Nature once again takes up the cause of its favourite son, Michael Mann, arguing that taxpayers should stump up the cash for academics and should not be able to see what they are doing.
To protect academic freedom is a foundation for intellectual property and copyright laws, while in court, both Mann and the university warned of the chilling effect of such demands on communication between scientists. Certainly, many researchers are more wary of e-mail today, and given Mann's experiences, who can blame them?
The intellectual property and copyright should belong to the taxpayers who stumped up the cash - probably unwillingly - in the first place. If academics don't like the scrutiny they should get themselves out of the public sector.