The University whose stolen emails sparked the Climategate scandal has defended itself against criticism from the Information Commissioner.
The Climatic Research Unit, at the University of East Anglia, has been accused of obstructing requests for its climate change data made by critics of the theory of man-made global warming. Yesterday, based on information gleaned from emails which were released by hackers in November, the Information Commissioner said the Unit had broken the rules of the Freedom of Information Act – but was immune from prosecution because the offence was more than six months old.
Apparently the Commissioner did not bother to tell the University of its conclusion. “The University learnt yesterday that the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO) had made a statement to the media regarding the University’s handling of requests under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. We have not received any further information from the ICO although we are urgently trying to contact them,” said the vice-chancellor, Professor Edward Acton.
“The ICO’s opinion that we had breached the terms of Section 77 is a source of grave concern to the University as we would always seek to comply with the terms of the Act,” Professor Acton continued. “During this case we have sought the advice of the ICO and responded fully to any requests for information.”
The University’s handling of requests under the Freedom of Information Act is part of an independent review being carried out by Sir Muir Russell, along with accusations that the group tampered with data and obstructed the academic peer-review process.
Professor Acton clearly believes the ICO has jumped the gun and should wait for the Muir Russell inquiry to report: “I look forward to receiving his report and as I have said before it will be published and I will act accordingly if he finds there is indeed substance in these allegations.”
A spokesperson for Sir Muir Russell said his review panel would be announcing its work plan and personnel shortly and would be liasing closely with the ICO and sharing information when appropriate.
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Mr Judge, you obviously are much better informed than the rest of us. Can you please outline the evidence for your proposition that the emails at the centre of this dispute were 'stolen' or 'hacked' as you put it.
In fact whilst most of us initially jumped to the conclusion that the emails were hacked, the longer this saga has continued the more it looks like a leak.
Why is it that you have adopted the position that it is the work of a hacker?
I do like comments that start "Mr Judge..." and hope you don't mind an equally formal address.
I am interested to know how the emails were leaked, and would be very interested to hear form a "whistleblower" if one exists. However, I honestly don't think the question of whether the emails were hacked, stolen or leaked is the main one here.
They were published without permission, and we are now discussing the contents, and allegations that they prove misbehaviour by climate change scientists.
Since you don't mention the contents, does that mean you're aware that the accusations based on these contents have turned out to be rather weaker than they were originally presented?
For instance, an FOI obstruction, if proven, would be a crime, but would not be the invalidation of man-made global warming for which the deniers have hoped?
Peter Judge
"...the invalidation of man-made global warming..."
It isn't the falsification, but it very likely is the invalidation of the case for it.
A valid case is one in which all the logical steps are correct and supported by the facts. It is possible for the conclusion of an argument to be true, but the steps used getting there invalid.
To some degree the above is a strawman. It doesn't have to be a falsification for the contents to be extremely significant and for important conclusions about the science to be drawn. I don't judge the case for AGW by media claims of imminent 100 m sea level rises. Why judge the case against by the most hyperbolic claims made for Climategate?
Well, seems like somebody is either
a) ignorant and hasn't read the emails (a case of a true believer syndrome)
OR
b) liar
Emails and especially included code prove beyond reasonable doubt that the whole thing was cooked.
You can downplay it all you like, little man, AGW is done!
True believer syndrome:
In his book The Psychic Mafia, Keene tells of a psychic medium named Raoul. Some people still believed that Raoul was genuine even after he openly admitted that he was a fake. Keene wrote "I knew how easy it was to make people believe a lie, but I didn't expect the same people, confronted with the lie, would choose it over the truth. . . . No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie."
"Yesterday, based on information gleaned from emails which were released by hackers in November, the Information Commissioner said the Unit had broken the rules of the Freedom of Information Act ? but was immune from prosecution because the offence was more than six months old."
In reading about this elsewhere and here, I understand that responders to FOI requests are allowed 6 months to provide the information. If this is true, it makes no sense that they are saying the CRU people couldn't be prosecuted since the 6 month period had elapsed. Doesn't the violation BEGIN at that 6-month point? Can you clarify?
Thanks JoBlo and Malthus/ Still missing the point, I see. Defects in one of three climate data sets does not invalidate the whole of that data set, let alone the other two.
And only wilful ignorance would say that it does.
To clarify, SteveGinIL, the limitation is that if you have an FOI request stonewalled, you have only six months to complain about it.
You can't complain to the ICO until you have gone through the agency's complaints procedure, and if they spin that out for six months you can no longer complain.
It appears to be a genuine weakness in FOI - though this is the first time I've come across it.
Peter Judge