Guest post by Dr. Tim Ball
It is important for the person who leaked the emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009 and 2010 to reveal themselves and release the remaining 200,000 emails. The public are increasingly aware of the inaccurate science and failed projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Those promoting the false science are pushing even harder as they lose ground, but a final disclosure would expose the full extent of the deceptions. This would force leaders to abandon policies already causing serious social and economic harm and develop policies based on proper science.
The IPCC failures are no surprise and inevitable because of the political rather than scientific agenda exposed in the first 6000 emails. Evidence from leaked information from AR5, the next IPCC Report, indicate they have not changed. Equally important, the people involved at the CRU and the IPCC think they’ve escaped responsibility with the release of the Norfolk Police Report. It was the engineered response they wanted and in its own way is deceptive.
On July 18, 2012 the Norfolk Police closed their investigation because of the “Realistic prospect of identifying the offender or offenders and launching criminal proceedings within the time constraints imposed by law”. They also concluded the attack was carried out “remotely via the Internet”, which is not surprising and does not eliminate a whistleblower.
They further deflected the whistleblower claim saying there is “no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime”. It is very unlikely that a whistleblower would work from within the University and run the risk of easy exposure. Most people working at CRU would likely have external access, so they could continue work at home, or when traveling to the numerous worldwide IPCC climate conferences.
Canadian network engineer Lance Levsen after detailed analysis showed, convincingly, the source was someone within the university. He concluded, “For the hacker to have collected all of this information s/he would have required extraordinary capabilities…to crack an Administrative file server to get to the emails and crack numerous workstations, desktops, and servers to get the documents.” Access to the files is a major hurdle, but once inside there is a bigger challenge. Which files do you select? Whoever released the files knew which ones were significant. This required considerable knowledge of climate science as well as the politics and machinations of the people involved.
A comment posted on Anthony Watt’s web site encapsulates the problem. “It would take a hacker massive amounts of work to parse through decades of emails and files.” The commenter suggested a different scenario that involved hacking a single file. Such a file would exist because of “an ongoing process of internally collating this information for an FOI response is entirely consistent with what we find in the file.” The problem with this argument is that the emails appeared in November 2009, at which time both the CRU and the University of East Anglia were rejecting all FOI requests. In January 2005 Phil Jones “states that he will be using IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) to shelter the data from Freedom of Information requests.” In an email on August 20th 2008, Prof. Jones says “The FOI line we’re all using is this. IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI – the skeptics have been told this. Even though we (MOHC, CRU/UEA) possibly hold relevant info the IPCC is not part our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don’t have an obligation to pass it on.” It is unlikely anyone did much work preparing files to answer FOI requests. Even if they did, files for an FOI request are different from those required to expose corruption and still required selection.
Levsen reached a solid and logical conclusion “the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one”. “The simplest explanation in this case is that someone at UEA found it and released it to the wild and the release of FOIA2009.zip wasn’t because of some hacker, but because of a leak from UEA by a person with scruples.”
How did the CRU people and others exposed in the emails essentially avoid any accountability? Part was likely due to groupthink defined by Irving Janis. “Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision-making.” In his Report for a combined Congressional investigative committees on the “hockey stick” Professor Wegman identifies the insulation. “It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community.” Phil Jones said the banter was typical, which is a disturbing and instructive comment in itself.
Every time a serious problem occurred for IPCC official climate science or those promoting it, they hired professional spin doctors. Why do ‘official’ climate scientists need spin doctors? Answer, because they practice politics not science. Climategate, like it’s namesake Watergate, became exposed by the cover up, in this case disgraceful, atypical behavior disclosed in the emails.
After the November 2009 leak the University of East Anglia hired Neil Wallis of Outside Organization to handle the fall out. University spokesperson Trevor Davies said it was a “reputation management” problem, which he claimed they don’t handle well. Apparently they didn’t consider telling the truth. The leaked emails triggered a shock wave that required a top political spin-doctor. Wallis, a former editor at the News of The World, was later arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandals that led to the resignation of London Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, as well as Andy Coulson, Prime Minister Cameron’s press secretary.
CRU Director Phil Jones immediately called in the police, which established the event potentially as a criminal act. This raises the question of what he had to hide. If there was nothing in the files of consequence, then loss of the information had no currency. The British House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee perpetuated the criminal idea by referring to emails as “stolen” in their whitewash investigation of Jones’ behavior. They didn’t even take testimony from scientists qualified to address the problems with the science, yet still concluded the science was solid.
Terminology used is apparently important and possibly done on advice. Involving the police froze further disclosure of information and created the idea it was a crime. Calling it a theft or a hacking reinforced this with an implication for future legal action. Reportedly, hacked material or stolen information is not admissible in court, unlike information disclosed by a whistleblower.
A special police unit achieved the desired result of letting the investigation drag out past the statute of limitations and then concluded there was no evidence of an inside leak. It is critical to remember the implications went beyond the CRU because its members dominated and controlled the principle portions of the IPCC Reports. The person who released the information apparently knew this because it was timed to derail the Conference of The Parties (COP) 15 scheduled for Copenhagen in December 2009.
The first 1000 emails included some selected to expose behavior unacceptable even without knowledge of climatology. Others show how the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) science was conjured. Exposure of CRU members was necessary because they dominated and controlled the vital portions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. The leaks achieved their objective of derailing the political program of COP 15. The COP was in a bind because their starting point and assumption is the validity of IPCC science.
COP 15 scheduled for December 2009 in Copenhagen Denmark offered the ideal opportunity for exposing the corrupted science. “The main contentious issues in Copenhagen where whether or not to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, which binds almost 40 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. At the heart of the dispute, developing nations wanted to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and work out a separate new deal. But most developed nations wanted to merge Kyoto into a single new accord obliging all nations to fight global warming.” It was a critical meeting because failure probably meant the end of Kyoto and any attempt at replacement or modification. The leak was effective because Kyoto expired on December 31, 2012, despite further attempts at resuscitation at COP 16 in Durban.
Who, on the inside, had “scruples” about what was going on. Some of the clues lie in how the person attempted to release the information without personal exposure. The ‘leaker’ was determined to have the material out before the Copenhagen Conference. He sent it out through a Russian IP that reportedly prevented a trace.
George Monbiot of the Guardian actively sold the scientific material produced by the IPCC, which makes his reaction more telling. Reportedly shocked by the emails he said “why was CRU’s response to this issue such a total car crash.” George, the answer is because they were deceiving you, the politicians and the public. Meanwhile, you attacked scientists who knew what was going on and dared to speak out. I can attest that you were told.
The spin-doctors pursued the coverup by putting in place two investigation panels that separated out the science and limited their investigation with terms of reference. I know how this is done because I have refused to participate in such political deceptions. The trick is to pretend to remove the politics by establishing arms-length from governemnt committees to investigate and report. These committees are identified by their Chairs, Muir Russell and Lord Oxburgh. Conflicts and questions immediately arose about the integrity and independence of the committees, which the parties tried to address. The emails and their content were already arousing suspicions.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) and Muir Russell both said the Lord Oxburgh inquiry would examine the science. At a press conference on February 11, 2010 Muir Russell said, “Our job is to investigate scientific rigor, the honesty, the openness and the due process of CRU’s approach as well as the other things in the remit and compliance with rules. It’s not our job to audit CRU’s scientific conclusions. That would require a different set of skills and resources.” The Lord Oxburgh investigation was doomed from the start. “A member of the House of Lords appointed to investigate the veracity of climate science has close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.”
The cover-up was easily detectable. Clive Crook, Senior editor of The Atlantic wrote a searing indictment of the whitewash. “I had hoped, not very confidently, that the various Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific consensus. But no, the reports make things worse. At best they are mealy-mouthed apologies; at worst they are patently incompetent and even wilfully wrong. The climate-science establishment, of which these inquiries have chosen to make themselves a part, seems entirely incapable of understanding, let alone repairing, the harm it has done to its own cause.”
Worse, they concluded that what went on was within normal patterns of interchanges and activities between a group of scientists. It’s inconceivable that any reasonable person reading the emails, especially the second 5000, can reach such a conclusion. Meanwhile, we still don’t know who leaked the material.
It is helpful to study the details and consider the people involved. The final police report concluded it was not a whistleblower, but that challenges the evidence. However, it was a valuable conclusion for the coverup. Phil Jones, former Director of the CRU, knew the potential damage and legal implications of the file contents. Ironically, in order to claim the files stolen and a crime committed Jones admitted the files belonged to CRU. What would have happened if he denied they were files from the CRU?
Internal Candidate
There are several internal candidates, but I think the strongest is Keith Briffa. The person was apparently disaffected by the conflicts within the CRU, but also the implications of false data as the basis for world policy. Emails illustrate Briffa’s conflicts within the group. On October 5th 2009 Wigley wrote to Jones “It is distressing to read that American Stinker item. But Keith does seem to have got himself into a mess. As I pointed out in emails, Yamal is insignificant…….I presume they went thru papers to see if Yamal was cited, a pretty foolproof method if you ask me. Perhaps these things can be explained clearly and concisely — but I am not sure Keith is able to do this as he is too close to the issue and probably quite pissed of (sic). I think Keith needs to be very, very careful in how he handles this. I’d be willing to check over anything he puts together.” It appears Wigley is aware of the danger of Briffa doing something rash, like releasing documents. Jones forwarded the email to Briffa, which would likely only irritate him more.
Briffa’s dislike of Mann had a long history. On 22 September 1999, almost ten years before the leaks, Briffa confronted Mann in a long email that included the comment, “I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago.” Treasonous words for Mann’s hockey stick paper that claimed no medieval warm period existed. Mann appeared to back off. He wrote, “Walked into this hornet’s nest this morning! Keith and Phil have both raised some very good points.” In reality, he puts Briffa down again. “SO(sic) I think we’re in the position to say/resolve somewhat more than, frankly, than Keith does, about the temperature history of the past millennium. And the issues I’ve spelled out all have to be dealt with in the chapter.” One cynical comment from Mann says, “And I certainly don’t want to abuse my lead authorship by advocating my own work.” It’s an interesting comment in light of his role in the IPCC 2001 Science Report and Summary for Policy Makers. It is also a concern the Wegman Report identified in Recommendation 1; “Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.”
On 17th June 2002 Briffa wrote to Dr Edward Cook about a letter involving Esper and Michael Mann, “I have just read this letter – and I think it is crap. I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few (poorly temperature representative) tropical series. He is just as capable of regressing these data against any other “target” series, such as the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbage (sic) he has produced over the last few years, and … (better say no more)”Cook responds; “We both know the probable flaws in Mike’s recon (reconstruction), particularly as it relates to the tropical stuff…. It is puzzling to me that a guy as bright as Mike would be so unwilling to evaluate his own work a bit more objectively.”
Wigley didn’t help. Here is the first part of a belittling email from Wigley to Briffa on 10 January 2006. Thanx for this. Interesting. However, I do not think your response is very good. Further, there are grammatical and text errors, and (shocking!!) you have spelled McKitrick wrong. This is a sure way to piss them off. It appears to typify Wigley’s patronizing way of talking to wayward CRU members, especially those who undermined the elimination of the Medieval Warm Period.
Conflict continued as Briffa expressed his concern. Mann made some overtures, but on April 29th 2007 Briffa responded, “I found myself questioning the whole process and being often frustrated at the formulaic way things had to be done – often wasting time and going down dead ends. I really thank you for taking the time to say these kind words. I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same. I worried that you might think I gave the impression of not supporting you well enough while trying to report on the issues and uncertainties.” What damning commentary about what the CRU and the IPCC were doing?
Briffa may have worked with the Information Officer at the University who was under pressure for Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. In March 2009, we learned Briffa was ill and he and his wife were cancelling meetings with people at the CRU. Did this give him time to think about what was happening? Maybe, but his treatment by Mann and the sinking ship was likely an impetus. Whatever the answer, any reading of the emails show they were anything but normal correspondence between colleagues. It became more than a scientific disagreement.
Because of Jones’ actions the Norfolk police, a regional force, involved the national government through the National Domestic Extremism Unit, which was surely another measure of the seriousness of what was involved in the files. This led to the University of East Anglia turning over all the files related to skeptics and their requests through Freedom of Information (FOI). Apparently, the police and subsequent investigations accepted the CRU claims that requests for information were politically driven and caused hardship that diverted them from their work. When police interrogated skeptics, they asked about political affiliations. Why?
The idea of politics as the only motive developed because the CRU and the IPCC made global warming a purely political issue. Besides, why has motive got anything to do with the requests for scientific data and methods, especially when funded by taxes and used to create potentially devastating policies?
The good news is: the birds will start coming back soon, the ladies will expose some skin, and it will be spring, thunderstorms even.
Thunder:
Don’t be daft about whistle blowing. The later emails are nearly a hundred percent certain to be more damning but given what I found out accidentally while doing my equipment tests at work once I would place every penny I own that they are also traceable and the police action so far was known not to have a chance of finding out who it was releasing this batch but was a warning not to release the rest.
I would not mind betting it includes the data sent to them years ago that showed clearly that the so called abnormalities in the climate were nowhere near the greatest deviation from the norm even in the recorded data. I also know they have failed to reveal the objections from their colleagues in other disciplines to the failure to include any factors influencing climate from their own areas of expertise in claiming the science was beyond question.
The universities sell off old equipment and mostly they are really inept as ensuring the disks are clean when a mix of windows and Linux systems are present and I got given a disk from one bought on Ebay from the Norwich area with the Linux partition still intact while the windows one had been cleaned thoroughly. The files had a legal no broadcasting rights that would make release illegal even if it revealed flagrant law breaking.
If the leak is internal and if the leak was only a subset of the total files leakable, then a number of potential scenarios pertain:
1. Leaking a subset allowed them to remain in employment, they not being rich enough to retire, whereas leaking the lot would be game over in terms of a career in climate science.
2. They may have carried out the leak as a warning and an exhortation to change, still believing that the situation was retrievable.
3. They may like their colleagues in many ways and therefore the thought of destroying their lives and careers is not something to be undertaken lightly.
4. They may have been waiting for the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election in the USA, since with a Republican President, furtherance of the agenda might have been less likely.
5. They may have been waiting for 15 years of no warming to ensue, since that is a tipping point for the incorrect computer model predictions to fail. That has now been reached…….
One thing which is interesting from this article is that Ball is sure that the leaker is a MAN. That may be a typographical laxity, but for him to write that deliberately should imply that he knows for a fact who the leaker is.
What will happen to the leaker if they do reveal all, eh??
Can they make their mortgage payments??
Do you lot even care????
The whistleblower jeopardized billions of dollars of investment in the AGW swindle. He/she knows that there will be “payback” as Obama calls it, should his/her identity be established. I find speculation regarding the whistleblower’s identity most unwise.
Anthony
I’m not sure if this is a stupid idea or legal?Could your site be a vehicle to obtain the release of the emails.
1 Get readers to pledge a certain sum.
2 Advertise the amount pledged.
3 Once the emails are released provide the pledged monies as a donation to the Whistleblower for his good works.
Of course I wouldn’t be surprised if certain vested interests would offer more to keep them hidden.
He who single handedly stopped global government financing and worldwide carbon tax, with help from Solar Cycle 24, should win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Rhys Jaggar says:
February 27, 2013 at 11:39 pm
Do you lot even care????
==================
We lot, care a lot.
I wonder why I have that distinct gut feeling, that a courages lamb, now somewhat wiser
after lookin upon the last four years goings on in the wolfian world, would not feel obliged
once again to participate in a dinner with a pack of wolfs now more emeciated and hungry then
ever before.
Now, allow me, in the simplest clarity and clairvoyance any mediocre educated person could
and should have developed since at least 2009 (wayback Churchill and Eisenhower did) to ask
some simple questions.
Where are/were we crying out loud when the wolfs are eating the lambs whenever/whatever:
– homeopathy, anti-vaccination, reflexologie and bla bla was (by reintroducing superstition
and witchcraft) eroding normal peoples confidence in medical science;
– technology/science was proclaimed to be inspired/work of Satan and his ilk;
– the human population should be culled/controlled in favor of Gaia;
– the EPA in the USA declared CO2 a pollutant/harmfull and took no offence when a Federal
Agency perverted science and caused unimaginable suffering and death (DDT and malaria);
– postmodern/postnormal science wiped out great parts of hard science to be replaced with a
belief system based on arbitrary notions of political correctness based on a failed
ideology just overthrown by the people in Russia and it’s satellite states;
– Al Gore made science a joke, Gasland made shale gas look bad both by blatant lies;
– that there is a clear, direct an unambigious relation that more energy means more health,
longevity and happiness; having this knowledge why do we tolerate that mentally deranged
worldsavers can impose energy constraints on the poorest countries of the world;
– people in the poorest countries of the world are starving/dying because of bio-fuels;
– dont care that woman/children merely by cooking food (if any) on wood fires in the poorest
countries of the world get PD and die early from smoke inhalation;
– accept perverted science and facist legislation concerning second hand smoke (other then
respecting people if they mind you smoking); the largest study ever done, seven EU
countries (World Health Organisation 1998) found a small but significant “positive” health
effect in children from smoking parents, zero for others;
– accept that hard biological science/evidence regarding human genetic research and the
nature/nurture debate can be overuled by arbitrary and often discriminatory/racists views
from an ideologically inspired belief system colloquial called “social sciences”;
– accept that FOIA rights are (mostly) to serve activists who want to frustrate progress;
– when you call the EUSSR for what it is you are a clown, racist, populist, xenophoob etc.;
– referenda (direct choice) is part of Nazi ideology;
– left politics by acclamation is good and right politics by association is bad;
– muslims can call openly in our streets for jews, christians, atheists ie non-muslims
beheadings and the end of democracy while any critisism on their religion/ideology can get
you killed, in prison, fined or is racism, xenofobia or suppression of freedom of religion
etc.;
– ………….. and this list can go on and on and on ……
And now we wake up and call upon our SAVIOR to bring us “the sanctified email’s” and expect
that we will be delivered from evil? Dont think so! Please do your self a favor and read
ie. Michael Crichton’s lectures, Richard Feynman’s CARGO CULT lecture and gain the insight
that there is much more to it then you see on face value. Brainwash (Hjernevask) is a seven
part documentary from socialists heaven Norway. When it was aired there was outrage and in
the fallout the female “warm and loving” sociologist (part 7) had to flee the country; watch
them all its an eye opener on “the “social sciences”.
Ep 1 – ”The Gender Equality Paradox”
Ep 2 – ”The Parental Effect”
Ep 3 – ”Gay/straight”
Ep 4 – ”Violence”
Ep 5 – ”Sex”
Ep 6 – ”Race”
Ep 7 – ”Nature or Nurture”
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=327138
Finally internalize and heed the following: you, youre culture and everything it stands for
or ever achieved is universal bad and evil. Consequential all other cultures are holy, to be
revered and should dominate. Please dont forget to remember when you, like the frog, are
slowly warmed up in the cauldron to respectfully thank youre hosts for the privilege
bestowed upon you partaking in the ongoing ritual.
PS: Hmmm I needed this really bad. Hey, look, over there is a squirrel.
Vladimir plays the chess game well.
Whoever did it also (or with help?) hacked into the RC site and posted it there. That takes skills few climate scientists would have. And it indicates a sort of edgy, mocking personality. Maybe an IT worker who’d had some climate courses and wasn’t impressed by his teachers.
It was most likely someone in their foi unit.
It would be a very stupid strategy for FOIA to reveal his personal details now or at any other time. He/she need only release the password(s) and who knows, by now a lot of the info in the files may be very outdated.
It would be really stupid to expose oneself to the likes of Glummer, Yeo, paterson and other trough-bourne figures. The money at stake here is enormous. Tim would benefit quite a bit, I think, but FOIA, not at all.
1. Leaking a subset allowed them to remain in employment, they not being rich enough to retire, whereas leaking the lot would be game over in terms of a career in climate science.
2. They may have carried out the leak as a warning and an exhortation to change, still believing that the situation was retrievable.
3. They may like their colleagues in many ways and therefore the thought of destroying their lives and careers is not something to be undertaken lightly.
4. They may have been waiting for the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election in the USA, since with a Republican President, furtherance of the agenda might have been less likely.
5. They may have been waiting for 15 years of no warming to ensue, since that is a tipping point for the incorrect computer model predictions to fail. That has now been reached…….
Rys, I have to say that none of those make no sense at all. The amount of leaked data up to now would be sufficient to provoke all or none of your propositions.
Be very careful how you do this, if you reveal yourself you will be screwed over big time. But if you can get the info out there, do not forget snail mail, no trackers on that.
dp says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:33 pm
It is a thinly veiled accusation against Briffa and which cannot be proved by Ball nor denied by Briffa. That is the clue that it is bad writing and worse editorial policy. It is reckless speculation bordering on being actionable.
Oh, come on! Dr Ball actually says “There are several internal candidates, but I think the strongest is Keith Briffa.” In other words, in Dr. Ball’s opinion, if the leaker was an insider, Briffa is the most likely candidate. He then goes on to write several paragraphs in which he tries to explain his reasoning. That cannot be construed as a thinly veiled accusation and I fail to see how it could possibly be actionable. It is clearly speculation, backed by an explanation for the speculation.
I had not seen Steve’s comments prior to adding my own and now I’m surprised (not!) to see a mod challenge me while not holding Steve to the same standard. Was he/she cautiously telegraphing a broader message? It looks bad from here, I can tell you.
I guess that all depends on where “here” is.
Speculation on the identity of a whistle blower in a public forum like this is unacceptable in my view. By all means encourage the full disclosure of any evidence of criminality or deception. Here in the UK the recent examples of health care whistleblowers, BBC Savile whistleblowers, catholic priest abuse whistleblowers etc are starting to open the eyes of normal people to the corruption and group think that has led to cover ups, but the pressure on honest individuals who want to follow their conscience must be enornous. We’ve had paediatricians attacked because the baying mob don’t understand the english language. Baying environmental nutjobs are are equally likely to do something stupid.
Evolution not devolution. The plural is now commonly used to speak of a singular person of unknown gender. If you don’t know whether the person you are referring to is male or female then it is convenient to to identify them using the plural pronoun. This has become such an accepted part of the language that most people don’t notice it, unless perhaps they were unfortunate enough to have had formal grammar beaten into them at school. Case in point – I have used this construction twice in this paragraph. Did you notice? Both times?
Before COP 15 considerable pressure was being applied to certain developing countries to join the lunacy that is AGW alarmism. One response was to demand 2% of the GDP of western countries also the BASIC bloc was formed. China is one of the members. China needed to noble pressure since it is the most “guilty” party if we talk about emmissions but not cure the western lunacy. China and India (also part of BASIC) sell lots of alternative energy equipment to the west. Answer espionage for which no doubt these countries have ample resources. My background is IT my experience tells me to do this you need a technician inside the CRU. I doubt the investigation would have looked for such a person and future release will be if it suits BASIC interests. For me if that is the fact then it was brilliantly successful
They (the persons responsible for the CG1 & CG2 releases) have provided very many curious individuals with a challenging mystery to solve. They cannot really reasonably expect hat no one is pursuing both their identity and the access to their encrypted file. When someone lays down a challenge like they did, it will be solved eventually.
All speculation should be used as potential sources of leads, just like an intelligent investigator always does.
Therefore, I disagree with Steve McIntyre’s position that Tim Ball is out of line in any way and disagree with his view that Anthony was remiss in putting Ball’s post on WUWT.
There is one speculation out of the many interesting ones in the comments that strikes me as intriguingly subtle:
One strange implication that I can entertain from Jimbo’s speculation is that they might have made some immunity deal with authorities or with UEA CRU. A deal that does not necessarily involve giving authorities their identities. It would make an excellent Michael Crichton triller plot. Inquiring mystery fans to the fore . . .
As to speculation about timing of releasing CG3, shortly before the start of any Mann vs NR trial would be an entertaining time. Popcorn sales would soar.
John
While it would be interesting to know who released the emails, it could be very dangerous for them. Each release may be considered a separate event in the eyes of the law. Even if it isn’t, the argument could be made and legally it would be very expensive.
If it were Briffa, I would hold a higher opinion of him but I don’t believe it was someone directly in the field.
Roger Knights says: February 28, 2013 at 1:05 am
Actually there has never been any evidence presented to anyone which would suggest that Gavin Schmidt’s ever-changing-story about this alleged “upload” to RC (a completely pointless and unnecessary move which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, IMHO).
In fact, notwithstanding Schmidt’s claim to Revkin (circa Jul. 6/10) to have ‘sent the logs to the Norwich (sic) police’, there has been no independent confirmation of this.
Indeed, Revkin has confirmed that he has only Schmidt’s word for anything that he reported on this alleged hack of RC – and that he was given no evidence and sought no independent confirmation.
I believe it is worth bearing in mind that Schmidt never did report this alleged hack at RC to the appropriate US authorities; and that UEA did not file a complaint/report to the Norfolk Constabulary until Nov. 20 (the day after the blogosphere became aware of the availability of the CG1 files) – notwithstanding the fact that they were informed of the security breach on Nov. 17, by someone at RC. If you knew you had been “robbed”, would you wait 3 days before contacting the police?!
My guess is that the only grain of truth in Schmidt’s story is that The Saint (as I prefer to call FOIA/RC) posted a comment – containing the link to the Russian server – similar to that which was posted here, at JeffId’s and at Warren Meyer’s as I recall. Such a comment would never have made it past moderation at RC, wouldn’t you agree?!
As far as stepping forward and/or releasing the pass-code, I don’t believe it’s fair – or appropriate – to make such a request. Strikes me that the Saint has an excellent sense of timing and that s/he will continue to exercise it judiciously.
I’m an avid reader of WUWT, but only a very occasional poster. I’m with Steve M on this. To publish speculation, without proof, about the possibly identity of FOIA, just seems plain wrong. Saying that there are several possible candidates but naming just one, then speculating in fine detail about that individual’s motives, is disingenuous to say the least.
This plays straight into the hands of the alarmists by giving them a massive stick to beat Anthony with. Whether he wrote the article or not, as the owner of the blog he has final say on what is published. I’d be very surprised if the alarmists were not all over this like a rash in a few days.
The computer where all harvest came from, was DPE1A, an older instrument with an erroneous (American) time zone setting, used by Briffa, Harris, and Osborn at least. The computer was not a back-up server for documents but contained an update email archive. Direct access to this computer may have been possible via Briffa’s work PC.
CRU staff had remote VPN. They only had access to their mail and not to other information. During September-October 2009 Briffa had no VPN of his own and had to use Melvin’s.
Briffa was not in his room at CRU from 16 April till 19 May 2009 for family reasons, neither from early June till early September 2009 because of serious illness. During September-November 2009 he was mostly absent (present 8/23/30 September, 1/2/12/14/27 October).
The minimum time FOIA needed was 16 September 2009 – 13 November 2009. With minimum effort, FOIA may have harvested documents from Briffa, Osborn, and Harris shortly before or on 16 September 2009, mails shortly after 23 October 2009, and a final harvest on or after 13 November 2009 of Jones’ mails and one report.
My conclusion is that FOIA is a PhD student (sorry for the missing references).
richard verney your right its fear of what the remaining e-mails may content which is the big issue for Jones and Co , especially given their own poor record keeping and data control . I would take a very good bet they don’t know who said what to who and when .
In reality their contents may be little more than all the boring stuff missing so far , such has interpersonal chatter , its the ‘unknown’ element that may give this e-mails their punch .
The bad news , they will have long moved on to ‘other means ‘ to communicate partly to avoid FOI’s but their behaviour will not a have changed a bit. So sadly I cannot see this happening again .
I agree with Steve McIntyre that FOIA is not Keith Briffa or who Steve Mosher thinks it is. I also agree with Roger Knights that the RC hack took real skill, which might not have been needed to get the CRU emails. The ‘Operation Cabin – Closure of Investigation Report’ confirmed how some of us thought the CRU hack was done.
I doubt that Mike Salmon had forgotten an incident in December 2008 or that the police were not told about it from the start. What is plain from the Climategate emails is that FOIA was a CA follower and if he/she/they had not thought about hacking the CRU my blog comment might have been been an open invitation. On the other hand if FOIA could already access the CRU emails it might have been the hurry up call to get them out of CRUBACK3. I do not think FOIA was thinking about COP15 in September 2009. Few in the world were.
Given the involvement of the National Domestic Extremism Team I would expect that the emails/phone records of any suspect would be trawled to look for social network info to establish a hacking capacity. As the Cabin report points out it is not difficult to set up an untraceable route in and out of the CRUWEB08 server. However i think it is much harder to cover up the the learning curve that FOIA must have followed. The Cabin report states:
I would not expect FOIA to reveal himself. He could be anywhere.