User:Tillman/FOIA stuff for CG

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However, the university investigations were criticized, violations of the  UK Freedom of Information Act were credibly alleged, and public confidence in climate science was diminished.

FOI requests (formerly in article)
Antonio Regalado, a journalist at Science Magazine, wrote in Science Insider : "[U]niversity researchers may [...] find themselves in legal jeopardy if they deleted emails requested under the U.K.'s Freedom of Information (FOIA) legislation, a crime under U.K. law." The hacker who released the documents used the name "FOIA", Regalado pointed out, adding, "the emails, which appear to be genuine, though their authenticity could not be confirmed, indicate a concerted effort to fight the FOI requests that may itself have slipped into questionable territory." Regalado quoted an email said to be sent by Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, to Michael Mann, asking Mann, "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?" Jones declined to comment about this email, but Mann responded to Regalado, "I did not delete any emails at all in response to Phil Jone's [sic] request, nor did I indicate to him that I would." Regalado wrote that the e-mails showed some scientists were concerned about wasting their time by being drawn into controversies if some of the documents were released in response to FOI requests. The UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) oversees the FOI process there, and issued the following statement: "'Destroying requested information outside of an organisation’s normal policies is unlawful and may be a criminal offence if done to prevent disclosure."

Use these?: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384390/Climategate-scientists-secretive-broken-Freedom-Information-laws.html "...the theft was motivated by the CRU’s repeated refusals to provide detailed information about the data underlying its temperature records."

"The Information Commissioner's office said that the researcher had breached the Freedom of Information acts..."


 * 8/9/11 -- searched talk archives for FOIA stuff, added some here. Dreary reading!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy/Archive_37#NPOV_dispute:_hacker_or_whistleblower "OK, we have 12 reliable sources currently listed above which speculate that the breach could have been an inside job." --Cla68

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141258/Global_warming_research_exposed_after_hack?taxonomyId=82
 * Judging from the data posted, the hack was done either by an insider or by someone inside the climate community who was familiar with the debate, said Robert Graham, CEO with the consultancy Errata Security. Whenever this type of incident occurs, "80 percent of the time it's an insider," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/hacked-emails-police-investigation Fred Pearce analyzes the possibilities in some detail. Activist editors have opposed using this as "speculation". -- see Talk Archive 37.
 * -- lots of good quotes from the principals, including McI