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
About legal advice, if you are an academic, or scholar, irrespective of the disciple you received you degree majors in, there is b all they can do. But I would check with a copyright solicitor about what they have stipulated. Don’t go ahead and publish or be damned, without some legal advice is ‘gung ho’ and silly advice. You could get additional info from well known scholars, that they are happy for you to quote. E.G. Dr Tim Ball, or Steve McIntyre. (In the references too) Gives your article and paper more credibility and they can’t sue people overseas anyway, without a huge cost.
But as this is the second complaint against an Australian university, I would send a copy of that letter to Christopher Pine.
mem says…
“Of the remaining 77 scientists whose votes were counted, 75 agreed with the proposition that mankind was causing catastrophic changes in the climate. And, since 75 is 97.4% of 77, ‘overwhelming consensus’ was demonstrated. In reality, the 75 respondents that agreed with AGW is actually only 0.73% of the original sample group.”
=================================================
My recollection was that this “75 agreed with the proposition that mankind was causing catastrophic changes in the climate.” is not correct, as the word “catastrophic” was not in the questionnaire. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)
“UPDATE: Ironically, Cook’s “97% consensus paper” was published one year ago today, under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.”
Sorry to be picky, but it isn’t irony. Over here in Britland we understand that you Americans don’t ‘get’ irony. But just for the record:
‘Irony’ is when the reverse happens of something you intended. It isn’t anything else. It isn’t ironic (for example) if a man gets knocked down and killed by a hearse. It still isn’t ironic if that man gets knocked down and killed by an ambulance. However, it WOULD be ironic if that ambulance were on its way to attend to him. Do you see? If one is considering to say something is ironic, just always think of that, and you’ll know whether or not it is correct to use the word.
lee
‘I was wondering whether U of Q independently verified all the data was published on SKS, or simply took the word of John Cook?’
Given the normal pratice of Australia Universities on such ‘investigations’, what do you think , 1000-1 they just asked Cook and never brothered to check.
If the UQ concern is ‘not to allow identification of respondents or raters’ etc then why not paraphrase perhaps 10 lines of a log file you have acquired, changing any unique identifying data (names, ip addresses, dates and times) keeping the length, structure and style the same, with all commas, colons tabs and linefeeds intact.
The there will be many people who read these threads who have the skill to write a short program that can anonymize your file in a way that allows it still to be used for research.
They upload the program, you grab it, use it, produce a new data file(s) check your happy and publish the new file.
No one but use has seen the original data, no unique identifying data is released.
Hopefully its a win-win for you, us, and UQ as they will have a solution to releasing the data whilst protecting participants……
(I just hope the original file(s) is regular, lending itself to easy modification.
David A, Thanks for the pick-up . You are correct on both counts. My point in posting was to show that the methodology used by Cook et al was extremely flawed. Indeed both pieces of research that I mentioned above were really not to do with climate science but were social research studies into scientists’ beliefs as interpreted by the researcher (bearing in mind that those that published works did so at the time not knowing that their papers would be taken as their individual support/belief in catastrophic manmade global warming) . As such, the researchers should have used academically sound social research techniques which neither of them did. Cook et al broke every rule in the book. In the words of our former PM the methodology was “crap”.If you truly wanted to debunk these studies ask a statistician or social research specialist. In fact why not ask a group of first year statistics students to analyse, produce a report and then present it for a public debate to be filmed and put on U-Tube. I would be happy to contribute $1000.00 towards a prize for the best presentation and I am sure others would be happy to contribute too. It would be great to get students involved. And great media .Time it happened. Mr Watts what do you say?
@mem
Um, I wouldn’t say that this was a study into the beliefs of scientists at all. In fact if a paper said, Suppose climate change were true, the the implied effect of such change on the blue spotted butterfly is X. Then Cook would quantify that as implicit support, when actually it is just an exercise in hypothesizing. I do not need to believe global warming is dangerous in order to follow a hypothetical argument on what the ramifications are to that claim of global warming.
Dare I say 97% of papers are of this nature, they are only implicitly supporting the meme by hypothesising on the implications of global warming “If it were True” that’s not the same as a statement that global warming is true and dangerous and man made. Mind you most of these papers fail to bother with the energy drain on the climate system in order to manifest the effects of global warming they claim. For example there is only sufficient excess energy to increase evaporation by 0.8 percent per doubling, and if that happened there’d be little warming due to the negative feedback that implies – yet there’s no shortage of papers claiming precipitation changes of even up to 20% – I which my aircon was THAT efficient!
If you asked me right now whether global warming since 1850 is a fact, I’d have to say yes, If you asked me if man contributed, I’d have to say yes (high probability that mans influence > 0) , if you asked me if it was dangerous I’d have to say NO, of course not. Cook would count me in the consensus but If you read my posts clearly I’m a big bad sceptic d-nier.
Of course Cook didn’t publish his detailed methodology so noone really knows where the line was drawn, but based on the complaints of several researchers who complained about Cook mischaracterising their papers I’d say that line was in the wrong place. The research is irreplicable because of that, Junk science – and I can’t understand why the UQ would even defend it
I haven’t read every response to the thread…I read the initial post, and some of the follow on comments.
BUT…in retrospect, it seems like the initial communication with Cook was almost some sort of a taunt, as in “Ok…I’ve got the goods on you, are you going to come clean??”
I think it would have been better to just release the data, period. Nothing was “owed” to Cook.
Had that been done, everything else would be moot…and the UQ would have their hands full dealing with the fallout, to the point where issuing legal threats would be at the bottom of the “to do” list.
Jim from Maine
http://hiizuru.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/5-15-hack.png
The hack comment is pure BS. Note that they don’t in anyway state that Brandon Schollenberger gained the letter in question by hacking. They are just trying to use scary talk.
Indeed it could constitute blackmail (which does not necessarily have to be related to a demand for money. )
If they believe that an offence has been committed that “requires referral to US law enforcement agencies” then they have but one action to take: referral to US law enforcement agencies.
Anything else is an attempt to coerce Brandon Schollenberger into an course of action that they wish to impose on him and that he would not otherwise do.
That is blackmail.
Perhaps someone needs to refer that matter, attempted blackmail, to the Queensland police.
“Greg says:
May 17, 2014 at 5:34 am
Perhaps someone needs to refer that matter, attempted blackmail, to the Queensland police.”
I am not sure you understand the priorities of the Queensland cops. They are more worried about day light savings scaring cows, souring milk, bleaching curtains and people stepping on cracks in the footpaths/sidewalks.
‘I am not sure you understand the priorities of the Queensland cops. They are more worried about day light savings scaring cows, souring milk, bleaching curtains and people stepping on cracks in the footpaths/sidewalks.’ Or “bikies” and their 3rd cousins, mechanics, drinking buddies or any one else with an “association”.
It appears to me , though it has not been stated explicitly, that the “letter” was obtained by it having been left on a public access ftp server or similar.
I which case any number of persons and probably some webbots will have accessed and stored it.
It would not surprise me if it did not appear on some russian server or bittorrent network. Maybe just knowing the file name or some “fair use” snippet of text would be sufficient to find it from some source that cannot be blackmailed by threats of legal action.
Ah publish copyright and be damned! And it’s the only paper in Oz that’s beginning to join the dots(so take a subscription like me plug plug!) our leftist tripe Universities are hiding and skulking from-
HEADLINE-
“Queensland University tries to block climate research”
GRAHAM LLOYD The Australian May 17, 2014 12:00AM
“THE University of Queensland has threatened legal action to stop the release of data used in a paper that establishes a 97 per cent scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change.
The paper, lead authored by John Cook, has been the subject of debate over its methodology since it was published last year.
The university said yesterday it was prepared to take legal action to protect the privacy of survey participants.
Blogger Brandon Schollenberger said UQ had written to him claiming information he had received was illegally obtained and that the matter had been referred to US law enforcement authorities. If the material were published, UQ said, it would sue for breach of copyright.
The Cook paper said that among research expressing a position on anthropogenic global warming, 97.2 per cent endorsed the consensus.
“Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research,’’ said the paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
UQ’s acting pro-vice-chancellor (Research and International) Alastair McEwan said all data substantiating the paper, Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature, had been published on Skepticalscience.com.
“UQ has therefore published all data relating to the paper that is of any scientific value to the wider community,” he said.
“UQ withheld only data that could identify research participants who took part in the research on condition of anonymity. Such conditions are not uncommon in academic research, and any breach of confidentiality could deter people from participating in valuable research in the future.”
The legal fight comes amid reports in London claiming that one of the world’s top journals rejected the work of five experts after a reviewer privately denounced it as “harmful”.
Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of the authors of the study, told The Times he suspected that intolerance of dissenting views on climate science was preventing his paper from being published.
“The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist,” he added.
Professor Bengtsson’s paper challenged the finding of the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change that the global average temperature would rise by up to 4.5C if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were allowed to double.
It suggested that the climate might be much less sensitive to greenhouse gases than had been claimed by the IPCC in its report last September.”
You’ll get the flavour of Oz politics at present here as the Federal Govt announces a mild lowering of the pig trough of middle class welfare and the usual suspects are squealing like stuck pigs-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/tony-abbott-brands-student-protesters-as-revolting-after-foreign-affairs-minister-julie-bishop-was-mobbed/story-fnii5smq-1226921399144
following on from a bunch of our universities’ finest howling down the public broadcaster ABC’s Q&A program with Federal Education Minister Chris Pyne in attendance as the token non-lefty that Aunty feels forced to have on the show. The upshot was the audience is supposed to be hand-picked by Aunty as a representative cross-section of the political spectrum but having to chop the live show early due to their scintillating choice of audience, laid bare their well known bias for all to see.
Is this the same as the University of East Anglia’s threat to sue anybody who releases more of the CRU emails?
Lots of ways to make information anonymously appear on the internet. Tor project etc….. Just saying….. Who is to say where it came from when you can’t trace the source.
Bredon Shollenberger: “Jeff, I suspect the point you make is why the University of Queensland wants to claim I got the data via hacking. ”
But did they actually say that? Pay attention to detail, remember the letter you recd was apparently written by a lawyer.
From what you posted above, they said there “appeared” to have been a hack. They did not say you did the hack or that the file in question was obtained as a result of said “apparent” hack.
Since the hack allegation is baseless, they would be guilty of defamation if they did say it was you or it was how you obtained the data.
However, the intent of inserting that comment was clear. It was not for idle chat or curiosity value. It is an attempt at coercion, a legal term that is at the heart of the definition of blackmail.
They’re flying close to the wind but presumably reckon that in the legal poker game of civil law suits you don’t have the money to come to the table. They do.
I’d be writing back to their legal correspondent demanding clarification on why they included information about the “apparent” hack in their letter to you and whether they are suggesting you had any connection to the “apparent” hack or benefited from it to obtain the information. And whether they have yet reported the incident to US authorities as “required”.
“They’re flying close to the wind but presumably reckon that in the legal poker game of civil law suits you don’t have the money to come to the table. They do. ”
The point is that blackmail and coercion are criminal acts, not civil law. You could look at making a compliant about the “apparent” criminal intimidation. That does not involve you in suing anyone.
Also “cease and desist” notices are part of copyright actions. They do not apply to apply to whether you contact Cook or not. That is complete bluster.
Unless your communications with Cook could constitute harassment they have no grounds to try to ban you from contacting him. It you were to harass, it would be a police matter not a copyright infringement.
It’s actually pretty much impossible to harass someone by email since all they need to do is put a spam filter on your address.
Jay, I’m well aware. I could have easily kept my identity hidden while gathering the material. I just didn’t see a point when my behavior was perfectly legal and ethical.
Greg, if we’re going to pay attention to detail, we should note I said “the University of Queensland wants to claim” there was a hack. I didn’t say they actually claimed there was one. I try to be precise with things like that.
In any event, I responded to the solicitor promptly, with a request for some basic documentation. I didn’t get a response. I’m not sure how I’ll handle futher contact yet. If the solicitor won’t even respond to a request for basic documentation of their forensic investigation’s conclusions, I don’t think she’ll respond to the questions you suggest I ask.
On the issue of this being blackmail, I’m not sure the remark about an apparent hack could qualify. The letter said the issue needed to be referred to the proper authorities. It said nothing to indicate that was dependent upon anything I do. Were I to meet all of the letter’s demands, I’d still expect them to contact the authorities (at least, if they followed what their letter said).
Other parts of the letter may qualify as blackmail though. Also, one might be able to argue the paragraph about a supposed hack implies blackmail due to the context. I’m not sure. I think it’d be hard argument to make.
Of course, that’s only for blackmail in a legal sense. The letter is unquestionably blackmail as used in common parlance.
Hi Brandon and Greg, the point I meant to make was that “URL peeling” (as I call it) is most emphatically NOT a hack. Coming from a mainframe background, I was not really aware that
such a thing could work until I accidentally did it (while looking up some EXTREMELY boring programming minutiae). If a webserver is (mis) configured such as to allow directories to pop up instead of 404 messages, that’s the fault of
1) the site owner
2) the service provider
3) the software provider to the service provider
4) and so on down the line of outsourcing, etc.
With all the tools out there, especially considering that UQ considers itself an institute of higher education, and, one would hope, expertise, there is no excuse for this lack of security/attention/maintenance….
Criminies, I could even do it in FrontPage 2003 as a rank beginner….(still rank, unfortunately…).
So I think any assertion or even implication on their part that you “hacked” is just as specious as
“the team” saying that CG1 and CG2 were “hacks”…. bullfeathers…all show and no go….just meant
to scare you. Have a look at Eugene’s blog, maybe email him….he’s an expert on free speech
(and on computing as well).
My point on WLAN in Germany is just to point out that, basically, if the website leaves the
electronic barn door open, it’s not someone else’s fault if they happen to have a few extra
horses/cows/pigs/tractors (OK, just kidding) the next day. So I still stay with wired LAN (OK, call me lazy, etc., then again, rebar between floors is not your friend…)…
Funny how with AGW’ers, watermelons, etc. it’s always someone else’s fault.
Keep up the good fight, get good advice, hang in there, and take care (not to mention, where’s article 101????)…
As someone else said above, you must be right over target…..
“Criminies, I could even do it in FrontPage 2003 as a rank beginner….(still rank, unfortunately…).”
I could even put up a site that didn’t reveal directories, etc…..
Need a spell-checking and thought-checking keyboard here…
@Greg
No, they could not be guilty of defamation by merely sending him a letter accusing him of hacking, however if they said to a Third Party that he hacked their website THEN they would be guilty of defamation. Defamation / Libel requires the publishing to a third party of untruthful damaging material.
All in all a huge win on this one, the MSN has gone all the way on this one, except of course the ABC ( Chirp, Chirp) CAGW is a holy cow to them. In my opinion UQ has been extremely embarrassed by this and after the pasting in the local media wouldn’t dare pursue it. John Cook and the University legal rep will will be fronting the management tomorrow I expect.
I await the reply on my letters to the VC and minister as a citizen concerned by the depth of corruption of purpose in Queensland Universities by leftist political dogma. The minister will no doubt be having an informal chat to the VC and be calling the damage control spin-doctor team.
@Michael Lewis –
Sounds like Australia’s Liberal Party is close to classical liberalism – as are conservatives in the US. “Liberal” here essentially means extreme left wing.
@Chad
Yes, in fact our Liberal Party is called that because of classical liberalism, that is individualism as opposed to Nanny state socialism. They are not really a capitalist/conservative party at all – which could be considered a problem. We don’t actually have a choice of a capitalist anti-welfare state government, not that I would want that, but a choice would be nice. We did have “One Nation” once which was close to that, but the majors managed to oust their representatives.
The US Republican party isn’t particularly right wing either – in the US you have a choice of left or left of left … But the tea party (more like classic liberalism) inroads into the Republican party may manage to bring them back to centre right.
The big problem in the USA for capitalism is that the number of citizen receiving handouts, or employed by the government is over 50% and you are reaching a tipping point that the public can vote for more spending and borrowing. It is possible in that situation to end up with a socialist or communist single party state. The USA needs to reduce the populations dependence on government largesse and quickly.