Tuesday
Aug162011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Suspicious mind
Aug 16, 2011 Climate: CRU Climate: Sceptics Media Autonomous Mind has been looking at the story of the Guardian's outing of Jeff Id and remains suspicious of what went on. I'm not convinced myself - what do you think?
Reader Comments (18)
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With thanks to Elvis and writer Caroline Dunford
I haven't delved into it and Autonomous Mind doesn't have anything but suspicions.
However, when The Guardian and the BBC were slinging the mud over the phone hacking business, it crossed my mind that they might well have a few skeletons in their own cupboards. Rather like the MPs' expenses scandal, you can find yourself hoping that one side or the other is straight, but actually, it's a way of thinking that permeated all Westminster parties.
I wouldn't be surprised if AM was onto something.
According to a recent TV documentary, details of which I've completely forgotten, the sources for the trickle-fed leaks to the Grauniad are from a group of individuals who investigated this stuff themselves, backed by Tom Watson, Hugh Grant, and others, with financial clout from Max Moseley.
I remember a private detective being interview in TV about this saying , saying he worked for lots a newspapers doing this sort of work , while 'police contacts' of one form or another are used by them all . As for phone tapping , while I can tell for land lines the guys as the exchanges get asked quite often to do favors, some is official stuff and some is less official but more finical attractive.
So it the Guardian being hypothetical for sure ,it does in lots of instances , does the Guardian have motive , yes its nailed its flag very firmly to the AGW its full support of this is editorial policy . Is it willing to use dirty tricks in this support , absolutely given Bob 'fast figures' that article before publication shows there willing to reject their ethical standards when it comes to this support .Lying about afterward shows they happy to play dirty too.
Did the report use police contacts to obtain and publish information that they would not otherwise have had , very likely , did this information come from bugging possible .
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@ZedsDeadBed: given that AM has a very long blog roll, any chance of details of which links you are referring to?
Aug 16, 2011 at 6:40 PM | Unregistered CommenterJim
Could you enlighten me too please? After a random sample of 20 I gave up looking for said links.
I'm not convinced myself either. However, yesterday the UEA did receive a FOIA request for copies of all my correspondence, email and mail, between myself and McIntyre, Condon, Watts, Mosher and Fuller. This is an interesting list of names. It's public knowledge that I had sent maybe 10 emails to McIntyre over the past 4 or 5 years some of these asking about the climategate release of emails, 1 email to Condon sending him a copy of my paper on the Gomez Glacier which had relevance for his work on Antarctic temperatures, particularly with reference to the lower Peninsula. It's not, as far as I know, on the public record that I had a very brief correspondence with Tom Fuller immediately after climategate. This amounted to 2, maybe 3 emails. To my recollection I have never corresponded with Mosher or Watts. I have never spoken, or written by any other means with any of the named correspondents.
I have no objection to these emails being made public. Indeed if I had copies of them I'd post them on the web. Unfortunately, I rigorously delete all emails I don't consider important after about 2 months from my PC's and the server. I'm sure the university will have copies and can provide these. It will be a paltry return!
What interests me is the selection of names. Not being drawn to conspiracy theories I'd say these few were selected because they are seen by some as central to the release of the emails either through the initial announcement of 'a miracle has occurred' or through the publication of a synthesis and interpretation of the events (Fuller and Mosher). The requester is on a fishing expedition. If I were more cynical I'd say that the requester may have had some inside information as to the fact I had written to, for example, Fuller in response to his request to answer some questions.
Interestingly the requester justified their claim (not that any justification is needed under FOIA) as:
"Release of the information is in the public interest because it will contribute significantly to public understanding global warming disinformation."
I'm sorry to disappoint but my correspondence with McIntyre, Watts, Condon, Mosher and Fuller will add absolutely nothing to this particular debate. If the requester wants to know my views and stance on the science I suggest they search the various blogs where they will find I make all my contributions in public and generally restrict myself to scientific matters in which I have a degree of knowledge.
Slap acknowledged, Your Grace!
I would have thought there were enough straws in the wind to justify an enquiry.I think one point I made was relevant.
From what I read on Autonomous Mind there does appear to be prima facie evidence of possible contact between an individual or individuals within the police and an individual or individuals at the Guardian.
Bear in mind that AM lists no fewer than four Guardian scoops which could (arguably) only have come from police sources while the outing of Condon would seem only to have become possible following his reply to a request from Norfolk Police. As Climate Audit says,
Hi Paul
Sorry to hear about your travails. But this does prove that the whole leak related to skeptics is an inside job and someone associated with UEA is still leaking information which he has no right to.
Paul
I'm glad you are so relaxed about this. I am sure the emails will kill off some of the more lurid conspiracy theories about how the leak happened and I guess to that extent the requester is correct - it will help prevent climate disinformation.
Bish
I hope the emails do kill off some of the more deranged conspiracy theories that abound. However, I wrote so infrequently to Steve McIntyre, including once to invite him to UEA to give a seminar (before Climategate), just once to Jeff Condon as a polite covering letter to a copy of one of my papers I sent him, and I answered a few questions from Tom Fuller post Climategate.
I don't have copies of these emails though the Norfolk police do! I'm sure the University has copies on a backup server somewhere but that is an assumption on my part.
As a point of clarification. The Norfolk police have copies of my email to Condon and of my emails to Steve McIntyre asking if he knew anything about the apparent release of a file cache from UEA.
Your post is about police-to-journalist leaking of information. Perhaps the real path was police to UEA to journalist.
Sometime before climategate I I submitted FOIA/EIRs to UEA regarding the confidentiality agreements that they claimed prohibited the release of raw station data.
Shortly after climategate I received a letter from the Norfolk Constabulary stating that they wished to interview me regarding the theft of e-mails.
I found it very interesting and somewhat troubling that a FOIA request led to being a suspect. I did agree to the interview, mostly because I was curious about what questions would be posed.
I was rather surprised at the extended questioning about which blogs I read.
I did supply some additional contact info to the detective from Norfolk Constabulary. I've always wondered how much of that information was fed back to the university.
Charlie A your comments are very interesting in the light of what we now know about the links between Norfolk police and Neil Wallis. Perhaps the police were doing a favour for their pal Wallis and his clients at UEA by helping them to form a view of the links between sceptic bloggers and commenters to optimise the subsequent smear campaign. Wasting police time, indeed.