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.
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…..