From the “all your emails belong to us” department comes this ruling that I’m sure Mikey Mann and company will go ballistic over.
From the Arizona Daily Sun:
PHOENIX — An organization that is questioning the research behind climate change will get another chance to demand to see the emails of two University of Arizona scientists.
The state Court of Appeals has overturned the ruling of a trial judge who said the university need not disclose 1,700 emails and other records from Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes. Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner had said the university did not abuse its discretion in concluding that disclosing the documents would not be in the best interests of the state.
But appellate Judge Joseph Howard, writing for the unanimous court, said it’s legally irrelevant what university officials thought was appropriate to disclose.
Howard said everyone involved in the case acknowledges the emails are public records. And he said state law has a presumption that all public records are subject to disclosure, with certain exceptions.
What that means, Howard wrote, is that trial judges must actually examine the records to determine whether making them public really would harm “the best interests of the state’’ as the university is claiming.
More here
As WUWT readers may know, Mann wrote the original Hockeystick paper in 1998 with Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes, hence the MBH98 moniker. AEI and others have tried to get Mann’s emails from Penn State, but were blocked by political interventions claiming science would be harmed, among other things. Damn right it would, but not how they think.
Jonathan Overpeck demonstrates his heavy political bias on his own Twitter feed daily, and does Mann. If the emails are even remotely like the Twitter feeds of these two, it’s going to look very bad for their science indeed. Now comes the next wave of legal arguments.
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‘Entia non sunt multiplicana praeter necessitatim. ‘.
Occam’s Razor.
‘Only disclose things on a need to know basis.’
Brad Keyes – translator.
Welcome news! But it is still disconcerting that a lower court could have ever ruled that that university emails were not public property. We are just barely a free society… when we are at all.
And coming up next: dramatic new video which shows paint actually drying.
As Mark Steyn has observed regarding his own case: we are more than 3 years into the legal process of deciding whether a 270 word article he wrote in 2012 is defamatory. So far there hasn’t been a single hearing on the substance of the Mann’s complaint; it’s all been procedural.
The legal profession is a bigger disgrace than climate science.
The primary purpose of the legal system is to keep lawyers employed.
Everything else is just incidental.
Michael Mann — The Hockey Stick
There was a crooked Mann
Who played a crooked trick
And had a crooked plan
To make a crooked stick
By using crooked math
That favored crooked lines
Lysenko’s crooked path
Led through the crooked pines
And all his crooked friends
Applaud what crooked seems
But all that crooked ends
Derives from crooked means
Eugene WR Gallun
The only justification, for me, to not release the emails was that personal information might be included along with the “science stuff”. (Easy enough to resolve. Have impartial people review them before public release.)
Now the claim is “science would be harmed”!?!?
Only if they have harmed science.
Why would political interventions seek to prevent the release of the “science” that justify their policies?
“… be in the best interests of the state.”
Now, that’s a pretty loose requirement.
Suppose, “the state” has a vested interest in advancing an agenda.
Yes, a legal definition of what is harmful to the state or university would be required.
I know it’s a play on words, but the correct play would be “all your emails are belong to us” which is reference to a really terrible Japanese to English translation of the game 80s game, Zero Wing. =]
Go back and read the comments from March 5th again….
“…Hitler’s first move was to issue the February 5 ‘Decree for the Protection of the German People,’ which gave the Gestapo, a state police force, the power to suppress activities deemed harmful to the state….”
http://teacherweb.ftl.pinecrest.edu/SNYDERD/MWH/Webquests/9-Dep&Tot/9-NaziRule.htm
Ahhh state security, just like national security, is a mechanism for hiding wrong doing nothing more
“Best interests of the state”
A dangerous phrase indeed.
Maybe we should all refuse the IRS access to our financial records because it would not be in our best interests to divulge such information. See how that works out for you. So the “state” has different rules they play from those of us who pay to support such “state”.
I believe this is a misquote/misparody:
“all your emails belong to us”
I believe it is “all your emails are belong to us” in keeping with the tradition of repeating, uncorrected, the original.
No, should be “all your email are belong to us” to preserve the broken singular plural relationship.