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.
“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
@ur momisugly 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.