From a Heartland media release:
FEBRUARY 19 — The Heartland Institute has sent legal notices http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/19/heartland-institute-sends-legal-notices-publishers-faked-and-stolen-docume to numerous Web sites, blogs, and publications asking them to take down the stolen and forged documents and what it views as malicious and false commentary based on them.
The following statement by Heartland Institute President Joseph L. Bast may be used for attribution. For more information, contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely “at” heartland.org or 312-377-4000.
_____
“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect Internet fraud, and there is no right to defamatory speech.
“For 28 years, The Heartland Institute has engaged in fierce debates over a wide range of public policies – school reform, health care, telecommunications policy, corporate subsidies, and government waste and fraud, as well as environmental policy. We frequently and happily engage in vigorous, robust debate with those who disagree with our views.
“We have resorted in the past to legal means only in a very few cases involving outright fraud and defamation. The current situation clearly fits that description, and our legal counsel has advised that the first step in defending ourselves should be to ask the blogs to take down the stolen and forged documents.”
President
The Heartland Institute
jbast”at” heartland.org
312-377-4000
_____
The Heartland Institute <http://www.heartland.org> is a 28-year-old national nonprofit organization with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, DC. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site http://www.heartland.org or call 312/377-4000.
====================================================================
Here’s the letter being sent to some websites and bloggers, DeSmog Blog and Greg Laden of ScienceBlogs (already in legal trouble over the Tallbloke libel) both got copies.
February 18, 2012
By e-mail to: editor “at” desmogblog.com
By Federal Express to:
Mr. Brendan G DeMelle
Editor
DeSmog Blog
[street address redacted]
Seattle, WA 98117-2303
Re: Stolen and Faked Heartland Documents
http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy
Dear Mr. DeMelle:
On or about February 14, 2012, your web site posted a document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” (the “Fake Memo”), which is fabricated and false.
On or about the same date, your web site posted certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute (“Heartland”). Heartland has not authenticated these documents (the “Alleged Heartland Documents”).
Your site thereafter has reported repeatedly on all of these documents.
Heartland almost immediately issued a statement disclosing the foregoing information, to which your web site has posted links.
It has come to our attention that all of these documents nevertheless remain on your site and you continue to report on their contents. Please be advised as follows:
1. The Fake Memo document is just that: fake. It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact. Publication of this falsified document is improper and unlawful.
2. As to the Alleged Heartland Documents your web site posted, we are investigating how they came to be in your possession and whether they are authentic or have been altered or fabricated. Though third parties purport to have authenticated them, no one – other than Heartland – has the ability to do so. Several of the documents say on their face that they are confidential documents and all of them were taken from Heartland by improper and fraudulent means. Publication of any and all confidential or altered documents is improper and unlawful.
3. Furthermore, Heartland views the malicious and fraudulent manner in which the documents were obtained and/or thereafter disseminated, as well as the repeated blogs about them, as providing the basis for civil actions against those who obtained and/or disseminated them and blogged about them. Heartland fully intends to pursue all possible actionable civil remedies to the fullest extent of the law.
Therefore, we respectfully demand: (1) that you remove both the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents from your web site; (2) that you remove from your web site all posts that refer or relate in any manner to the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents; (3) that you remove from your web site any and all quotations from the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents; (4) that you publish retractions on your web site of prior postings; and (5) that you remove all such documents from your server.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information.
Very truly yours,
Maureen Martin
General Counsel
original Heartland PDF is here: Tier One – DeMelle
Jim Hogg:
Just how do you propose HI prove they didn’t author the faked memo?
This is such a tempest in a teapot. Even the supposedly incriminating fake document is not particularly noteworthy. It is very weak tea indeed compared to the conspiracies revealed by the Climategate e-mails.
“”””” cui bono says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:11 am
There seem to be three issues here:
(1) Identity theft / fakery by the person who got the documents, fabricated one, and made them public.
(2) Whether a website is entitled to display a fake document when the source institution has stated it is a fake. “””””
There you go cui, writing nonsense: “”””” Whether a website is entitled to display a fake document when the source institution has stated it is a fake. “””””
Um! cui, in this instance, the “source institution” has NOT stated it is a fake; they presented it as a fact. And evidently they are presently un-identified.
Heartland, Institute; which IS NOT the “source institution ” HAS stated it is a fake; and they should know it is since they ARE NOT the source of it.
Understand the difference ?
Steve S says:
“Just how do you propose HI prove they didn’t author the faked memo?”
Lack of motive. Why would they deliberately shoot themselves in the foot?
If this does end up in court, one of the first issues that will be raised by the defense attorney is what efforts did Heartland take to protect it’s rights once it had discovered the theft.
If Heartland did nothing, as many of you are suggesting, the defense attorney would sieze on this failure to act as evidence that Heartland itself did not consider these documents to be important, and the damage to it’s reputation to be trivial.
Tale of the Tape:
1) Heartland Institute: A private advocacy group with a well known bias
2) CRU: A scientific center [snip, over the top], largely publicly funded
1) Phished e-mails/documents from HI show normal political advocacy group activity, that is to say, advocacy
2) Released e-mails/documents from CRU show world-renowned scientists doing exactly what scientists shouldn’t be doing, that is to say, advocacy.
1) HI leak has its most important document shown to be a fabrication
2) CRU leak has it’s owner admit the e-mails are his and genuine
1) HI leak has numerous warmist blogs saying we can’t trust a PAC. (oh we can’t trust a political group? Wow, what else is new desmog?)
2) CRU leak has numerous skeptic blogs displaying prima-facie evidence that we can’t trust climate science.
1) HI issue has major media outlets jumping on the gun VERY QUICKLY do denounce Anthony and HI for their “ill-gotten” funding.
2) CRU leak is going on 3 years and still no major media outlet has given it its due.
1) HI leak demonstrates that skeptics and all their political advocate groups operate on a few tens of millions per year, and that’s stretching it.
2) CRU leak demonstrates that even with many hundred billions of dollars thrown at climate science, the warmists cannot manufacture the truth or even comply with FOIA laws.
@ur momisugly Jimbo 8:55 AM:
The story is someone at HI mistakenly cc’d an email to someone who wasn’t signed on to HI’s confidentiality agreements. It’s like when Rep. Anthony Weiner accidentally tweeted a picture of… well… anyway, he didn’t even try to tell blogs to take the picture down. It was too late.
My opinion is they have every right to be upset with any employee who violated a confidentiality agreement, or any blog that presents the fake document as real, even after HI’s insistence otherwise. But they have no legitimate gripe with any non-HI employee publishing their real memos. First Amendment baby. Go America.
Wait, so if these docs are indeed faked, what right does the HI have to demand their removal?
If the HI wants the docs removed, it will have to confirm which ones are real and which ones are fake. I hope they take it to court, so that the truth can come out once and for all. They will have nothing to hide behind then (including pathetically lame threats in an attempt to cover their behinds).
That’s what soldiers do, when a battle is imminent that they are destined to lose. John Mashey’s report was set to release information that substantially overlapped the leaked Heartland memos,, such that threatening to sue everyone has provided both a plausible excuse, and a media distraction, that has helped Heartland to evade responding to Mashey’s report. As for “who leaked the memos?”, it is plausible that we will never know.
Such tempting tactics are why institutions and persons are utterly untrustworthy, whose core commitment is other than “Be First with the Truth.”
Wow, the HI is getting really, really desperate, making insane threats left and right:
[snip. Will post if you delete personal email info. ~dbs, mod.]
yawn says:
“Wait, so if these docs are indeed faked, what right does the HI have to demand their removal?”
So the mouth-breather wouldn’t mind if I posted on-line a faked document showing him molesting 6-year old boys, along with a photoshopped pic? What right would yawn have to demand their removal?
After reading the response from DeSmog it sure seems that this will only be resolved in court. Time to break out the popcorn!
Whatever.
I’m not American myself, but your attempt to drape yourself in the national flag and enlist military heroes in your attempted defence of theft, fraud and libel seems repellent and tacky to me.
@Smokey
The HI has been extensively posting on the fakery that is Climategate, so their hypocrisy shines through again. Unless, of course, the documents are all correct, as the HI’s actions and statements indicate.
The clown who runs this blog and his fellow climate change belivers have post and threads where is says he will not take his post/threads down with the frake and fraud information on them.
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com
used to be a well known and well liked blog but took a trun for the worst
[snip. You cannot state to another commentator: “You are lying.” without solid proof. You had best tone down your comments. That was strike two. ~dbs, mod.]
Yawn, since the faked document slanders them, they have a right to have it removed from blogs.
As far as this action, it is part of the legal process. This letter is known as a “demand letter”. What this means is that Heartland has definitely decided to pursue legal action, and is operating under the advise of a lawyer(s), not a PR firm. The offending blogs better talk to a lawyer, and I can confidently predict that such a lawyer will tell them to remove the fake document. The documents which have a good chance of being genuine, I don’t know. Depends on the laws. They were obtained by identity theft, so obviously they were illegally obtained. Their lawyer will have to advise them on that.
Wow, the squeaking and squawking from the R.(usty)Gates is as annoying as ever. Particularly this part: “…as well as all the defamatory speech direct toward the scientists involved.”
How can legitimate quotes from real emails be defamatory? Your real beef with this is that the truth came out in the Climategate emails and it was damning, not defaming. Dizzy Dean, among others, once said, “It aint bragging if you can back it up”. Just as clearly, it isn’t defamation if it is the truth.
Aphysicist is only trying once again to hijack a thread for his own purpose.
I have known many Marines in my life including my father. Some of them fought in Iraq. It has been my experience that Marines like to use bluster in their training. This aides in building comradery and a sense of purpose. As Col. Nathan Jessep said in A Few Good Men “We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something .” Powerful words.
That being said, the notion of “Be First with the Truth” might sound good and puff up a few chests but it has very little to do with our armed forces and even less to do with this conversation. Your use of it only shows you for the hypocrite you are.
JC
jim hogg, Glasgow says: February 20, 2012 at 11:14 am
Wouldn’t it be encouraging, inspiring maybe, if there was one organisation out there that was populated by people whose only concern was the achievement of greater understanding – of climate or anything – instead of the pursuit of a particular agenda, ideological or otherwise.
—————————————————
That’s why I come to this website. It’s not perfect, but does an excellent job of portraying the climate facts with long threads of thoughtful discussion, and a few trolls for seasoning.
Ryan says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:09 pm
But they have no legitimate gripe with any non-HI employee publishing their real memos. First Amendment baby. Go America.
So, Ryan, when you write that book and I steal copy and put it on the internet for all to read; that’ll be OK then?
“[snip. Will post if you delete personal email info. ~dbs, mod.]”
Huh? Delete what?
[“denial”?? snip. Read the site Policy and abide by it or your comments go into the spam folder. ~ dbs, mod.]
@McComberBoy
“How can legitimate quotes from real emails be defamatory?”
Correction: Quote-mining and fake quotes. Taking quotes out of context to present them as something they aren’t is extremely dishonest. “Climategate” is nothing but a fake controversy based on quote-mining and misinformation.