Fakegate: Open Letter to Directors of the Pacific Institute
FEBRUARY 29, 2012 – Today, The Heartland Institute sent the letter below to the following members of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute:
Peter Boyer, Trustee, The Ayrshire Foundation
Gigi Coe, Trust for Conservative Innovation
Joan Diamond, Chairperson, The Nautilus Institute
Anne Ehrlich, Senior Research Associate, Stanford University
Eric Gimon, Department of Physics, University of California – Berkeley
Corey Goodman, Managing Director, venBio LLC
Margaret Gordon, Second Vice-President, Port of Oakland
Malo Andre Hutson, Affiliated Faculty, University of California
Olivier Marie, Business Strategist, Haas School of Business
Richard Morrison, California Advisory Board, The Trust for Public Land
Robert Stephens, President, MSWG, Inc.
Michael Watts, Geography Department, University of California, Berkeley
We will post at www.fakegate.org any replies we receive. Previous press releases from The Heartland Institute plus links to dozens of news reports and commentary on Gleick’s transgressions can be reviewed at Fakegate.org. The Heartland Institute 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 or call 312/377-4000.
February 29, 2012
Dear _________:
On February 27, the Pacific Institute made the following announcement:
The Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute is deeply concerned regarding recent events involving its president, Dr. Peter Gleick, and has hired an independent firm to review the allegations. The Board has agreed to Dr. Gleick’s request for a temporary leave of absence …
The Heartland Institute’s staff, directors, donors, and other victims of Mr. Gleick’s crime look forward to reviewing the outcome of your investigation. Please confirm that you intend to make public the results of your investigation.
I hope that you and the firm you have hired will pay special attention to the documents I have enclosed:
- The emails Gleick exchanged with Heartland prior to committing his crime, in which he was respectfully invited to debate Heartland Senior Fellow James M. Taylor on the issue of climate change at Heartland’s anniversary benefit event in August. In these emails, Gleick is informed of Heartland’s policies regarding the confidentiality of its donors and why we adopted that policy. Gleick declined the invitation to debate.
- The emails Gleick used to steal documents intended to be read only by members of Heartland’s board of directors. Gleick falsely assumed the identity of a member of Heartland’s board on the same day (January 27) that he declined the invitation to debate climate change with Taylor.
- The forged memo Gleick included with the stolen documents and falsely represented, in his message accompanying the documents to 15 allies and journalists, to have come from The Heartland Institute. I have highlighted the forger’s own words, as opposed to text that was copied and pasted from the stolen documents, and included my own analysis of this fraudulent document.
- Gleick’s partial confession, in which he admits to having stolen the documents but claims that the memo, which he previously said came from The Heartland Institute, came “in the mail” from an anonymous source. He claims he stole documents because “a rational public debate is desperately needed,” a debate he had just declined to participate in. He offers his “personal apologies to all those affected,” presumably including people he knew his actions had put in harm’s way. He does not say or offer to do anything that would limit or undo the harm he caused.
I hope you will tell me, as you review these documents, if you recognize the author of the highlighted text of the forged memo, and if you believe Gleick received it from an anonymous source, and if you believe Gleick has shown any personal remorse for what he has done.
Finally, please pass along the following questions to the “independent” firm you hired to investigate Gleick:
- Did Gleick use Pacific Institute computers to establish the Gmail email account under the name of a Heartland board member?
- Did Gleick use Pacific Institute computers to establish the Gmail email account under the name of “heartlandinsider@gmail.com,” which he used to send the fake memo and the stolen documents to 15 media outlets?
- Does the investigative firm intend to examine whether Gleick is the author of the fake memo?
- Does the outside firm have access to all of the personal computers Gleick may have used to write and send the emails or to write the forged memo?
- Is the fake memo or any trace of it on Gleick’s personal computer(s)?
- Is the fake memo or any trace of it on the Pacific Institute’s computer system?
- Is there evidence (as a blogger says) that the fake memo was scanned into a PDF document on a scanner at the Pacific Institute?
- Does the Pacific Institute have possession of the hard copy of the fake memo or the envelope in which it was supposedly sent?
- What steps does the Pacific Institute plan to take to preserve these and other documents relevant to the investigation?
Sincerely,
Joseph L. Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
=============================================================
NOTE: Michael Watts, Geography Department, University of California, Berkeley is no relation to Anthony Watts, proprietor of this blog – Anthony
Related articles
- Heartland Institute Releases Peter Gleick Emails Detailing Fraud, Identity Theft (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Megan McArdle gives Mosher and the blogosphere props for pointing to Gleick (wattsupwiththat.com)
- NCSE accepts Gleick’s resignation (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Tricks at the Pacific Institute (climateaudit.org)
- BREAKING: Gleick Confesses (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Heartland’s Invitation to Gleick – Details (climateaudit.org)
- 18 U.s.c. 1343 (climateaudit.org)
- Gleick and the NCSE (climateaudit.org)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
ChE says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Not at all – if there’s a .doc file that is the source of the scanned document, then that would be very telling, especially if its last modified date predates the scanned .pdf.
At this point, you’d probably have to look at deleted files….
“ChE says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:43 pm
If the fake memo was written on a PI computer there would be evidence of that.
We know that it was scanned, so that’s moot.”
—
The assumption by many is that Peter Gleick used a PI computer to draft the fake memo, printed it out and then scanned it back in. This was presumably done to remove the metadata that is embedded in all files.
There would still be ample evidence on whatever computer this file was written on, even if the file had been deleted. There are dozens of places that information about files is stored. The average user might not know this.
dfbaskwill
February 29, 2012 at 11:06 am
Peter’s last name ‘Gleik’ used to rhyme with click but now when he says it, it sounds more like “Mud” (as in Dr. Samuel Mudd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Mudd)
The size 11 shoe in his mouth makes it come out that way.
It’s Gleick as in dycke.
HI sent me a link so that I could donate via Paypal.
NPR had some ‘splain’n to do last week when they announced that their frequent on-air guest on matters of climate ethics had just admitted to lying and stealing. They pronounced his name as rhyming with ‘click’.
I’m assuming that this letter from Joseph Bast is written with the full agreement of lawyers working behind the scenes. I cannot imagine that Bast would not, from the start, have worked together with lawyers.
This case is unusual, in that normally the prosecution’s work is done by a small unit AFAIK, even in Watergate we did not see the phenomenon of crowdsourcing to produce evidence that can be used by the prosecution, as we have seen here.
This crowdsourcing has happened for another reason, which also makes this situation unique. For far too long, corruption has reigned in Climate Science. Hamlet’s uncle is still on the throne. All those loyal to the truth have been driven out into exile, into blogland. And from blogland, we are calling out the pieces of evidence, knowing how important it is that this ring of corruption be broken, and, I guess, sensing that it will take a court case to do this, since every single “investigation” so far has proved to be yet more corruption.
This is a moment of history, and I very much doubt that this reality is lost on Bast. He must know he has to practice ethical strategy first, middle and last at this moment in time, and that he needs all the legal wisdom he can find, to do this.
True enough, and presumably the real letter from the lawyer makes it clear that all documents must be preserved. That would include hard disks. And Gleick probably isn’t swift enough to actually scrub the disk. There wasn’t any doubt left by the public letter from Bast that HI isn’t accepting the cock-and-bull story about the fake being mailed to Gleick, and they’re going for discovery.
This is going to get interesting. PI will hang him out to dry rather than submit to discovery. Gleick might as well sing now.
26south says:
February 29, 2012 at 4:47 pm
“If Heartland don’t sue and win they have lost. Legal action is the only way to make the MSM and warmists unable to bury this story.”
______________________________________
Whether the story gets buried by the MSM, or not, the AGW supporters general websites and blogs are still routinely bashing HI and praising Gleick. They all parrot the meme that HI is the bad old propagandist trying to warp young minds in the classroom while funded with tons of dirty oil money.
You can count on the leftys to alter the truth and include a healthy dose of hateful and poisonous rhetoric, as always.
Paul Erhlich is an honorary director of the David Suzuki Foundation. The DSF, I understand, financially supports the Pacific Institute. Now it makes sense.
Perhaps the source of the faked memo is the DSF? That would be rich. The DSF is based in the Pacific time-zone, is it not? And the DSF would have regular mail deliveries to the Pacific Institute, possibly delivered by hand. No postmark ….
I’d pronounce it as seemed appropriate, so I say with a long “I” sound, rhyming with “mike”. Don’t really care how he pronounces it.
Another example comes to mind, Favre.
mpaul says:
February 29, 2012 at 5:57 pm
What did their ‘splainin’ consist of?
Proctor says:
February 29, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Paul Erhlich is an honorary director of the David Suzuki Foundation. The DSF, I understand, financially supports the Pacific Institute.
If PI comes down, will others follow?
RICO, anyone?
PronounceNames.com does not guarantee the accuracy
of any names and pronunciation on this website
Home | Lookup Pronunciation | Submit Pronunciation | Browse Names
Gleick
The pronunciation of Gleick is not known
Would you like to submit the pronunciation of Gleick?
“I pronounce him “Guilty” as charged.”
Would you like to request the pronunciation of Gleick?
“I request 15 years.”
Lookup pronunciation of another name:
“Mann…”
I don’t know why some here assume the “public” correspondence is a replacement for legal correspondence, as though The Heartland Institute cannot walk and chew gum simultaneously. Granted, it is common practice to restrict all communication to lawyers… BUT when their reputation and financial viability are under such sustained dishonest assaults they may have decided they cannot afford to work only the slow back-channel routes of lawyers’ letters. HI clearly see the need to defend their work, personnel, donors, and mission vigorously in public while the legal proceedings may be proceeding. I expect such letters are also being sent, though.
p.s. A note on relevant pronunciations:
Peter Gleick (rhymes with “prick”) is rather glum (rhymes with “scum”) because his plot (rhymes with “snot”) has not proved strong (rhymes with “wrong”) and so he’s earned a major FAIL (rhymes with “jail”). [not implying i possess any predictive powers about what will happen to him with the legal system]
“NOTE: Michael Watts, Geography Department, University of California, Berkeley is no relation to Anthony Watts, proprietor of this blog – Anthony”
Ha ha!
I was just wandering whether Anne Ehrlich (Pacific Institute board member) had any relation to a certain Paul Ehrlich.
It turns out she is his wife.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_H._Ehrlich
HI should also ask if there’s evidence that PG has done this before.
Here’s a startling (to me) thought: Maybe PG was inspired by others in his clique telling him of their successful phishing exploits. Why haven’t we heard of them blowing the whistle and reaping the publicity? Maybe because, if they found embarrassing material, they used it to make their victims buy their silence by donating to green foundations and causes.
This is a matter that deserves private inquiries directed at in-the-know insiders in big corporate donors to the green cause. I hope the question is repeatedly raised in the skeptical media.
Boudumoon at 10 40 am says:
Still unsure about pronunciation. Is it Gleick as in weak / leak, or is it Gleick as in fake / rake, or yet Gleick as in thick / dick ?
In our northeast Scottish dialect “Buchan” we have the wonderful word “glaikit” which means stupid, foolish, giddy. To glaik (rhymes with fake) can also mean to cheat. This is from the same root as Shakespeare uses when he says “gleek” as in Midsummer nights dream (see comment by Steve McIntyre)
Re: name pronunciation, just think of of:
“Mike’s nature trick”
“Gleick’s phishing trip”
The names rhyme.
To all those who thought the letter should have come from an attorney instead of the Board of the Heartland Institute. I am fairly confident the letter was written by an attorney and sent by the board of Heartland to the Pacific institute. Why? Because the questions they ask in the letter appear to be a partial list of the first set of interogatories that each board member and officer of the Pacific Insititute will be required to answer in a lawsuit. Further, the letter is a veiled threat to the Pacific Institute to not destroy any evidence or work product of the independent investigators because the Heartland Institiute will want that information as discovery in the lawsuit. Further that each director and the the employees of the Pacific Institute should not engage in distruction of evidence which could be grounds for a criminal obstruction of justice charge if Glieck is prosecuted and could have civil implications as well.
What is not stated in the letter but implied is that each of the Directors of the Pacific Institute should check the limits of their E&O coverage and determine whether they personally had anything to do with Glieck’s actions and that since their are criminal aspects to the potential charges, their E&O coverage will not protect them and they will be personally liable under the fiduciary standards applicable to a director of a not for profit.
The letter is the functional equivalent of letting your intended target watch you load your gun just before you unload the entire clip in their direction. I thought it was a great letter.
“Does the Pacific Institute have possession of the hard copy of the fake memo or the envelope in which it was supposedly sent?
It is not likely that the memo was ever inside a standard envelope because the scan would have shown evidence of this as marks or lines dividing the documents into thirds (see below). Those are not present in the PDF document.
I have a high end Epson Scanner that I use to proof my Negatives and Slides for my large format photography so I am intimately familiar with how Epson Scan works. I examined the PDF of the memo at high magnification, then I ran some tests on my own scanner. Epson Scan is able to save to PDF directly, so there are no intermediate TIFF files or other software involved. In all probability the memo was saved directly to PDF using 300 DPI and High Compression. The size of the memo PDF file matches those parameters. The software version in the memo properties tells me that the Epson Scan software used is newer than mine, and that might point to an all-in-one Epson machine, rather than a flatbed scanner like mine.
I have attached a screen image from my computer showing the rough first draft of this post which I printed, folded and scanned. The arrows in the image linked below point to the folding marks my scanner captured.
http://www.josesuroeditorial.com/Other/Tests/1138678_zJt5bk/16/1731552107_hG9zCD7/Original
My question is: Does the Pacific Institute or Gleick own an Epson all-in-one machine?
Best,
Jose
People will first forget how to pronounce his name; then they will forget his name; then they will forget what he did; then they will forget him.
“If your name is ________________ , and this story is about a __________________ , there is no such thing as media bias. This story transcended media bias.” From June 2011 interview with Andrew Breitbart.
Fill in the blank with the most recent subject of public opprobium. Remember the “e/i” rule: “Use i before e, except in cases of infamy”
Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart dies at 43
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 11:46 AM EST, Thu March 1, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/01/politics/breitbart-obit/index.html
Louparte at CA
In my opinion, (I’m a lawyer w/federal criminal defense experience in wire fraud cases), a US Attorney would not bring charges on this. An important reason would be that federal jury verdicts must be unanimous. All jurors must agree to convict. That would be a very tall order for a prosecutor in Gleick’s case. Another reason would be that Gleick had no intent for pecuniary gain.
I agree that the offense fits into the language of 1343. But even if you disregard the intent issue, it would be nearly impossible to find a jury that would unanimously convict Gleick on a polarizing issue like this.
It looks like a rock solid ciivil case though. Law suits don’t depend on prosecutorial discretion.
Sue the jerk from all directions. Take him for all he’s worth. Make him squirm in a deposition. Make the board members of organizations he was affiliated with squirm. That’s doable. Getting a federal prosecutor to indict will be a lot more difficult.
An open letter from the Pacific Institute to Heartland Institute:
“The directors of the Pacific Institute are extremely disappointed about what has happened.
“We are disappointed that you have on numerous occasions attempted to spread disinformation about climate science.
“We are disappointed in the way you have smeared the reputation of a good and ethical man. For it is no less than your willful spreading of disinformation that has forced Peter Glieck to take the courageous steps he has taken. You have forced Peter to impersonate a director and steal your confidential documents.
“Now that His Ethicalness has been forced into a prolonged vacation, he is considering what steps he should take in order to receive redress from the wrongs you have done to him. We have received a text from Hawaii where he is forced to endure hours of relentless sunshine which has been especially painful, since it reminds him of global warming, and everything you have done to prevent meaninful action.
“However, His Ethicalness has noted, with irony, that because you forced him to steal your documents, it has rebounded on you terribly. He notes the high praise he has been afforded in the media – Andrew Revkin has called his actions “creditable”, and that is the least complimentary of them. It would not be an exageration to say that His Ethicalness has been feted and the whole tawdry affair of your spreading of misinformation is now the news story of the year. It is there for all to see.
Yours etc, PI”
[Disclaimer: This is not really an open letter from PI. I never phished or hacked it, but I did make it up. It is fake]
Heartland Institute makes Richard Nixon look like a saint.
REPLY: and you give angry clueless people a bad name.