ATI Files Suit to Compel the University of Arizona to Produce Records Related to So-Called “Hockey Stick” Global Warming Research

Thomas says:
September 10, 2013 at 2:00 am
Streetcred, there are many legitimate reasons people might not want all their mail made public. Article and grant reviews are for example anonymous for good reason….
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And that is a steaming pile of B.S. Your Work e-mail is NOT PRIVATE. I, a computer challenge little old lady figured that out all by my little lonesome the first time I got access to a corporate provide computer.
Now that the US government is trying to tell every one that there is “No expectation of privacy” with e-mails so they can snoop without a warrant it makes even LESS SENSE to block perfectly legal FOIA requests. So get over it.

There Is No Such Thing As NSA-Proof Email
Since last June, when Edward Snowden tore the veil off the National Security Agency’s vast data dragnet, Americans have been flocking to ultrasecure email services in the hopes of keeping the government out of their private business. Use of the most popular email encryption software, PGP, tripled between June and July, while revenue for the data-encryption company Silent Circle has shot up 400 percent.
But even these services may not be able to protect your email from government prying. That fact came into stark relief last Thursday, when Lavabit, the secure email service used by Snowden, abruptly shut down. Lavabit’s 32-year-old founder, Ladar Levison, issued a statement saying he pulled the plug because he didn’t want to be “complicit in crimes against the American people.” He has since given up using email entirely, and he urges others to consider doing the same. “I would strongly recommend against entrusting your privacy to a company with physical ties to the United States,” he told Mother Jones. “I honestly don’t think it’s possible to provide a secure service in this country.”
Levison, who is reportedly under federal gag order, declined to elaborate (though he opined, based on his experience, that we’re a “whisper’s breath away” from becoming a society where all electronic communications are recorded and scrutinized by the government). But according to other industry insiders and cybersecurity experts, there’s good reason to be wary of transmitting sensitive information via email—even if your provider claims to have iron-clad safeguards.
Tech giants, such as the Microsoft subsidiary Hotmail, regularly hand over data to the government. In fact, in the last eight months of 2012 (the most recent period for which data is available), Hotmail, Google, Facebook, and Twitter provided law enforcement authorities with information on more than 64,000 users. And that doesn’t include responses to secret national security letters ordered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, or FISA……

Of course US citizens are unhappy about this news and are now suing Google. The response from Google: Gmail users ‘have no legitimate expectation of privacy’
Private citizens with private correspondence via e-mail might have some ‘legitimate expectation of privacy’ but people using company computer equipment with an in-house IT department certainly DO NOT and companies often make that clear in writing.
This warning was provided in the article as given by the U of A

U of A acknowledges that “The University of Arizona is governed by Arizona public records law. The purpose of the law is to allow the general public, whose tax dollars support the University, to scrutinize the way we do business. Upon request, inspection of or copies of most records must be provided except for two categories which are not open to the public.” (these two categories are student records and personnel records, which are not involved in ATI’s request). http://hoy.r.mailjet.com/redirect/x616hjzo3j67tj1q02wg30/www.hr.arizona.edu/03_hire/AZPSOrientation/main.php?sel=hi, p. 5

There IS no expectation of privacy and ALL the records except the two categories noted, student records and personnel records, should be turned over without a fuss. The fact they are not turning over these records in “The Most Transparent Presidency Evah” certainly makes it look like there is a lot to hide doesn’t it?
More importantly it makes it clear that the USA is no longer a country under the rule of law and that is even more frightening since preferential application of the law is the first signs of Tyranny.

Gail, re:

Lavabit’s 32-year-old founder, Ladar Levison, issued a statement saying he pulled the plug because he didn’t want to be “complicit in crimes against the American people.” He has since given up using email entirely, and he urges others to consider doing the same. “I would strongly recommend against entrusting your privacy to a company with physical ties to the United States,” he told Mother Jones. “I honestly don’t think it’s possible to provide a secure service in this country.”

Ladar is hardly a shining example of anything… and being quoted from Mother Jones took most of his credibility away.
However, his claim about it not being possible to provide a secure service is laughable. What is lacking is the will. We already have some really powerful encryption technology, the only thing missing is a useful infrastructure to replace the current (horrific) email system, a relic from the 70s (or maybe 60s). There was a time I was amazed and amused by having an email discussion with someone in, say, Australia. Now I can’t even set up a functional email notification system for clients (I can set it up, of course, but the delivery rate on legitimate email is very very low)
I seriously wonder how the NSA manages to filter anything useful out of the trillions of spam emails flying around out there. Some are completely pointless gibberish, spammed to billions of addresses simply to clog the system.

Richard,
My statement stands. I don’t blame you for wanting to back away from your statement- we will forgive you for having said it, as you were probagbly caught up in the moment and didn’t realize it’s import. However, protestation crumbles the edge of the precipice…
For me, there is no context for which that statement becomes anything other than a tool to be used to by those who would have power over others, regardless of cause, or need of use.
“And I fail to see why you made your post when it agrees with the point made by Gail and iterated by me when your post says…”I know you don’t get it, but I have faith in you and believe that you will, in time.
“Sure thing, Honey- I’ll have that piece of pie”. (I’ll just break off that bit of crust with the fly speck.)

Luther Wu says:
September 10, 2013 at 7:38 am
…. Oh, they manage. The real problem is, everyone on the planet has their personal stash of secrets with which those of a tyrannical bent could easily gain manipulative power over the individual. Again, the Fourth Amendment exists for very good reasons.
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You don’t put personal information/secrets on a PUBLICLY OWNED computer.
Everyone keeps confusing a WORK PLACE computer that is NOT covered by ‘Privacy’ and your home computer.
Lets leave that for a second and look at what the Supreme Court says about privacy.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
466 U.S. 170
Oliver v. United States
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
No. 82-15 Argued: November 9, 1983 — Decided: April 17, 1984 [*]
….(b) Since Katz v. United States, supra, the touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis has been whether a person has a “constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.” Id. at 360. The Amendment does not protect the merely subjective expectation of privacy, but only those “expectation[s] that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.'” Id. at 361. Because open fields are accessible to the public and the police in ways that a home, office, or commercial structure would not be, and because fences or “No Trespassing” signs do not effectively bar the public from viewing open fields, the asserted expectation of privacy in open fields is not one that society recognizes as reasonable. Moreover, the common law, by implying that only the land immediately surrounding and associated with the home warrants the Fourth Amendment protections that attach to the home, conversely implies that no expectation of privacy legitimately attaches to open fields. Pp. 177-181.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0466_0170_ZS.html

The key is “expectation[s] that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.'” That is why this information from University of Arizona is so important.

U of A acknowledges that “The University of Arizona is governed by Arizona public records law. The purpose of the law is to allow the general public, whose tax dollars support the University, to scrutinize the way we do business. Upon request, inspection of or copies of most records must be provided except for two categories which are not open to the public.”</i? http://hoy.r.mailjet.com/redirect/x616hjzo3j67tj1q02wg30/www.hr.arizona.edu/03_hire/AZPSOrientation/main.php?sel=hi, p. 5 (these two categories are student records and personnel records, which are not involved in ATI’s request).
On the same webpage, U of A informs new employees, under “Arizona Public Service Orientation”, “Within your first 30 days of employment, read the information in this orientation. At the conclusion, print the checklist, verifying that you have completed the section, and deliver it to your department representative for placement in your departmental file.” http://hoy.r.mailjet.com/redirect/8sqxhk5kpwbmc9lqwoftlo/www.hr.arizona.edu/03_hire/AZPSOrientation/main.php?sel=hi, p. 4.

The University of Arizona served notice to its employees that they were subject to FOIA and therefore had no “constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.”
You can wiggle and squirm all you want but those are the legal facts and the U of A does not have a legitimate leg to stand on. Whether the courts will actually uphold the letter of the law is a different matter entirely.

For Gail and Richard…
It should be becoming obvious to you that I am not defending the U of A. The only statement I have made in re this matter makes that clear: “U of A should immediately comply with local and state law regarding this matter.”
I am addressing a deeper philosophical root, which actually gets to the bottom of our multi- year discussion of all things AGW, as well as this specific instance of power of Gov’t vs power of the people.

The U of A is doing this because they can, and like many public orgs today will continue this behavior for as long as they can. I’m not sure when somebody will put a solution into effect to stop all of this madness. Public means public!

Luther Wu says: @ur momisugly September 10, 2013 at 8:20 am
….Don’t be afraid. The knowledge that if they want you, they can and will have you should harden your resolve, rather than force you to bended knee
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I am out here posting stuff I am sure the government does not like. I am also informing the public in person and as a result got a nasty visit from the government goon squad. It has not stopped me yet.
By the way I seriously hate the ‘open field’ and ‘Commerce Clause’ decisions by the Supreme Court but at this point we are stuck with them and it is foolish not to know as much of the law as possible.
If you really want to get steamed up how about this New Law.

Richard,
You have publicly stated that I misrepresented what you said. How could that be? I quoted a direct statement by you- a whole complete sentence.
You’ve repeatedly stated that the quoted statement was taken out of context.
There is no appropriate context for your statement.
I have no idea what country you are from. Are your people steeped in the ideas of liberty and individual freedom? Your statement leads down a long dark road. We understand that in the US, or at least, we once did.
It has become apparent to many of us here in these United States that the concepts of liberty and individual freedom have been subverted by those who concern themselves with power over others and who would keep us under their yoke.
I will uproot the thinnest seedling of tyranny wherever I find it. Your words, out of context or not, will not be allowed to flourish within my sight.

Jtom says:
September 10, 2013 at 10:43 am
Wu: most people are sufficiently intelligent as to make a distiction between refusing to submit to a random search with no legal basis, in which case such refusal signifies nothing, and refusing to submit to an authorized legal search. One would presumably only do that if they had something to hide. Context is everything.
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Like you and most here, I understand Richard’s major point and agree with most of his efforts. However, I tried to point out that his (question) statement can be used as basis for all sorts of mischief and that the statement represents a nefarious logical fallacy which must be pointed out, regardless of context. You can think it’s ok to make that statement in certain context- we will continue to disagree.
I think that gov’t entities have become habituated to the unrestrained use of power and that they often refuse such requests (as this to U of A,) simply as an exercise in power, regardless of whether they are trying to hide anything, or not.
Gov’t entities within the US are now actively, routinely and blatantly refusing compliance with laws meant to protect the citizenry from abuses of power. This is nothing new, save for the extreme and widespread practice of abuse and reflects the very human nature that our founding fathers tried to warn us against. Those withi9n government charged with the curtailment of such abuses have abrogated their responsibilities. Those members of the press who are charged with being a last- ditch brake against government tyranny have become complicit in that tyranny. Gov’t- employed public servants who actively refuse to comply with laws specifically designed to curtail gov’t power, should at minimum, lose their jobs. The fact that there is no visible or successful effort to curtail such abuses from any institution, could mean that we are approaching the time when nothing will serve as cure, but heads in a basket.