Your tax dollars at work….wait, not “at work”, but, um…
Guest post by Christopher Horner, CEI
Funny how so many people at NOAA have the same hobby they work on on taxpayer-provided assets on taxpayer time directly related to their taxpayer-funded position.
But it’s OK. The American Meteorological Society is increasingly a sober, science-based organization, run by sober, apolitical science-types.
And, as I reminded NOAA in my appeal just denied today (see below), when seeking emails showing NOAA employees’ use of taxpayer assets to develop AMS’s advocacy documents, NOAA brags on its staff’s participation in and work for AMS. (NOAA waived this away as, well, ok, true, “at times”, apparently just not the times that matter).
Just as AMS touts their officers’ NOAA credential in presenting them to the world. But that’s not related to their work at AMS. Or NOAA. Except when it is.
But, despite these things and that, well, the documents were also created on agency time and held by the agency, always under the agency’s control (after all, how else did they inspect these 116 documents that are not under their control or obtained by them?), they really, well, erm…weren’t. Because NOAA was only “technically” able to pull and inspect them.
So, you see, our saying that possession “automatically” made them government records — which, ok, we didn’t actually say, but instead pointed to numerous factors including the above — is not persuasive.
You see, NOAA’s resident climate activists are like academics at public universities apparently getting a bit tired of having the “string” they agreed to of scrutiny, of how they use taxpayer time and assets, actually invoked. And have laid down the law to their nominal supervisors.
Which some of you may have been under the impression included us, the taxpayers. Well, you were wrong. Some employers have the right to see how their assets are being used. Just not you. When it comes to them.
So, no. No, these aren’t work-related records. Really. And as Attorney General Holder promised, FOIA will not, repeat not be used as ways to withhold records. It just won’t. Except when it is.
Evaluation of costs and benefits of suing to follow. But these contortions by the most transparent administration, ever (still claimed, as of yesterday! Let’s go to the evidence, here) are, on their own, priceless.
CEI_NOAA_AMS_Records_Appeal PDF
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Aargh!! I seem to have failed to close the italics properly at the end of the first paragraph. Mods, please feel free to correct my poor work. Thanks.
Well that’s all very confused.
So why is Chris assuming that anyone who produces a document that contradicts his party line must be activist and by implication making stuff up.
If this was geographical survey and they produced a report which says the earth is round, should we believe Chris’ claim they must be activists because he believes the earth is flat.
Chris really needs to sort out his logic. To many assumptions. To many wild extrapolations. Evidence zilch.
Until Chris has actually surveyed the employees of NOAA his evidence is zilch and simple story telling.
But these contortions by the most transparent administration, ever (still claimed, as of yesterday!
———-
Well if you abuse the FOI system for political gain, eventually people will get fed up and withdraw your privileges. Maybe you should stop and think about the consequences of your actions.
Here is a riddle for you all. How many FOI requests did Chris issue when the Bush administration was in power?
“……do not follow a multitude into Sin….”
Alfred
Do not feed the troll (i.e. LazyTeenager).
@lazy teenager
As many as he damn well please’s and thinks right to expose possible fraud and cover-up and mis use of taxpayers dollars.
If FOI covered private emails, the boot would be on the other foot and you’d be championing the act!!
Hypocrite!!
ferd berple says:
February 16, 2013 at 11:09 am
……Have an important building in the background. Place an add in the local universities for participants. transport and lunch provided……
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Make the building the Supreme Court.
barry says:
February 16, 2013 at 4:14 pm
‘The NOAA argument rests on a notion unreferred to by Chris Horner.
“Just because documents can be located in NOAA’s computer system does not mean that the records cannot be personal.”
Just because postal employees work for the government does not mean that their letters should be public property, whether they wrote the letters at work or elsewhere. Not should any emails of a personal or private nature be the property of government or Joe Public just because they happen to have been created on, reside in, or have passed through, a government (publicly) owned conduit. What is needed is an independent assessment of whether the correspondence is personal or work-related.’
Say what? It has been established law for some time that emails created “on the clock” or using company equipment at any time belong to the company. Such emails are the responsibility of the company. If the email is on a company server then it belongs to the company.
barry says:
February 16, 2013 at 4:14 pm
“Just because postal employees work for the government does not mean that their letters should be public property, whether they wrote the letters at work or elsewhere.”
Do you really believe that USPS or any employer does not read the emails created on company equipment? Unbelievably naive. Every organization, public or private, audits the emails that are created on site or sent to the site. No, they will not tell you they are doing this but be very nice to the people in IT.
If you are really interested in this topic and other hot topics of EPA misbehavior, check out:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/17/epas-secret-and-costly-sue-and-settle-collusion-with-environmental-organizations/
Mr. Horner and Lisa herself appear toward the end of the article.
Were the relevant email documents all moved into folders denoted as “personal” or “private” or did they remain in the general “inbox” category (or similarly work-related folders)?
Does NOAA have an official policy regarding the creation and preservation of personal emails on government-maintained computers that distinguishes this category from official records and archiving requirements?
Did these employees call upon the resources of NOAA beyond the personal use of computers, servers and phones? Did the six named individuals share these “personal” emails among themselves, particularly during office hours on office equipment? Did they in any way utilize the administrative assistance or technical expertise of other employees at NOAA in pursuit of any “personal” AMS project?
Are these employees receiving special treatment for their extra-curricular activities when compared to lower ranking NOAA employees? For example, do they have to take vacation or unpaid leave to participate in AMS activities? Are they required by their supervisors to make up for office time lost to these “personal” activities, such as drafting 116 emails and attachments, together with the related time spent thinking about the emails, discussing them with colleagues or non-employees, etc.?
Referring to recent comments abobve.
The point is not whether the ‘company’ can read the emails but whether the public can.
Analogising with private companies is false. FOI does not apply.
In terms of public companies, the issue is not whether the administrators of the company may read the correspondence (although that is a point worth considering for its own sake), but whether the public may. As much as we may like to imagine public ownership gives carte blanche to Joe Public, that is neither true nor sensible. One only has to think of the DoD to immediately understand the public does not and should not have unfettered access to ‘publicly owned’ documents. Responsible lines must be drawn, and they are not limited to state’s secrets.
The line here, as argued by NOAA, is the delineation between work-related and private correspondence. Their is precedence for this, which NOAA points to:
https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/455/455.F3d.283.05-5360.html
I do not know if the emails in question are private or related to NOAA-required work. The matter should be independently assessed if it is imagined there might be something juicy enough in the 116 emails retained under privacy concerns to warrant pressing for disclosure.
From the NOAA publication “Computer User’s Guide for Protecting Information Resources” published September 2002 (and, therefore, potentially superceded). Note that the section on Privacy does not mention personal correspondence since the Policy section had already declared such use impermissible:
NOAA’s Information Technology Systems Rules of Behavior for All Users
…
2. POLICY:
a. IT equipment is for official Government business only
…
4. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY:
a. Realize that these “Rules of Behavior” apply even if you don’t take time to read them
Violations will result in loss of access and/or written reprimands, fines, imprisonment,
and loss of employment
…
5. PRIVACY:
a. Protect employee information, medical records, historical data or client lists
b. Properly dispose of unneeded data:
(1) Don’t throw sensitive hard copy into a wastebasket (shred or burn)
(2) Delete sensitive information from storage on hard drive and diskettes
permanently by overwriting; ask your ITSO for aid in doing this, if necessary
It would have been good to provide a link to all the policy recommendations. Here it is:
https://www.csp.noaa.gov/policies/noaaguide09-25-02a.pdf
The guidelines include this section.
Constabulary in the investigation of the “hacked” (read “leaked”) emails of climategate.
I bought a used computer that was previously owned by a university from a firm in Norwich. I wondered why the disk physical size and partitions did not match. It turned out that the drive had mixed windows and unix partitions and only the windows one had been cleaned and reinstalled leaving the unix ones intact. I would love to know if this sort of error was the real source of climategate data.
I’m beginning to think the lazy teenager is anything but. Perhaps a hard at ‘work’ middle aged bureaucrat hard at work, dealing with nasty hobbitses?