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.
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
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Emory University
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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.