On August 12, 2009 Nature reported on attempts by Climate Auditors to obtain Phil Jones data and Jones' response:
Although Jones agrees that the data should be made publicly available, he says that “it needs to be done in a systematic way”. He is now working to make the data publicly available online and will post a statement on the CRU website tomorrow to that effect, with any existing confidentiality agreements. “We’re trying to make them all available. We’re consulting with all the meteorological services – about 150 members of WMO – and will ask them if they are happy to release the data”, says Jones. But getting the all-clear from other nations could take several months and there may be objections. “Some countries don’t even have their own data available as they haven’t digitized it. We have done a lot of that ourselves”, he says.
The letter to SMHI requesting permission to release their data was dated December 2009.
I wonder what CRU were doing in the intervening five months?