While I was a bit busy with other things (my PBS interview generated quite a lot of interest as well as hate mail) there was other news. Most notable was the ruling against ATI’s FOIA case with the University of Virginia. I don’t have any press release yet from ATI, but I’ll pass it along when it becomes available. Here’s a summary from ClimateScienceWatch, who seemed giddy at the news:
A Virginia court has affirmed the University of Virginia’s right to withhold confidential scholarly communications, thus ruling against the global warming denialist American Tradition Institute’s demand to make public climate scientist Michael Mann’s documents and email correspondence with dozens of other scientists during his time at UVa. This is an important victory in a case that threatened to send a chilling message to university scholars that they could no longer expect to engage in personal communications without having the whole world reading over their shoulders.
John Brookes inquires:
“So will the harassment of Dr Mann continue?”
As long as he continues to engage in Zohnerism to forward a cause while claiming to be a scientist, he’ll be harassed.
“Climate science is surely the most [scrutinized] area of science now.”
No. Medical research is orders of magnitude more scrutinized and there’s still “frauds” perpetrated in that field as well.
”Aren’t you skeptics just harassing him because you don’t like his message?”
No, we’re harassing him because we don’t like his methods. There’s nothing particularly egregious about the message itself. It’s not as if Mann is saying slavery is good or something particularly mala per se. The Mann message is basically that the world is warming unprecedentedly due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions that if not severely controlled will cause catastrophic consequences. There’s nothing particularly harassment worthy in that message except for it simply not being substantially supported by sound scientific inquiry. Like the man who shouts fire in the crowded theater, if there’s a fire he’s a hero, but if there’s not he’s a criminal certainly deserving of more than harassment, but what if there’s a little smoke or some other indication that there might be a fire even if there really isn’t a fire worthy of panicked evacuation, then our fire shouting man is an alarmist that’s probably going to at least get some well deserved harassment.
So, what is Mann; hero, criminal, or alarmist?
The WashPo and alarmist mongerers are truly lost.
This judge walks a very fine fence line. If he found that all information was FOI accessible, then he endangered the ‘proprietary’ exemption. Instead he has found for the proprietary information with a broad brush.
In other words, he felt it was not his position to dictate precedence in this case. He found that the proprietary information is ‘exempt’, for all time if need be. This is in spite of the Federal law and precedence rulings are for the broadest transparency findings.
The judge’s ruling is handed to UVA to write up. Why? Because it is UVA that must decide what is ‘propietary’ and what is not. All communications without propietary information should be turned over to ATI.
When this case goes forward, and it will, a key determinant for the next ruling will be whether UVA truly releases non-propietary emails and files. A release that should be substantial since Mann is not working on UVA research and apparently neither is UVA. Failure to be honest about what constitutes proprietary information and we can expect the next ruling (or a future one in Federal court where FOI law is derived from) and we can expect a precedence ruling along the lines of “UVA must prove ‘propietary’ for each and every email.
UVA (Forget Manniacal, he is now irrelevant to UVA emails courtesy the Virginia Judge) now walks a thinner fence than the Judge did. Release the bulk of the emails and ATI may consider the suit complete. Release only what they’ve been forced too so far and let the High Courts force the issue.
Lurking, perhaps ever lurking, are the emails the mysterious FOIA’d whistle blower contructed into a sword of Damocles. If thee are not honest UVA, dishonor and perdition await!
I wrote:
Mod. replied
Just to clarify: it is ‘Guest Post’ articles I’m talking about, not posts in the comment section. Would it be better to submit these by email? And if so either
1. As an RTF file with images embedded.
OR
2. In plain text, but with basic formatting as described on the WUWT Test page.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/test-2/
And with images as email attachments and their place in the body of the article marked by, for example, [IMAGE 1] … [IMAGE 2].
@richardscourtney
@Political Junkie
Indeed, it seems I may have jumped the judicial gun. My apologies. Political Junkie is quite right, it appears that the appeal will be to a higher court in Virginia. Here, I’m way not sure what the deal is with any appeal. It may be that the appeal has to be heard, or the higher court may deny the writ with no explanation; anyone out there practicing law in VA care to chime in?
Richard, the methodology by which SCOTUS chooses its cases is almost entirely unknown. It may involve ouija boards for all anyone knows. The general theory is that they look for cases that speak to important constitutional issues and are “ripe” for action. There is nothing in the US constitution that requires them to take an appeal, although they do have original jurisdiction in cases involving ambassadors, public consuls and ministers, and between states. See Article III Section 2. for more information.
Well, that lays a justifying foundation block in why taxpayer dollars should NEVER be given to a university.
Defund the whole lot of them. With their tuition rates increasing at greater than inflation rates, they don’t need to be augmented by taxpayer funds… AT ALL.
I dunno…I just get the feeling that the folk over at climatesciencewatch and desmog would certainly be the sorts of people 100% in support of the ‘Ecuadorian’, Julian Assange….
Yes, they sure are. Not to mention enablers.
It is pretty stunning isn’t it? Do you think they even realize that by acting as Mann groupies they have placed themselves squarely against the concept of FOI – Freedom Of Information ?
Yeah, that helps to legitimize their case. NOT.
D. J. Hawkins:
re your answers to me at September 18, 2012 at 10:18 am
Thankyou.
Richard
I visited the Virginia’s court web sites to see if there have been any final rulings available for this case.
http://www.courts.state.va.us/courts/circuit/Prince_William/home.html
This case:Case Number: CL11003236-00
Still has an open slot where the final ruling should be.
What I went looking for is what the final determination was for ATI’s petition for immediate release of the records in question since UVA sent copies to the Manniacal one. As I recall, the ruling was deferred, but the situation is still there in that UVA shared (publicly) the FOI’d material with a private party outside UVA. This violation of FOI material is still pending, perhaps ATI will resubmit?
I note that the law (http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?000+cod+TOC02020000037000000000000) provides for:
UVA MUST provide a preponderance of evidence for ‘proprietary’ exemption. Their ‘saying so’ is insufficient. (papragraph E.)
ATI is entitled to seek reasonable recovery of court costs. (paragraph D.)
I will love reading the final ruling, but for now I think UVA has been given plenty of rope to hang themselves. Let the obstructionists cheer the ruling. They may think it is an exoneration, from this perspective I think the defendent is expected to build their own gallows.
David, submit your post as an MS Word file with your figures embedded in the text, where you want them. Anthony has an application that will convert your document to HTML.
Anthony,
Here’s the Viginia code specifying “exemptions” to FOI requests:
The whole arguement now hinges on (#4) above, unless the University
of Virginia appeals the court’s winnowing the issues to just this provision.
@ur momisugly chris y (September 18, 2012 at 5:50 am)
Thx for the compliment; duly returned!
Sorry to hear your posting was censored on DE; did your Tobis repost contain abusive language?
Kurt in Switzerland
Deeper, darker and ever more obtuse. I’ve, er, wasted a good part of my day seeking a firm definition of the word ‘proprietary’ as defined under Virginia law.
Surprisingly, or not, I did not locate a clear or even vague definition. There is, however, a reference to ‘Intellectual Property’ or ‘copyright’ in University of Virginia regulations. No UVA reference to proprietary exists alone.
https://policy.itc.virginia.edu/policy/policydisplay?id='RES-001 defines the University’s policy on copyright. (It’s the University’s unless they say otherwise).
And http://www.virginia.edu/vpr/adminproc.html defines the administrative procedures for implementing copyright. There is a vague concept that yearly reports identify copyrightable material.
Further searching identified this very interesting source:
http://www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/propriet.htm
Yup! NOAA has a page defining ‘proprietary’.
NOAA has a subsection specifically defining ‘proprietary’ under FOIA exemption 4. (Federal I’m certain)
An interesting and perhaps extremely important sub-definition by NOAA is:
Proprietary in most of these cases basically means a property important to one’s financial interest as in earns the owner money.
Property as defined by the University of Virginia means that they sought/seek copyright status so that they might derive income to recompense their research expenses.
Further obstruction acts by UVA in blocking release of emails because of ‘proprietary’ contents is a very dangerous game they play. As each and every identification of ‘proprietary’ means information (property) they (UVA) can derive income from. Whether by Federal legal definition (NOAA above) or by UVA’s own definition, they have a very small playground to play games on.
To John Brookes and any others who are pro-Mann.
Mann would be a hero if he had data and shared it. If the world was arriving at a tipping point that needed worldwide cooperation, it is irresponsible to hold back. “For God’s sake, look at the data!” should be his cry. “Here!”
He could clear up any discontent in a day or two. If the data was sound, it would shut the skeptics up, right? But no. The world is coming to a tipping point and he’s quibbling? “No, it’s mine!” is what he’s saying, like a child clinging to a teddybear.
That’s like the person shouting “Fire!” in a theatre following it up by saying. “I can see where it is but I won’t tell you. I won’t! I won’t!”
That’s childish and extreme and SHAME ON YOU for not even questioning such irresponsibility. You need to be jumping all over Mann on why he won’t just show us what he claims he’s got and clear up the confusion he thinks we’re suffering from. That goes for the rest of the data-huggers, too.
FF’s sake, I’d respect warmists more if they grew some balls and started asking questions in the right places instead of questioning the questioners. Get on with it!
John Brookes –Thanks for using the term skeptic as opposed to denier and also alarmist should not be used.
Does it not seen odd to you that scientists with different points of view are not sitting down at the same table? We have a situation in which whatever course of action we take or do not take may effect the entire population of the world and some people are concerned with their own stature and write about climate wars. There would be no war if one realizes that there is no enemy and simply invite the most skeptical (if qualified) to the table to determine what is known and to what degree of certainty. – or perhaps uncertainty. More is done in the least amount of time when everything is put on the table.
When considering all of humanity, it should not be about Michael Mann or his ego, It should be about what he has done and what he (and the team) is (are) doing.
I have never met Michael Mann and perhaps what I am about to say is therefore unfair, but from the viewpoint of one who has seen the horror of conflict, his actions seem to be that of a very small person, in fact a spoiled child, and not that of an esteemed scientist. He can do better.
I would like him to start to prove me wrong.
I agree with
richardscourtney says:
September 18, 2012 at 3:27 am
I also agree with
RB says:
September 18, 2012 at 9:18 am
This case is proceeding under an expected appeal. What the trial court did was remove the two most significant arguments to allow this information to remain private and allowed a narrow legal issue of a term’s definition to be the basis of a more final ruling. So he has cut out all of the BS and basically said there is only one legal issue that could legitimately be used to keep these communications secret. Along the way he has apparently peppered the transcripts with his negative views of Mann’s chosen mode of current involvement, that would not be lost in a future court’s review.
BTW, what is the makeup of the appellate courts in VA?