Excerpts from Bishop Hill: A major FOI victory
This post is a jointly written effort by myself and Don Keiller.
Readers may remember the Information Commissioner’s ruling last year that UEA had to release the CRUTEM data sent by Phil Jones to Peter Webster at Georgia Tech. This had been requested by Jonathan Jones and Don Keiller.
This ruling was obviously very welcome, but in fact it was not the end of the story. UEA had put forward an argument that CRUTEM data was held under agreements with national meteorological services and could not therefore be disclosed to outsiders. Along with his request for the data, Keiller had therefore also requested the covering email that Phil Jones had sent to Webster, which should presumably contain caveats about reuse and disclosure. However, when the Information Commissioner ordered UEA to release the data, UEA’s non-disclosure of the email was upheld, on the grounds that the information was, on the balance of probablilities, ‘not held’.
However, by the time of the ICO’s ruling, it was clear that CRU had its own backup arrangements – the CRUBACK3 server that was at the centre of the Climategate affair – and it was therefore fairly clear that the email did still exist. UEA were in essence trying to argue that since it was no longer on Phil Jones’ hard drive, it was no longer legally ‘held’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), regardless of its presence on the backup server. Keiller therefore decided to appeal the ICO’s decision to the Information Tribunal. Firstly he had to provide new prima-facie evidence to support the appeal to an internal ICO Appeals Panel, who decide whether there are grounds for an appeal.
…
The tribunal looked at three questions:
- Is it more probable than not that the email sent on or about 15 January 2009 by Professor Jones to Georgia Tech attaching datasets was backed up onto and retained on the Climate Research Unit’s (CRU’s) back-up server prior to this server being taken by the Police?
- Is it more probable than not that the e-mail contained ‘any instructions or stipulations accompanying the sending of datasets’?
- Is there a valid argument that a back-up of an e-mail retained after the original had been deleted from the computer on which it was composed is not ‘held’ for the purposes of the EIR?
The hearing started with Jonathan Colam-French (Director of Information System at UEA) providing evidence about the procedures in place to record, manage and dispose of staff emails. Unfortunately for UEA, the systems described by Mr Colam-French were not in place at the time Jones sent his email to Georgia Tech, a fact uncovered by the otherwise ineffective Muir Russell Report.
In their decision the Tribunal made some pointed remarks about UEA’s evidence, stating that:
The Tribunal were rather disconcerted by the evidence adduced by the UEA on [Question 1]. Jonathan Colam-French had almost no knowledge of the CRU’s back-up system and was simply unable to answer several pertinent questions…
and
…we noted the complete lack of evidence about anything resembling a coherent deletion/retention policy for emails.
On this basis, the tribunal reached their first ruling, namely that the email was more than probably still on the backup server.
…
UEA are now required to approach the Police to see if they will provide a copy of the email in question, and to see if they or someone else will extract it for them. (As another aside, we might note that copies of Jones’ emails and indeed those of Keith Briffa and Tim Osborn have already been provided to the Russell inquiry. I wonder what happened to those copies of the emails or if UEA also received a copy?).
So, the key outcome of this case is that a further precedent has been set. That precedent is that UEA’s refusal to release information on the grounds that under EIR Reg. 12(4)(a) – Information not held, is no longer valid. Backup servers have to be searched.
Full story at Bishop Hill: A major FOI victory
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thepompousgit says:
January 23, 2012 at 1:11 pm
How is all of this true if all these statements refer to the same dataset?
How is all of this true, yet there seems to be no issue whatsoever in creating a temperature index from the data (despite the misgivings of Harry about the quality of the data).
Ross Brisbane @ur momisugly January 23, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Could you please translate that for those of us who have problems understanding druggese? I’m quite sure it’s deep and meaningless, but we’d like to be sure. Just in case…
Wow, how idiotic is this?
CRU is a public institition, WUWT is a private blog. FOI does not apply to WUWT. Duh.
@Rattus Noridicus: only because you weren’t capable of actually reading the article. Had you, you’d have known the appeal had little to do with the data itself, as so many others have already embarrassingly pointed out.
Mark
thepompousgit at 5:45 pm
Thank you for taking the time to read that drivel, and react to it. I didn’t get past the first paragraph at first, but then I read your comment and went back and waded through it.
Good call!
My understanding is Harry destroyed the original data during his part of this comedy of errors.
Mark T says:
Wow, how idiotic is this?
CRU is a public institition, WUWT is a private blog. FOI does not apply to WUWT. Duh.
Mark
Do not be so smug. We well know that Watts Up [snip. Grow up. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip]
I see there are still people who think Ian “Harry” Harris was the programmer.
The Harry-read-Me file was messages from the programmer to Harris.
DaveE.
So, its now down to the Norfolk police………On their performance over the last year or so…….I ain’t holding my breath that long!
Hats off to Rosco – I agree totally
Rosco says:
January 23, 2012 at 1:47 pm
I didn’t think the raw data was the issue anyway but the procedures and analysis used to “coerce” the raw data into the results sets that show “unequivocal evidence” of “unprecedented” warming.
I thought this was the real issue because many well qualified but “non team” scientists tried in vain to reproduce Jones’ results using the raw data and simply requested his assistance to do the most fundamental scientific investigation into ANY theory – verify the claimed results by independent.
As I remember it was then Jones started all his obfuscations – he was a genius but untidy, his office records were a mess, he couldn’t find the stuff anymore – it may have been deleted, it has been deleted, it doesn’t exist.
This is the issue – an analysis of raw data producing results that cannot be independantly reproduced.
To my way of thinking rhis is tantamount to gross scientific fraud – scientific results that cannot be independantly verified are not science – and this needs to be followed to the bitter end no matter whether Jones is right or wrong – it needs independant verification.
My bet is there is another “hide the decline” type trick hiding beneath this sordid tale.
Is the combination of “bold assertions” and “unsupported by evidence” a judicial euphemism for lying?
An interesting excerpt from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee “investigation” into Climategate 1.
Graham Stringer MP (Chair)
Professor Acton (Vice Chancellor, UEA)
“Q94 Graham Stringer: Right. I shall look at that.
Professor Acton, are you satisfied that these questions
weren’t asked, that people in your university were
sending out e-mails suggesting that e-mails should be
deleted and that hasn’t been investigated?
Professor Edward Acton: It has been investigated. I
have asked them and they have assured me that they
have never knowingly deleted e-mails subject to a
request.
Q95 Graham Stringer: Did you ask them under
caution?
Professor Edward Acton: The relationship that I have
with them is rather different. It is absolutely part of
my duty to address that kind of spirit and make sure
I drive it out of the university and establish the facts.
Can those e-mails be produced? Yes, they can. Did
those who might have deleted them say they deleted
them? No. They say they did not. I wanted to be
absolutely sure of those two, and I have established
that to my satisfaction”
So the emails, supposedly in the possession of the Police, can be produced. In fact I have (solid) evidence to support this.
“In the possession of the Police” is another UEA red herring.
And sorry we don’t ask the nice Professor Jones nasty questions.
Doug UK said @ur momisugly January 24, 2012 at 12:54 am
Genius? As Steve McIntyre has pointed out, Jones is engaged in what amounts to accountancy and that hardly requires genius. I recall some years ago that the average temperature of both the northern & southern hemispheres had declined. Jones reported an increase in average temperature. The “unqualified” John Daly pointed out his mistake and it was corrected (sans attribution).
David Evans has it dead right. When I wrote dodgy code on The instructions of my bosses I would leaves messages and clues as to what was really going on. If this were a Raymond Chandler novel Harry would have written the names of the crooks in blood on the floor…
There is no doubt that UEA already have all the relevent emails despite UEA’s Counsel claiming that they would have to go grovelling to the Police to get their eager hands on the emails and the Police may say “no”. Poor dears!
Remember Professor Edward Acton stating (see my previous post)
“Can those e-mails be produced? Yes, they can.”
This is supported by the fact they have already paid for them. (I have the copy of the invoice for £10,469.25, for “Extraction of Emails” sent to and paid for by UEA.) Plus see email correspondence, below.
On 14/04/2010 17:16, “XXXXXX” wrote:
Dear Greg,
Just a heads up. The Review Team discussed this yesterday and we have made a
recommendation to the UEA Vice‐Chancellor (who in DPA terms owns this
information on behalf of the University) that Qinetiq should be asked to
proceed but just for three machines (those of Prof Jones, Prof Briffa and Dr
Osborn). We have also suggested hiring a (highly reputable) independent
forensic analyst to carry out a targeted search of this limited set of e‐mails
on behalf both of the University and the Review Team We await a response from
UEA…
From: XXXXX
Sent: 20 April 2010 13:50
To: XXXXXX
CC: ALASTAIRMUIRRUSSELL;
Subject: Qinetiq contract
Dear Greg,
Further to the e‐mail below, UEA have just confirmed that they would like to go
ahead, but only subject to the information being made available quickly to the
independent analyst. They would need to have the information from Qinetiq
(presumably on a portable hard disk) no later than next Monday 26th April.
As I suggested below, we would want Qinetiq to make available all of the e‐mails
held (sent, received, or otherwise stored) in the backups held of the PCs of just
three individuals. Those three individuals to be: Prof.
Phillip Jones, Prof. Keith Briffa and Dr. Tim Osbourn. These three are the
significant focus for the e‐mails already in the public domain.
Could you please confirm with Qinetiq that they can meet these requirements and the
timescale?
This is an important precedent.
However, of utmost concern is that the UK Parliament is presently debating FOI requests and is seriously considering revising legislation that would restrict their availability.
Somehow, this threatened restraint on Freedom needs to be resisted. People in the UK should write to their local MP noting their concern and expressing a view that FOI requests should not be restricted.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
“In case you guys didn’t know, the CRU data was released (and is available on the Met Office site) last July.”
Another classic example of the Team’s smoke & mirrors misdirection and obfuscation campaign. How many times have we seen this same song & dance from Mike Mann, Phil Jones, and other members of the Team? Their data is always available somewhere on the web – NOT! There’s no way to know if the data on the Met Office site is the data sought in the FOI request unless it’s compared to the data attached to the actual e-mail.
Rattus: If they released the data last July, why were they still fighting its release in court?!
Louis, Professor Jonathan Jones (not to be confused with Professor Phil Jones) and I forced UEA to release the CRUTEM dataset last summer as a result of ICO decision FER0280033 (see here) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=FER0280033&gbv=2&oq=FER0280033&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=2313l2313l0l3328l1l1l0l0l0l0l109l109l0.1l1l0
My appeal was for the covering email sent with the data, which the ICO rejected.
The importance of the Judgement is that it sets precedent- as described on this legal blog
http://www.panopticonblog.com/2012/01/23/climategate-in-the-tribunal-deleted
CLIMATEGATE IN THE TRIBUNAL: DELETED EMAILS ON BACKUP SERVERS ARE “HELD”
January 23rd, 2012
The “Climategate” scandal surrounding the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has received extensive media coverage. The Unit’s computer servers were hacked into in late 2009 (around the time of the Copenhagen Summit). Following the posting of much of this material on the internet, it was alleged that, in some instances, the scientific data had been manipulated so as to produce conclusions in support of the existence of climate change, or to suppress conclusions pointing the other way. FOI requests were inevitable.
The scandal has now surfaced at Tribunal level. Keiller v IC and University of East Anglia (EA/2011/0152) is an important decision, not only because of the underlying scandal, but because it deals with the thorny question of whether or not deleted emails which still exist on back-up servers are “held” for FOIA purposes.
This question must be answered, by all Jones apologists, before anyone listens to anything else they offer. GK
methinks, they doth protest too much.
Normally in my experience if it does not smell right, it is not right.
perhaps corruption may come to light here. fraud most certainly.
Mods!!!!!!!!!!! check THIS out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Environment
Climate change scepticism
Climate scientists back call for sceptic thinktank to reveal backers
Leading experts lend support to Freedom of Information request concerning climate sceptic foundation chaired by Lord Lawson
reddit this
Leo Hickman
The Guardian, Monday 23 January 2012
Article history
Lord Lawson
Former Chancellor and Conservative politician Lord Lawson, who chairs the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson.
James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies who first warned the world about the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, has joined other scientists in submitting statements to be considered by a judge at the Information Rights Tribunal on Friday. They will argue that Lawson’s foundation routinely misrepresents and casts doubt on the work of climate scientists. Their statements will form part of the supporting evidence being presented by an investigative journalist who is appealing against an earlier rejection of his FOI request to the Charity Commission for it to make public a bank statement it holds revealing the name of the educational charity’s seed donor, who gave £50,000 when it launched in 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/23/climate-sceptic-lawson-thinktank-funding?CMP=EMCENVEML1631
hmm, down the bottom of the above story the crowd behind the crowd doing this PR stunt, is
unLtd..who have 100mil uk pounds from?
millenium mob.
smelling fishy?
So the bottom line is:
What’s to prevent somebody now from requesting the WHOLE BACKUP SERVER? (“Um, pardon me, but while you’re looking for that email, would you mind making a mirror image of the entire disk? Yes, the entire disk! Thanks!”)
Nothing prevents it now. And it shouldn’t cost anybody down at the police station that much to do it, either.
Egads!