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.
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.