Here’s something out of left field (literally) and almost too good to be true, but it really is. Get this: 17 news organizations, including NPR, WaPo, AP, now have grown a spine and filed an amicus brief (see download below) to OPPOSE in court Michael Mann’s effort to keep his UVa CLIMATEGATE-related e-mails secret.
Basically, Mann’s attempt at hiding his emails of work done on public funds and time from public view has backfired, and now is a story that has “legs” in reporter parlance. From Columbia Journalism Review:
Strange bedfellows: ‘Climate change deniers, newspapers partner in a FOIA fight’
Public information laws have forged an unlikely team in Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann’s quest to keep his emails private
‘Organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 17 news organizations, including National Public Radio, Dow Jones, and The Washington Post, submitted an amicus brief in November, supporting the group’s rights to Mann’s emails.
A verdict is expected soon in one of Mann’s cases, a trial winding through the Virginia courts that, oddly, pits him against the interests of the press. Mann is challenging the American Traditions Institute in court—it has since changed its name to the less charged “Energy & Environment Legal Institute”—after the group attempted to obtain access to his email through a FOIA request. Mann argues that his emails constitute “proprietary information,” a special exemption granted to research institutions under Virginia state law. But after an appellate court issued a strong finding, broadly defining “proprietary information” in a way that would make almost any university document—and potentially government documents—exempt from public release, the press took notice.
“By defining an exemption to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (‘VFOIA’) as broadly as the lower court has done, this Court Would be, in effect, removing almost all public documents from the ambit of the records law,” reads the brief. By exempting Mann’s emails from public release, the group argues, the court is setting what journalists see as a dangerous precedent—making it much more difficult to gain access to public records.’
See more at: http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/michael_mann_versus_the_press.php?page=1
Here is the page that defines the interest, note the list of heavy hitters.
Basically what has happened is that journalists are afraid that if Mann wins, it will set a legal precedent that will be used to restrict the ability of the press in future issues where work products and emails discussing research are needed for journalist investigations, but will be made off limits. So, they are going to throw Mann under the bus to keep their FOIA ability intact.
IMHO, the Mann’s days are numbered as a hero of the climate movement.
Read the amicus brief for yourself: ATI-v-UVA-RCFP-amicus (PDF)
ADDED: And it’s a strange place now for some news outlets to find themselves in, particularly the Washington Post. This (absurdly detached) blast from the past below reminds us how these outlets may act out with their editorial positions, but these aren’t always harmonious with their lesser-advertised legal postures. (h/t to Chris Horner of ATI who’s been fighting this fight for a very long time.)
This is the end of Michael Mann. No judge will rule in his favor, now. This signifies that he has no credibility left, as a scientist or otherwise. It is also a blow to the “Cause”, for their poster boy to be so publicly discredited. Mann has seen nothing yet. The worst is yet to come. The global warmers now have to pay the piper for their egregious science and their activism. It is the old bomb drill: tuck your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.
Baa Humbug says:
March 18, 2014 at 2:13 am
Pardon my ignorance about this subject but what makes anyone think Mann hasn’t already deleted all or most of the emails in question?
If there’s nothing ‘juicy’ in the remaining emails, he’ll sit there laughing his head off.
What am I missing?
… Server backups, that’s what. In a large bureaucracy (like a university), it’s actually very hard to delete something beyond recovery.
If your paycheck and research dollars come from public funding, your research emails (not private), research and subsequent publications should be freely available to the public.
Pamela Gray says:
March 18, 2014 at 6:29 am
——————————————
Yes, Pamela, in a nut-shell. If everything was public there would be no hiding. But research and research funding is often a closed market.
richard says: March 18, 2014 at 4:18 am
It wasn’t that long ago (if I might borrow your text)…
The successful perpetration of a formerly unimaginable societal fraud mandates, IMHO, media collusion. Some quick notes as to John “CAGW Clarion Call” Kerry’s (like Mann, no stranger to embellished resumes) 2004 fraud and media complicity…
After reneging on his oft-made campaign pledge to “release all his records” during the campaign of 2004, it wasn’t until June 2005 that Kerry actually signed an SF180 towards that end, but it was a highly qualified one authorizing only 3 “reporters” actual access to his complete records. They were…
Stepen Braun of the LA Times – of the 3, arguably the most independent perhaps included (2 weeks later) in hopes of mitigating the obvious bias of the following 2…
Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe – a known Kerry acolyte
Glen Johnson of the Boston Globe – now senior state department adviser to (guess who?) John “CAGW Clarion Call” Kerry
To this date, none, save for these 3 reporters, have been permitted to view Kerry’s complete military records. Your pessimism is not without precedent.
Perhaps in these emails he discusses the irony that his argument for the LIA and MWP not being global could also be used to argue that modern climate change is not global. That would be golden.
– – – – – – – –
DirkH,
Schmidt seems, by his RC antics, to have an employee mentality and it seems to be his limit of perception; a insurmountable barrier to being leadership material.
Mann on the other hand does not seem to be limited by an employee mentality. Mann is limited by his ineptness at even the most basic professional integrity (see his publicized controversial emails) and his hopeless self-serving ‘victim-of-con$pira¢y’ myths (see his book).
John
Anthony – My name is Dennis Peterson and I am not in a position to accept that dumping the content onto the net is pointless because 1) that is a political view, and 2) I’ve not seen it and I’m not content to take anyone’s word for it. Such is the nature of a skeptic.
Gregg and Baa Humbug — about Mann deleting emails,
Deleted emails may not square with Climategate III. Perhaps this is what Mann is trying to hide.
dp says:
March 18, 2014 at 8:41 am
==========
DP,
Regardless of what the CG 3 emails contain their existence is a nice card to hold and be able to draw upon should the need arise to show a continuation of deception or fraud. I see no need for a full dump to the internet but like to know it could be retrieved at some point in the future.
Lying under oath could be very risky while knowing the truth could be only a few clicks away. Deleting additional emails/documents while involved in a court action could prove damaging to say the least if proof were to be presented of those actions.
Let’s just say CG 3 may keep someone honest. That seems to be an oxymoron.
“multiple others including gas and oil industry; corrupt politicians. Unfortunately, they have so much more money than we have so we depend on ourselves and strong professional scientists ( looking at you Mike, and the others who are willing to step up.)”
The “money” in AGW I believe will be in a carbon tax/carbon trading scheme…..with futures, derivative, swaps the whole shebang…..and Wall Street will again find new and even more creative means to skim that money…..either these scientists haven’t kept up with finance and markets recently or they are being disingenuous
IMO the media are beginning to see Steyn’s case as a First Amendment issue. They opposed the Obama Administration’s attack on reporters, & may support Steyn in this instance as well, while still being cheerleaders for the Democrat Party & big government on all other issues.
I just factored this “wow even msm reporters want to see micheal manns uva emails now” bit of data to my popcorn futures adjusted consumption anomaly projection computer models. And they ALL agree! There will be a sustained increase in popcorn sales and popping while the climategate emails become exposed via foia ….
bernie1815 says:
March 18, 2014 at 1:49 pm
“I just finished a new book on the subject: Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk by Showalter.”
In that case, do you know how many german panzers were destroyed in the Battle of Kursk?
Answer: 60.
He should watch more shows like “The Untouchables”. What happens to those the Mob protects when they become a liability?
“A Lawsuit to Far”
PS Are there FOIA request for Penn State emails?
philjourdan:
re your post at March 18, 2014 at 12:03 pm.
Better than any TV documentary is a lecture which can be obtained at Bovington. See
http://www.tankmuseum.org/
The MSM is the main ‘battle tank’ of AGW propaganda.
The Russian T34 tank was no match for the German Panzers especially the Tiger tanks. But the T34s were cheap and reliable so at Kursk the Russians threw so many T34s at the Panzers that the T34s overwhelmed their opposition. (Panzers including a Tiger and T34s drive around the arena at Bovington).
The MSM is retreating from its unconditional support of the Mann because that support has been overwhelmed by the many bloggers outraged at the Mann’s trashing of basic scientific procedures.
Richard
I think entirely too much emphasis is being placed on getting Mann’s U of V emails — thinking they will prove his MB98 paper was junk, or at least had known serious problems. Maybe, but it’s more likely nothing conclusive will be found (or nothing that hasn’t already been revealed in the ClimateGate emails).
The real problem is the so-called peer reviewed journals who accept papers which don’t archive data, code and methods, and reviewers who don’t ask for it. If a result can’t be replicated, it shouldn’t be accepted as valid.
Since most of this research is paid for by public money, the granting agencies should insist on complete archiving as a condition of accepting funds and should verify at the close of a grant that this has been done.
And US policy makers should give no weight to an IPCC report which cites papers which haven’t been fully archived.
And (as long as I am dreaming) the MSM should not give coverage to press releases about new research which likewise has not been fully archived. Or at the very least include a disclaimer to the effect:
=====================================================================
(Glad to see your name again.)
As I understand it, the German tanks were still far better, though the brand new Panthers still had “teething problems”. (Maybe I’m getting the Panther and the Tiger mixed up with what happened at Kurst.) But the Russian T34 was a very good and simpler tank and the Russians had more of them. Kind of like the US Sherman, though the T34 was a better tank than the Sherman. I read it took four Shermans to take out a Tiger but we had five Shermans.
The MSM media seems to leaving Mann to his own devices. I suspect and hope that he’s also beginning to feel the tug of the financial rug being pulled out from under him.
Did you notice amongst those 17 organizations supporting the amicus brief one ” News Corp”? Yes, that’s right, blame Rupert Murdoch. Well, for something or other!
I’d point out that the Columbia Journalism Review — whose article is horribly written and terribly reasoned — is pretty much on Mann’s side.
Gunga Din says:
March 18, 2014 at 3:36 pm
T-34/85s (with 85mm main armament) were better than most German tanks. At Kursk & thereafter, Germans had too few new medium Panther (originally Panzer V) & heavy Tiger tanks to deal with the hordes of T-34s.
Operation Citadel (Kursk offensive) was delayed repeatedly in order to build up the supply of Panthers, but when finally started, the new tanks proved highly unreliable. The big Ferdinand (as in Porsche) assault guns (or heavy tank destroyers; later called Elephants) that were also supposed to be critical to success were easily knocked out by Russian defenses because they lacked machine guns.
Hitler called off Citadel because of the western Allied landings on Sicily.
Panthers & heavy Tiger & King Tiger tanks never replaced the older Panzer IVs which remained the mainstays of German armor. T-34/85s were better than Panzer IVs. Shermans were more mechanically reliable than German, Russian or British tanks, but “brewed up” easily, so were called “Ronsons” by their unfortunate crews. Except for the Firefly variant, they were also under-gunned for the European Theater. Still, they all had radios, so were appreciated by the Russians, who received some 10,000 of them, about the same as the number of tanks the Red Army had left at the end of the war. Shermans conquered Vienna while T-34s entered Berlin.
The running gear of T-34 was inspired by the US Christie tank, which the American army in its infinite wisdom chose not to adopt.
Ferdinand (@StFerdinandIII) says:
March 18, 2014 at 7:15 am
“Not a chance in hades he will let anyone who is competent with code, logic or data models have a look at his junk.”
If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not look at his junk; I’m out of brain bleach.
It’s about time rationality caught hold.
Mann has nothing to hide .Mann is fighting this FOIA purely on principle.(sarc)
The press has raised an issue that Manns “principle” is a BS anathema to a free society.
A free society trumps the privacy of a suspected publicly funded fraud (and pompous ass).
Liberal academics who supported Mann,sold purely on principle, are surely doing some soul searching.
Hopefully those administrators at UofV and Penn State realize they are backing the wrong unicorn.
Mark Steyn must be encouraged to see this. Perhaps he should redouble his claim for damages. I bought his books “Lights out” and “America Alone” as my contribution to his case. These are on his central theme of freedom of speech. He won a landmark case in provincial kangaroo courts (the oh so Politically Correct crusaders in provincial Human Rights Tribunals) against the Canadian Islamic Congress claims of hate speech over an article in MacLeans Magazine (news mag) – essentially an excerpt from his best selling book “America Alone”. The stunning performance resulted in the rescinding of the guts of a Canadian statute that provided the support for this assault on free speech and the books (particularly America Alone) wound up on the New York Times best seller list. Every American should read it. Its probably too late for Europe.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=93dd37e9-a3ba-4788-84d0-7512cee8277b
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6399505-lights-out
Mann’s suit against Steyn is also free speech issue with Steyn. The way these things drag on, the chances of a bundle of emails becoming available before the court case now looks pretty good.
Disclaimer, I don’t get a commission on sales!!