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.
Barry
Do you know how the Emails appeared on the Russian server? If you do then you should report it to the authorities. If you do not know than you are just speculating. Maybe you do know and you are part of the conspiracy to hide how the file appeared on the server. What has been shown from the emails is that the many of the people involved were actively making the “cause” real to the world when the “cause” was a fabrication invented by the hockey team. Splice and dice select YAD061. Confiscate an observers computers. Barry you defend the indefensible.
Barry has a point. The person who took the ClimateGate emails “stole” them, whether it was a hacker, inside job, or whistle blower – it doesn’t matter – they were stolen.
Smokey has a point. The person who disseminated the emails to the public is not a mere hacker, but someone who is keenly interested in the state of climate science and is bothered by it.
Several posters have commented about the contents of the emails. There is no doubt that these climate scientists were up to some pretty nasty tricks. Are they guilty of a crime? I’m not convinced they would be convicted of anything, other than breaking their various employers ethics rules.
Monckton is pursuing charges on the ClimateGate scientists. He likely won’t be able to use the emails as they were obtained illegally. He could subpoena to have all the emails released and the very best would be made public during his court case.
Meanwhile the funding for various “green” projects is starting to unwind worldwide due to economic woes. The US has approved off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and will likely approve two new major oil related projects in 2012 – the Keystone pipeline being one of them. America’s economy will grow on the backs of the oil companies during Obama’s next four year reign. How ironic that a left-leaning President pushing Medicare and green energy will leave behind a legacy sustained by oil and coal with a country so heavily in debt. What George Bush started Obama is finishing in spades.
barry says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:25 pm
“– why has the hacker/leaker striven so mightily to keep their identity secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything?”
____________________________
barry, the real question that everyone is asking- why have the ‘scientists’ involved in this flap striven so mightily to keep their data, methods and motives secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything- and especially since they have striven so mightily (and illegally) to refuse to comply with legitimate FOIA requests and worked so hard to denigrate the work of and cause harm to others?
Why do you strive so mightily to obscure the reality of the Climategate emails?
Steve from Rockwood says:
“The person who took the ClimateGate emails ‘stole’ them, whether it was a hacker, inside job, or whistle blower – it doesn’t matter – they were stolen.”
Before passing judgement, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions first:
Whose property were the emails? Who paid for them?
Emails were merely copied; “stolen” entirely misrepresents the situation, and is not correct. What, exactly, was stolen? What is missing? Who lost anything?
For the sake of discussion, suppose Director Phil Jones posted the emails online. He’s done it before. Was that “illegal”? Were those emails “stolen”? If anyone, including the Director, had the authority to post emails, then unless the person putting them online is specifically identified by name, you cannot state that they were “stolen”, because you lack the relevant facts.
barry is engaging in misdirection, desperately trying to take the spotlight off of the blatant fraud, scientific misconduct, and corruption revealed throughout the Climategate emails. But no one has yet shown that the Climategate emails were “stolen”. That, like other alarmist beliefs, is a baseless fantasy.
[See here for more on the Climategate emails.]
“Chief Constable escapes jail
A police chief has been forced to return 87 computer hard drives to an expert witness.
Colin Port, Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, had been facing contempt of court charges for delaying the return of hard drives to Jim Bates, a computer analyst whose home was searched by police last year.
The police search of Mr Bates’s home was declared illegal by the High Court in May because Mr Port’s officers had drawn up a warrant incorrectly and taken away legally privileged material.”
http://policestatebritain.blogspot.com/
Barry, since you seem to know so much, maybe the police should search YOUR computer(s) ? Just to follow the precautionary principle? I mean, nobody knows what they might find?
The only thing that was “stolen” was the cover of secrecy and concealment. The original files are still where they always were.
Smokey says:
December 24, 2011 at 9:48 am
Before passing judgement, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions first:
Whose property were the emails? Who paid for them?
———————————————————————————
Smokey. Let me pass judgement again. I think the scientists were engaged in fraudulent behavior and should be charged. I don’t think they will ever be charged and I don’t think even if they ever were charged they would be convicted.
I do know who does not own the emails and who did not pay for them. FOIA. The emails were stolen.
Barry has a point about that. Barry also engages in misdirection and seems to be using the fact that the emails were stolen to dismiss the bad behavior of the scientists (who should all be fired).
The fact that the emails were stolen does not detract at all from what they tell us about climate science and the people behind this fraud. But the emails constitute confidential material and the person who made of a copy of that confidential material, stole that material. This is why I don’t think Monckton could use the contents of the emails in his case. If he asked the courts to release the entire contents of the emails so that he could use the best bits in his case then knowing the identity of FOIA and the fact that the emails were stolen wouldn’t matter. You can argue that FOIA let the cat out of the bag but the cat is still out of the bag. If Monckton’s case gains traction and he gets access to all the emails we will likely see FOIA disappear entirely. Mission accomplished. That is why I am convinced FOIA is not merely a computer hacker.
Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus.
barry says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:25 pm
“– why has the hacker/leaker striven so mightily to keep their identity secret if they are not liable to be charged with anything?”
Because he/she is an employee at UEA and would be terminated for revealing confidential information.
“confidential”? Sez who? Begs the question.
Workplace communications are property of the employer/funder. Much of the money involved is public funds. FOI(A) applies, a fortiori.
Seems appropriate to mention that the police finally returned Roger’s computers.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/the-empire-hikes-back-the-return-of-the-pooters/
At 9:43 PM on 1 January, Blade had written:
Yeah, but in what kind of condition?
We have from Tallbloke:
Until someone qualified to examine those laptops and the router literally takes them apart, there is no surety that the government thugs haven’t laced the gadgets with all sorts of keyloggerish sneak-‘n-peek hardware and/or software.
Does the U.K. have in effect the same sorts of provisions our “Liberal” fascists and their RINO co-conspirators recently slipped into what was supposed to have been a routine annual national defense authorization act?
Frankly, I think this one piece of legislation now provides us Americans with grounds for converting Alcatraz Island from a tourist attraction to a working federal prison again, specifically for the purpose of indefinitely imprisoning our Fraudulence-in-Chief and every member of the U.S. Congress who voted for this bill.
No exceptions, and – thanks to H1540CR.HSE – no need for warrants, indictment, or trial.
Ain’t that nice?
Tucci78, absolutely correct! Personally I wouldn’t let them be powered up again at all, and the router needs to be replaced.
At the very minimum, the hard drives should be pulled, and their contents mirrored externally to other drives via 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter. Their contents can then be scanned and data mined independently at his leisure. The original drives can be destroyed.
With any luck at all Roger will find that his laptops use drop-in Wi-Fi wireless cards that can also be replaced manually. This should result in new MAC addresses. Other steps would also need to be taken to be 100% sure he has no surprises should he decide to continue to use the equipment.
Perhaps the best alternative would be for Roger to eBay all three (after suitable wiping of personal data) as unique collector items. Imagine this:
If the auction is not allowed to proceed we can guess that some surprises were in fact left in his equipment 😉
After having appraised us that the Norfolk goon squad had returned Tallbloke‘s computer hardware, at 6:21 AM on 2 January Blade takes note of my suspicion that Officer Friendly had buggered the equipment in one way or another, leading to Tallbloke‘s present reticence to so much as let a flow of electrons transit the circuitry, Blade writing speculatively of various measures which would be wise to undertake before Tallbloke tries to put his violated machinery back into use or – even more elegantly – wiping the hard drives and then putting the whole shebang up for online auction with an advertisement specifying their peculiar pedigree (et caveat emptor) to see what sort of bids would come across for these devices, which have now achieved the status of “unique collectors’ items.”
I’d think that there are hackerish folk out there who’d dearly like to get their hands on those laptops and that router just to see if they can suss out what sort of invidious molestations have been perpetrated thereupon by Norfolk’s Finest and the government thugs at higher pay grades in the U.K.’s Geheimewarmerbruderdienst.
I should think that “Anonymous” – whoever in hell they might be – would take great delight in running detailed diagnostics on a private citizen’s property which had been subjected to the cyber equivalent of several days in a police station’s back rooms being worked over with rubber truncheons.
As Blade has reasonably conjectured:
Meaning, of course, that we see the priority for getting thorough forensic examinations of the groped gadgetry undertaken goes way to hellangone up.
Who’s Tallbloke‘s MP? Gonna be really interesting to see what happens if this rises to one of those “questions in the House of Commons” kerfluffles us colonials read about in the mystery novels.
But consider: if the winning bidder on EBay can’t find any bugs or snoopers, would he demand his money back, and/or sue for false advertised implications?
😉
;p