Wow, just wow. Not only have they just invoked the Streisand effect, they threw some gasoline on it to boot. It’s all part of the Climate McCarthyism on display this week.
UPDATE: Ironically, Cook’s “97% consensus paper” was published one year ago today, under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
Data in the SI was added 16 days after publication, but not all the data, not sure if they have any legal basis to withhold the rest and still keep CCL license – Anthony
Brandon Shollenberger writes:
My Hundredth Post Can’t Be Shown
Dear readers, I wanted to do something special for my hundredth post at this site. I picked out a great topic for discussion. I wrote a post with clever prose, jokes that’d make your stomach ache from laughter and even some insightful commentary. Unfortunately, I can’t post it because I’d get sued.
You see, I wanted to talk about the Cook et al data I recently came into possession of. I wanted to talk about the reaction by Cook et al to me having this data. I can’t though. The University of Queensland has threatened to sue me if I do.
I understand that may be difficult to believe. I’d like to provide you proof of what I say. I’m afraid I can’t do that either though. If I do, the University of Queensland will sue me. As they explained in their letter threatening me:
That’s right. The University of Queensland sent me a threatening letter which threatens me further if I show anyone that letter.
Confusing, no? It gets stranger. Along with its threats, the University of Queensland included demands. The first of these is:
This demand is interesting. According to it, I’m not just prevented from disclosing any of the “intellectual property” (IP) I’ve gained access to. I’m prevented from even doing anything which involves using the data. That means I can’t discuss the data. I can’t perform analyses on it. I can’t share anything about it with you.
But that’s not all I can’t do. The University of Queensland also demanded I cease and desist from:
This fascinates me. I corresponded with John Cook to try to get him to assert any claims of confidentiality he might have regarding the data I now possess. I sent him multiple e-mails telling him if he felt the data was confidential, he should request I not disclose it. I said if people’s privacy needed to be protected, he should say so.
He refused. Repeatedly.
Apparently I badgered Cook too much. I tried too hard to get him to do his duty and try to protect his subjects’ privacy. The University of Queensland needs me to stop. If I don’t, they’ll sue me.
So yeah, sorry guys. I wanted my hundredth post to be interesting, but I guess it won’t be. Anything interesting I might have to say will get me sued. And maybe not just sued. The University of Queensland apparently wants me arrested too:
I don’t know what sort of hack they had investigate the supposed hacking, but this is silly. There was no hacking involved. The material was gathered in a perfectly legal way. I could easily prove that.
Only, proving it would require using the data I’ll be sued for using…
My Hundredth Post Can’t Be Shown
At last some real good news from Australia
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/tony-abbotts-extreme-climate-stance-sets-back-policy-decades-critics-say-20140514-zrcpg.html All these AGW scientist will now have to migrate to USA and will have a job for 2 more years until M Rubio closes down all the Climate Institutions here in the USA LOL
Brandon, I understand how you would feel with this type of attempted thuggery designed to suppress and intimidate. Please don’t be intimidated. In Australia we have whistleblower protection laws in States and Territories, we also have a system where such information can be placed in the hands of our Parliamentary representatives, who can read anything into the parliamentary record (called Hansard) under Parliamentary Privilege and protected from any civil remedy at law or criminal prosecution. I guess a mild way of getting this underway, would be to speak with a Senator in the US of A hand him all the information blowing the whistle on the University of Queensland and asking that representative to formally place all the information in the hands of Australian authorities and the parliamentary representatives in State of Queensland and yes I think a good starting point would be the Coalition Federal Attorney General George Brandis .
It is unseemly and probably illegal to threaten whistleblowers anywhere and I am sure that Christopher Pyne the Federal Minister of Education would be most upset at the underhand breach of University integrity involved in this sorry saga as it is his wish and that of the present Coalition Government to bring our universities into the competitive world of reality and make our research facilities the best in the world. Concealment of data, obstructionism and questionable legal fluffery does nothing to help that purpose!!
Brandon Shollenberger,
How about using a thesaurus and changing the words. Also alter the sequence of paragraphs but number them in the sequence they should appear. You can then title the letter ‘An Imaginary Letter which looks like the one the University of Queensland sent me’.
There has to be a way round this.
Once again supporting Kate McMillan’s hypothesis that the opposite of diversity is university.
Jimbo says at May 16, 2014 at 5:20 am
I respectfully disagree.
If it is right to be published then let it be published and face the consequences.
If it is private then it shouldn’t be dripped out furtively.
There can’t be a way round this that is also honest and unabashed.
Let me propose a possible way to “hack” this unprotected data in question:
Let us assume that we have an URL “www.hothousepants/public”
You go to the address field and delete the “public” part
Now you got the address “www.hothousepants/”, ENTER
Now you may see a page that wasn’t ment to be accessed by the public. But you had no way of knowing that, had you?
Even better, you find some interesting links there. Like “My nasty secrets” or maybe a library listing of documents. You click and download the stuff, all of it of course.
By the way, they say that nothing is forgotten by the Internet. There are archives and such. If you change the protection of a web page, does that measure change the protection for an possibly archived page or PDF-file in retrospect? The thing may have been around for months before this security lapse was noticed.
Needs more investigation. Things don’t really add up here.
“Ken B says:
May 16, 2014 at 5:00 am”
Interesting and may be a pontential reason behind the response from the UoQ, the current LNP dominated Govn’t is dropping funding and applying pressure to “justify” why so much money is needed in “climate research”. I hope to get the 10% of the carbon tax revenue back from the UN, certainly would help with the federal budget deficit.
Brandon, I would suggest you contact Ken White at Popehat for help. (ken@popehat.com) He is a lawyer and a blogger who has many times sent out the popehat signal for bloggers whose first amendment rights are chilled by bumptious legal threats.
This is right up his alley, a vaguely threatening letter from an institution demanding the world but offering no legal evidence to an online blogger.
I’d get a legal consultation on it. Probably you can go to a law school group if you lack the cash. I can’t believe a cease and desist letter sent to you is not publishable. If what you did was illegal, I’m sure they would have already gone after you. Give a copy to Mark Steyn.
Maybe next time something drops in our lap we immediately send it to Drudge and publish it on as many sites as possible. Is it more important to get credit for releasing it with “clever prose, jokes that’d make your stomach ache from laughter and even some insightful commentary” or getting the damn thing out there? It’s not like we don’t know how academia rolls.
It’s of no surprise the UoQ has taken this extrodainary action. If you take away the 97% consensus, the AGW theory would have no legs. It would be game over !
Siberian Hussey has slightly missed the point comparing Dr Mann with Mr Cook.
Mann’s misconduct although suspected by many only came to light several years after it took place through the Climategate revelations. It was, to use their own terms, ‘tricky’ and involved a group of scientists finessing and manipulating complex data to support a particular stance. By the time we found out about ‘hide the decline’ and ‘Mike’s Nature trick’… all the parties had got their stories straight, the deletion of emails (as advised by Jones) was well under way and the establishment cover-up firmly in place.
This is very different. Thanks to his self-generated high profile we’ve had Mr Cook in the spotlight (or under the microscope, take your pick) continuously for several years now.
His activist stance and the frankly wild nature of his claims make him vulnerable to simple enquiry and investigation. There’s not much finesse involved in making the 97% claim, the data, method and calculations used should be clear and easily understood and defended. As they used to say in the old movies…this is a fresh trail.
As for Mann his time will come. Right now I imagine he’s very conscious that all of his colleagues and all of the students sitting in his lectures are well aware of the accusations that have been made against him and that some of them may believe that they are true…not a comfortable place to be.
These are interesting times.
Having “peeled” more than a few URLs in my day (more than once by accident), it’s appalling how
many directories are left unsecured – not sure if it’s a webserver issue, tight money, or just carelessness…(same sort of thing looking at “View Source” once doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry…especially when it’s my own 🙂 ).
Having said that, I would think that a University or a researcher would be under legal responsibility to secure their data, in particular that which purports to be “copyrighted”. Not sure what the legal term would be for this, perhaps fiduciary neglect? In this sense Cook or UQ could be at fault…
Here in beautiful downtown Deutschland, owners of WiFi routers/repeaters can be liable for damages caused by lack of security (of their equipment). So you can be both a victim of “war driving” and, in a sense, responsible for it (and the consequences) too….oh joy….
From “cooking the books” to booking the Cooks…never a dull moment when the “team” is around….
Furthermore, Creative Commons licenses are non-exclusive and non-revocable. Any work or copies of the work obtained under a Creative Commons license may continue to be used under that license.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license
http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/02/sixteen-things-writers-should-know.html
14. A few interesting cases, such as Avins v. Moll, suggest that the recipient of a letter may publish a whole letter, if publication is necessary to defend the recipient’s reputation against charges made by the sender. In any event, fair use ordinarily would give the recipient the leeway she needs to deal with this rare circumstance.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17479339105256524299&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
I have also concluded that Avins cannot make out a claim for common law copyright against defendants, if that is what is meant by his “property” claim. It is widely accepted that “[t]he recipient of a letter has the absolute right either to destroy it or preserve it and permit its limited inspection by others, or to transfer its possession to others.” Nimmer, The Law Of Copyrights, § 5.04 at 5-32 (1981 rev.). That is, the author of a letter does not have an absolute property right in that document. Others may make “fair use” of the letter. One such accepted use is “[w]here the occasion requires or justifies the recipient in publishing the letter in order to furnish information vital to the protection of the rights and character of himself or others….” Id. at 5-34.1 (footnotes omitted).
http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/02/sixteen-things-writers-should-know.html
3. As the recipient of the letter, you cannot, however, publish the entirety of the letter without my consent
==========
surprising. this opens up the abuse of copyright to legalize extortion via letter.
“[t]he recipient of a letter has the absolute right either to destroy it or preserve it and permit its limited inspection by others, or to transfer its possession to others.”
==================
transfer possession of the letter to others.
The moral imperative such as it may have existed in the minds of the consensus has left the room.
“philjourdan says:
May 16, 2014 at 7:20 am”
Mr. Schollenberger should publish. (His choice).
Goes to show the Cook is well protected and that institutions are in it up to their eyeballs… Watch out when these types will police the internet…
Go ahead and start a defense fund.
Lawyer up and go to war. That’s all those people will ever be deterred by.
Release everything. Out threaten them. Counter sue them.
Suffocate them.
Interesting post over at “The Volokh Conspiracy” about writings as propery and ownership thereof:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/15/man-commits-suicide-blames-ex-wife-in-suicide-note-ex-wife-takes-control-of-copyright-tries-to-get-note-and-mans-other-writings-removed-from-internet/
Eugene deals with 1st and 2nd amendment issues, and is a law professor at UCLA…he might have some words and/or wisdom to impart…
Brandon Shollenberger,
Consider a strategy for a period of a couple of years to keep the letter unpublished and instead to actively discuss in very generalized terms small aspects of it separately one-at-a-time in many weekly blog posts while actively keeping open in the posts the important moral question about whether UQ is acting like an out-of-control government funded coercive body engaged in something that is arguably similar to international blackmail on a private individual of another country. And keeping open in each post their unscientifically tenuous position opposed to the fundamental scientific principle of open data for falsifiability purposes. That may strongly incentivize UQ to leak their own letter in pieces (or in whole) in order respond to what is being said about them in a growing controversial public discussion of them . Call this the ‘widening gyre, center cannot hold’ strategy.
Time is against UQ by this strategy.
Be patient, you have no time pressure, keep discussion about the letter alive.
John
I have sent a letter requesting that the University publicly deny sending the letter, and advising the VC of this abuse of process. If I need to, I will forward it to the Queensland Education Minister for action.