from this. She said it was her mandate to follow this portion of the story.
For the readers here, it isn’t that I don’t believe it was a student, it is that I don’t know either way. Some friends with more knowledge than I on computers have pointed out some fairly technically sophisticated behavior in the releases which make me reconsider. I brought up the RC hack to Leslie, pointing out that no adult with sensitive information would release it that way. It’s a prank-like behavior. Of course, there is a certain narcissism which comes with a hacker mentality that sometimes delays the adult thought process. When I was in college, a stunt like that would sound like fun. Now — NO effing way.
I once met a 25 year old guy who had been caught hacking, and later hired by a security company. Despite having been “caught”, he was so cock-sure that he was flat nauseating. Either too dumb to know he wasn’t as smart as he thought or too young to have the social skill to refrain from flaunting his smarts. It is a culture of some computer programmers (sorry guys), which the ‘adult’ of my story believed he had risen to the top of. — Look what I can do! I often wonder if the hacker culture recognizes the vastly superior work built into the technology of the things which they program on.
This is not to say that FOIA.org released the emails out of narcissism or proof of superiority. Readers here understand that. Instead, it was done of understanding with a slight hint of that hacker mentality. They/he/she hold a recognition that the math and science are being perverted, data was absolutely covered up where necessary and the known results were without a doubt exaggerated to promote the cause. In my conversation with Leslie, I took the time to explain that I was not a denier and that any scientifically minded person knows full well that the basic effect of CO2 warming is incontrovertibly true. She suggested to describe me as a Lukewarmer, to which my reply was that I don’t even like that name because I don’t know how much warming there will be but due to current political mechanisms, there is a systematic exaggeration of the science.
Anyway, the most interesting point of the conversation came out when she said in very rough paraphrase ‘Their side is that the email releases were known to you ahead of time.’
The ‘their side’ was fairly interesting as we know the “Climate Scientists™” are in good contact with the NYT as are the government agencies. It could have been nothing but often when you hear inflection of how something is said, you can get the meaning. I took it as though she had been talked too by someone of the opinion that the three blogs mentioned in the DOJ letter were intimately involved.
The fact that I have done nothing wrong does not relieve me one tiny bit regarding the police. This is especially true when a billion dollar industry is involved. Those who haven’t dealt with law won’t get that. What gives me comfort is that this blog and its global friends have a wide readership means that ANY direct police action will have a wide public audience – not that it will stop the crazy stuff anyway. That is the limit of my protection.
As I have written before, I think Leslie has it right. Some powerful idiot(perhaps a congressman), who doesn’t understand blogs, internets (love the plural) or techie things in general with more than one button, thinks that the bloggers were in direct communication with FOIA. This is the single reason that I can make sense of for the confiscation of Tallbloke’s computers. Any other potential communications can be taken in pristine form right from the blog logs at WordPress.
Anyway, the conversation came across as some verification of my theory on why Tallboke had his computers confiscated. As always, I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.
UPDATE: Hilary Ostrov has an interesting piece on Climategate events in timeline format. She muses that a story in the Guardian may have had something to do with all this. – Anthony
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Per Wikileaks Documents, The UN’s Climate Change Programs Are Total Failure – Looks Like Fraud
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/09/per-wikileaks-documents-the-uns-climate-change-programs-are-total-failure-looks-like-fraud.html
Responding to a US Government Investigative Subpoena
https://www.hedgefund.net/publicnews/default.aspx?story=12185
Record everything…..
http://www.diganet.net/
or use any comparable product.
Someday, I hope Montford will write this whole episode up as a book. Real facts, details … the lot. It’ll be a hoot, probably a best-seller. And, just maybe, it’ll hurt enough guilty ‘scientists’, greedy institutions and ambitious politicians that, next time, they’ll opt for honesty. Life really is SO much easier if you tell the truth.
BarryW says:
December 23, 2011 at 5:51 am
The amazing lack of interest over what is in the Climategate emails from the mainstream media sickens me. Here is a true story of corruption and collusion and they accept the explanations of the participants without actually investigating?. They accept the results of whitewash investigations and don’t investigate them? There is enough information that was published on ClimateAudit about the lack of rigor in the investigations that any decent journalist should have scented blood and gone looking for the truth.
————-
The problem for most mainstream journalists, on top of their incredible lack of curiousity, is that it would take the vast majority solid weeks of background reading to catch up on the context. For the neophyte there are a lot of names and story-lines (plots) to follow. This is not to excuse them: they should not be writing about this topic at all, or especially passing judgment, if they lack this background in the first place.
The release of the climategate emails is actually a very typical response that happens in a dysfunctional unit of people who are manipulated by a narcissist. It could be a family, a company, a department of government, or any small group of people. At some point the people being manipulated and rebel and a very common manifestation of that rebellion is the letting out of the skeletons in the closet.
For example:
Note: comments in square brackets are mine. The text is from Dr. Sam Vaknin, The author of Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited (who is himself a diagnosed narcissist).
This is a comment I also posted in this thread:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/climate-alarmists-might-just-be-captive-to-basic-emotions/
Everything we see in this whole AGW “debate” is seems to exhibit characteristics of a group of narcissists responding to criticism which they regard as “attacks”. Certain occupations (including journalism) tend to be over-represented by narcissists relative to the general population. Narcissists also engage in a behavior of “narcissistic mirroring” and they stick up for each other.
One example might be a journalist who sees himself as “brilliant”. Say this journalist writes fawning articles about a very important politician. Supporters of that politician love that journalist and heap praise upon him. He becomes the darling of their movement. In return, the journalist is also feed narcissistic supply by being given special access to the politician. So they feed on each others’ narcissistic energy. Andy Revkin might be an example, same with the BBC journalist who is given direct access to Jones and helps shape BBC’s policy on AGW. When a critic of that politician’s policies arises, the journalist writes scathing articles that devalue the critic.
See, narcissists think everyone else thinks like they do. Narcissists have a grandiose sense of their own abilities and intelligence. They assume everyone else does, too. The worst criticism a narcissist can undergo is devaluation so that is the avenue they choose to hurt others. For example, a narcissist can not stand not to have their views heard. So a narcissist’s first reaction may be to treat the critic as if they are insignificant and not worthy of a reply. We saw evidence of that sort of response at Durban when Lord Monckton approached someone there with some inconvenient questions. They could not be bothered to answer because they were so important. The implication being is a thinly veiled message that Monckton is NOT important. It was a devaluation. It was “I am important (and you are not) and I don’t have time to waste with someone as insignificant as you”.
Occupations such as journalism, politicians, movement leaders, scientists, and powerful business people are over-represented by narcissists. This issue provides a unique crucible where all of these narcissists can come together and become the darlings of a fawning public. They will stamp out any criticism. Their response will be over the top. The current response of elevating the climategate email investigation in the UK is an example of their response to climategate2. There are a lot of narcissists in a lot of high positions who rely on “narcissistic mirroring” with a bunch of other narcissists and these criticisms of AGW represent a real threat to their sources of narcissistic supply and could possibly lead to their public disgrace so it must be stamped out rather ruthlessly.
The bottom line is, if you look at how skeptics are treated, it is very consistent with the response to criticism by the narcissist.
crosspatch says:
December 23, 2011 at 2:15 pm
The bottom line is, if you look at how skeptics are treated, it is very consistent with the response to criticism by the narcissist.
======
Seems true, and doesn’t even include the steady paycheck.
Crosspatch, interesting thoughts re narcissism (aka selfishness) and its prevalence in all the fields associated with the AGW scam.
Mann certainly qualifies strongly enough to come through with narcissistic leadership qualities that insidiously demand acceptance and brook no opposition. Al Gore very strongly. Hansen likewise. Patchy. H’mmm. On and on.
It would have been very difficult for me not to play that journalist like a fiddle.
‘Their side is that the email releases were known to you ahead of time.’
Therefore, she was talking to the ones who did the releasing?
And look at what they have at stake. Politicians who have potentially wasted billions of the taxpayer’s dollars have their political career at stake. Journalists who have taken the AGW story as their “crusade” to “educate” us on have their future credibility and therefore their careers at stake. The scientists have their credibility at stake, particularly when it comes to fabricating how the data are presented. These people, as narcissists, will have absolutely no compassion for the people they have wronged by diverting money from productive use. They feel no empathy. That comes through in the README as something very troubling to FOIA. All these people are going to care about is their own notoriety, their own credibility, and the extent to which they will be viewed as geniuses.
They are going to launch a scathing attack on anything they see as potentially undermining their position. They will experience it as a personal attack on them and respond accordingly even when it is not meant as a personal attack on them. They can’t distinguish criticism on their position and a personal attack directly on them because any failing of their position will mean a diminution of their status which will absolutely destroy them emotionally.
The journalists, politicians, scientists and high level bureaucrats will see any criticism of AGW as a direct attack on their status and will lash out and be supportive of others who lash out.
This was very typical of how sciences used to be done not so long ago and is one of the reasons why we have the “scientific method”. I have regrets calling it either way once there is enough evidence. At this point in time, there is no evidence that I have seen to show either that A: the climate is responding or has responded in accordance with the model projections in AR4 or B: even of those projections come to pass, there will be any “environmental catastrophe” or other consequence that virtually all species alive today haven’t weathered in the past.
You might find this interesting:
One of the tactics narcissists employ is “gaslighting”. Gaslighting is the process of providing you with information that conflicts with your own perceptions in order to make you doubt your perceptions. If you lose confidence in your own perceptions, it makes it easier to control you. One way is a manipulation of data you might use to make a decision. Imagine you feel cold but everyone around you says it is hot. You might begin to lose confidence in your ability to determine your ambient environment. It invalidates your ability to draw conclusions from your own input data and makes you more receptive to conflicting from others. It’s sort of like “who are you going to trust, me or your lying eyes”.
One example of “gaslighting” might be seen in the constant monthly adjustment of the NCDC database where each month temperatures prior to 1950 are made colder and temperatures after 1950 are made warmer. It isn’t just that the amount of current adjustment is changed each month, but in addition, previously recorded data in the database are also adjusted.
As reported on the Bishop Hill blog recently, we see considerable adjustment of the records. This link shows the change in adjustments since July of 2011:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01675ef0785c970b-pi
This link shows the adjustments made since December 2008:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01675ef095ca970b-pi
Another example might be to attempt to tell people that sources of data (such as UAH) that do not show the expected warming trend are unreliable and should not be trusted. One example is the recent rebuttal by Spencer and Christy to an article that seemed to imply that their data were incorrect. This is, I believe, an attempt on the part of Ben Santer and John Abraham to “gaslight” the public. The message is meant to invalidate UAH and sow seeds of doubt as to its accuracy in people’s minds. This makes it easier to accept alternative sources of data.
I don’t mean to get all tin-foil hat here, but this seems to me be a little too blatant not to pay some attention to.
@ur momisugly Crosspatch,
Nicely done. Here is a link that an attorney I know (who is licensed to practice before the supreme court) recommended about psychopaths.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/09/psychopaths-among-us.html
I don’t think these people are “psychopaths”, I believe they are simply more narcissistic than most other people in general. Narcissists tend to exhibit certain behavioral patterns and the patterns we have seen toward “skeptics” is consistent with the patterns of a narcissist under “attack” (which is how they experience criticism). To a narcissist, a criticism means that someone is saying they aren’t correct and that is a major threat. If they are found to be incorrect on one issue, that means they could be incorrect on many issues. This would impact their credibility in their minds as being so much more intelligent than anyone else. The response of the narcissist to criticism is disproportionate response. They will try to absolutely destroy you because even a small criticism is, to their mind, a potential destruction of their career (their emotional career, with which they must live forever). So if you publish a paper that casts their work in doubt, they will attempt to have your doctorate revoked, for example.
I don’t mean to say that these people have all of the traits of narcissism to the extent that they would be diagnosed with a personality disorder, but we clearly have many of the traits of narcissism on display in the climategate emails and in their behaviors in reaction to criticism. So these behaviors are actually somewhat typical of people with this sort of personality. Criticizing a narcissist, particularly one with some serious influence, is a dangerous move. The retaliation can be over the top and ruthless.
But it might also explain why the climategate emails were released. Often in a situation controlled by a narcissist, the others eventually tire of it and expose the facade. Tell me why the police are involved only to find the person or group who released those emails and nobody is doing a proper investigation of the manipulation that went on inside CRU? The reason is because the politicians in charge of such agencies are themselves more narcissistic than average and have probably already placed themselves on the side of AGW. Now their own credibility is at stake. What it is going to take to break this cycle is for some very powerful narcissist who doesn’t have any skeletons in their closet (is there such a thing?) to come forward and say they were tricked. Then the entire scam comes crashing down. Someone has to stand up and say that the Emperor has no clothes and that person must be very powerful.
In the meantime, we are going to continue to experience attacks for criticizing their positions because they experience those criticisms as personal attacks on them and so they respond with a personal attack on the critic.
But at this point Jones and the CRU and Mann and the IPCC have been so completely discredited that I’m not sure the world is really buying it anymore as can be seen in the reluctance to reach any binding agreement at Durban other than to try again at a later date.
The powerful narcissists aren’t outright criticizing them, but they are starting to put a little distance between themselves and the issue. They are slowing things down, backing down a notch on the rhetoric, expressing uncertainty in some quarters.
We all have varying degrees of narcissism, it is what gives us self-esteem. Some are higher on that scale than others. The more extreme narcissists trust their own judgement completely and generally see everyone else as inferior but they are also extremely sensitive to how they appear to other people. They expend a lot of energy in creating a facade that is a reflection of the fantasy image they have of themselves. The slightest nick on that image and they will respond ferociously in order to protect it.
I’m not a clinical psychologist but I did live for many years with someone having a rather severe personality disorder and I worked under a narcissist who was an absolute bastard to work for. A good portion of my coming to grips with this was in learning more about the various behavioral patterns and how to deal with them. These behaviors are a lot less daunting when you understand where it is coming from and what is likely to happen in certain situations and why that is happening. What is amazing to me is why I didn’t see the pattern before until today when it all snapped into place when reading that article at Joanne Nova’s site. Then it suddenly made sense. All of Mann and Jones’ behaviors, their over the top responses to authors and journals, their gatekeeping, etc. It all suddenly made sense. You have some narcissistic scientists on a panel headed by a narcissist (Patchy) whose output is received by an entire congress of narcissists (UNFCCC) and in turn whose policy recommendations are implemented by narcissists. They are going to lash out at anyone who dares criticize them. There must be no way (to their mind) they can be shown to be wrong, it would simply devastate them so they will attempt to destroy anyone who criticizes them.
Whoops, no “allegation” intended…Mosh wrote about a little birdie informing him of an impending “event”… I cant find the comment – its on one of The Blackboard, Climate Etc., Climate Audit, or WUWT…but, to prove I am not smoking anything, here are two recent comments that steve made – first at The Blackboard:
steven mosher (Comment #85952)
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:00 am
Kinda figured this was coming.
frank at swifthack knew
Foia contacted him
as best as I can tell.
then here is an exchange at CLimate Audit:
Mosher: Recall what I said the other day
o ChE
Posted Nov 22, 2011 at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Reply
Yes, I remember. A little birdie showed up at your window?
steven mosher
Posted Nov 22, 2011 at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Reply
premonition
So, I am pretty sure that he said it.
crosspatch says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:06 pm
“The reason is because the politicians in charge of such agencies are themselves more narcissistic than average and have probably already placed themselves on the side of AGW. Now their own credibility is at stake. What it is going to take to break this cycle is for some very powerful narcissist who doesn’t have any skeletons in their closet (is there such a thing?) to come forward and say they were tricked. Then the entire scam comes crashing down. Someone has to stand up and say that the Emperor has no clothes and that person must be very powerful.”
Well said crosspatch.
Here is Waxman placing the entire reason for his support of AGW on the backs of scientists, which he will REPUDIATE when the inevitable collapse becomes apparent.
Listen closely to his words.
@crosspatch
Very interesting and accurate comments. I’m also not a psychologist but (I mention the following merely to indicate I’m not guessing on my own about this) I have a dear friend who is a long-time clinical psychologist specializing in personality disorders and narcissism. It happens that we have talked about these kinds of issues a great deal in relation to other public figures (i.e., politicians but not specific to climate science). One thing she emphasizes is that everyone who is not at one of the personality extremes has some “normal” degree of narcissism, i.e., healthy self-esteem. As she puts it, hardly anyone would want to get out of bed in the morning if they did not have some kind of (healthy) narcissism, believing they had something of value to do in the world.
But then there are those we tend to label overtly as “narcissists” implying the extreme cases, a kind of excess (and of course there are other people who have pathological deficiencies of self-esteem). Many of these more extreme narcissists can oscillate wildly between too much and too little self-esteem, since as you note any criticism is perceived as threat and attack and, yes, catastrophic.
I do think a lot of the fervent CAGW advocates display classic narcissistic grandiosity and personal fragility combined with rage at being challenged or contradicted. Al Gore, anyone?
But I’m not any expert, and unlike Al Gore I don’t pretend to be one in the movies.
This also became much easier to see once I understood that this debate isn’t really about the science. You can prove today that CO2 is not causing any measurable climate change and it wouldn’t change a thing if the IPCC reached a consensus that CO2 emissions CAN cause climate change. That is when the “Precautionary Principle” kicks in and the UNFCCC is clear to produce policy recommendations anyway. This is about billions of dollars and prestige. Do you really believe that CRU, Tyndall, UEA, IPCC, UNFCCC, EPA, DEFRA, and dozens of NGOs and corporations built on this whole premise are going to go down without a fight even if it is actually completely false?
To believe that would be to believe that these people have a degree of empathy for the people whose money they are taking. They don’t. And I am not saying that to be insulting, it is just a personality trait of narcissists; they lack empathy. It is simply a fundamental trait of narcissists. It would also assume that these people are capable of admitting they were mistaken. They can’t do that either. That is also a basic fundamental personality trait of narcissists. They are smarter than everyone else. Their conclusions are not to be debated. It is just not possible for them to be mistaken. The only way to provide them with a way out is if they make some new “discovery” that completely changes everything through new data that wasn’t available before. This allows them to maintain their brilliance through their new discovery and it must be THEIR discovery, it can’t be something someone else shows them. Then they can plausibly change their position without having been wrong. They had the best position possible at the time with the information they had to work with and now new information is available (thanks to their brilliance) that changes everything.
So … either they stick to their position and go down in complete disgrace when it doesn’t come to pass or they make some new brilliant discovery that allows them to prove that CO2 isn’t such a danger after all or that climate DID vary more in the past, or something.
Geckko says:
December 23, 2011 at 3:11 am
Had I been subject to that interview I would have kept repeating the same question back to this “investigative” journalist.
“Why do you keep referring to this unknown person or persons (!) as a hacker? When and by whom has it been established that the data acquired by an unauthorized external person(s)?”
——————————————————————————-
THIS! A thousand times over. Ask them if they are stating that as a fact, and if so, then what is their supporting evidence. When they back off because they have no supporting evidence to site ask them why they stated as a fact.
Of course their intent by claiming it was a hacker is to paint the person in a negative light. Hacking is illegal!!! As if they have an aversion with information that was illegally obtained. Only when it doesn’t suit their agenda, they do. If it turns out the person was an insider, of course, they will then change gears and paint the leaker in a negative light instead of as a ‘whistle blower’ whose motives were pure. Standard leftist playbook is to immediately start to smear by raising questions of purity of motivation. Of course purity of motivation is never a concern when the leak suits their agenda.
I thought it interesting that Waxman says he doesn’t know what was in the bill and that they just basically relied on the IPCC. This should be disturbing to most Americans as it says the IPCC is basically writing our legislation. We have a bunch of people that nobody voted for responsible for the contents of legislation and Rep. Waxman (Nostrils-California) has no idea what is in the legislation.
crosspatch says:
December 24, 2011 at 12:18 am
It’s amazing how much insight can be gained from a 39 second video.
I imagine our legislation is being written in Brussels to bring us in line with the E.U.
Ex: The new patent laws (Change from: First to invent To: First to publish / steal).
“…As I have written before, I think Leslie has it right. Some powerful idiot(perhaps a congressman), who doesn’t understand blogs, internets (love the plural) or techie things in general with more than one button, thinks that the bloggers were in direct communication with FOIA. This is the single reason that I can make sense of for the confiscation of Tallbloke’s computers. Any other potential communications can be taken in pristine form right from the blog logs at WordPress….”
Everyone is reading FAR too much into this. I don’t mind, as it makes for fun reading, but it really is overegged.
The most likely scenario is quite straightforward. The police had got nowhere with the original investigation, and were hoping it would die down, when ClimateGate2 came along.
There was an embarrassing meeting between a senior policeman and the officer in charge of the case, when he was told he’d better not drop it. He’d better review it and come up with some new leads. So it went to a review team, who went down the list of things known. At some point a member of the team said “Hey – this initial data release – we have got all the evidence, right?”, and someone else said “Well, we have a copy of what came out on the internet…”. And the review team boss said “Go out and get a copy of the initial data release straight from this blogger’s machine – that will show (insert senior policeman’s name here) that we are continuing the investigation.”
No need to consider what extra info they hoped to get, or whether they really think Tallboy did it. It’s just a thing to do to show that you are still busy. It doesn’t have to have a valid reason. Anyone who works in a corporate organisation knows just what I mean….
Dave Springer and crosspatch – you are, I think, about as close to identifying the source of the emails as you’ll get. It wasn’t a hacker, IMHO.
I have figured from the beginning that this is the work of either somebody in the IT department at UEA or somebody in the legal department at UEA, in conjuction with an outside party who put them on the Russian server and then put out the word (which might be a third person).
What is clear to me is, that anybody smart enough to drop this stuff into a Russian server, is also smart enough to avoid the obvious ways that law enforcement will try to track them down.
Well, after working for a guy several years ago who was a rather extreme narcissist, I can understand the “mutiny” bit. For example, he would often flat out lie to customers to the point where if we had some minor outage, he would craft some elaborate reason why it was not our fault. For example we were moving our operations from one data center to another. He demanded that we do it during the day with no downtime. We took a bit of an outage during the process. He concocted some story about our ISP having issues but that was only once case of many. It sometimes got so we spent more time on meetings about how to carefully craft lies to the customer than we spent on actually getting any work done. Sometimes they weren’t outright lies but were carefully crafted omissions of truth; sort of like clipping the Briffa series.
More than once I remarked that it would be much easier to simply tell the customer what happened because in many cases they were the sort of problems that all networks have from time to time but he insisted that we keep up this artificial facade of perfection. I was tempted a few times to simply call the customer and tell them what was really going on because if you can explain what is really happening, in my experience you can often get a customer to work with you and if a maintenance operation takes a little longer than planned, no big deal. If you are lying to them, anything that goes wrong in a planned maintenance operation is a HUGE deal and puts unnecessary pressure on everyone involved. The entire department was constantly walking on eggshells being told on one hand to perform risky operations but also being told on the other hand to lie to customers.
In this case the citizens of the world are “the customers” .
Narcissists spend an inordinate amount of time making things appear to be different than the reality and the maintenance of those appearances can be extremely stressful on everyone in the group and at some point can result in people simply having enough of it.