Apparently somebody hacked into climate change researchers’ e-mails and published the exchanges. From the story:
Hundreds of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world’s leading climate scientists over the past 13 years have been stolen by hackers and leaked online, it emerged today. The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the UK’s University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change…So far the veracity of the emails has not been confirmed and the scientists involved have declined to comment on the story, which broke on a blog called The Air Vent.
You know, there is just too much of this kind of thing going on. Hacking private computers and then publishing the material thereby obtained is inexcusable behavior– it is theft and invasion of privacy. Moreover, everyone knows that the people who stole this material would not have posted it on the Internet if the e-mails wholly supported the scientists’ research and integrity–raising the specter of bushels worth of cherry picking.
Such crimes are profoundly anti democratic in that they stifle free discourse, and indeed, chill engagement by citizens in controversial issues. The time has come for all sides on this and other issues to disclaim such conduct categorically–not just when its one’s own side that is burned. Otherwise, we should apologize to Richard Nixon for holding him to account for Watergate, and acknowledge that there remain few limits in public advocacy and the pursuit of ideological agendas.
November 20th, 2009 | 2:56 pm
cough…Pentagon Papers…cough
November 20th, 2009 | 2:57 pm
ROFLMAO@U
Awwww Did they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar?
Too bad.
November 20th, 2009 | 2:58 pm
1. How do know it was not an inside job…a.k.a a whistleblower? Whistleblowers are protect in the U.K.
2. It happened 3-4 days ago…Why didn’t Phil Jones, the Director, call the Police??? He didn’t call them.
November 20th, 2009 | 2:58 pm
Sorry Wes, but the global warming fear mongers have done nothing but stifle open debate on this, as the emails themselves indicate. The man-made global warming argument is nothing more than an anti-capitalist weapon in a war against economic freedom. And all’s fair in war.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:01 pm
Any intelligent person whose followed the facts, knows that the earth has been cooling for the last 13 years, that global warming is a scam, and the climate change proponents have been out right lying. Maybe a little sunlight on their Nazi tactics will get the truth out, and finally end this stupidity.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:02 pm
Gee, where was all of the feigned indignation when Sarah Palin’s email was hacked last year? There was none because it served your cause. As opposed to this which exposes how these scientists are complicit in the global warming fraud!
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
John: It is not smart to jump to such conclusions. While this isn’t a political blog, I have repeatedly decried how she has been abused and mistreated.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:03 pm
Hey, we didn’t steal it. But if someone steals evidence of a crime from a crooked organization that is trying to impose monster taxes on us and destroy the economy, and then releases it to the public, we have no obligation to refrain from using it.
I would point out that at least one aim of the Global Warming Mafia is to abort as many babies as possible to cut world population, and I don’t think First Things should be supporting that.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:07 pm
Funny… I don’t recall you whining when Sarah Palin’s email was hacked.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
This isn’t a political blog per se, but I have been very vocal in decrying the hatred against Palin. Don’t jump to conclusions.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:07 pm
These are tax-funded researchers communicating professionally on work email. If you read their emails, you will quickly find that avoiding FOIA requests is a favourite topic. In essence, whoever leaked these documents is giving us access to something which we should already have had access to a long time ago.
As for the morality of hacking in order to expose fraud and deception that has potentially cost taxpayers billions of dollars – well, I can hardly say it is upsetting. On the contrary.
If someone on “my side” (ironically, it wasn’t really “my side” until today), gets caught perverting science like this, well, then they deserve whatever they have coming.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the hacker should not be prosecuted for the security breach. But it does mean that he (for it is a he) should be praised for what he has done.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:13 pm
LOLOL! The rebels strike back!
November 20th, 2009 | 3:14 pm
I would be ashamed to post such a headline.
It is absolutely false. Plus you apparently are not aware of WHISTLEBLOWER Laws.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Marsha: I am not the one who is ignorant here. Whistle blower laws don’t apply here. A whistle blower is someone who comes forward from within the organization to expose corruption. They are rightly protected from retribution. This is hacking from the outside, stealing material, and disseminating it. Not the same thing at all.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:23 pm
Based on my judgement the CRU is responsible for a scientific fraud of monstrous scale.
Anyone who has bothered to follow the subject over the last month knows that we are dealing with criminal wrongdoing.
Yet hours after a vital break, out come the moralistic gasbags.
We all realize that hacking is bad. But these hackers went right into the soul of the devil.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:33 pm
I too wonder if it was an insider. A whistleblower would know what to look for and that it was worth looking at.
I just hope that it wasn’t American dollars funding these guys. Are any of their American collegues mentioned in the emails and docs? What happens to scientists that are found to be fraudulent?
November 20th, 2009 | 3:43 pm
Hey lefty so it’s ok for Ellsberg to do it but not Republicans?
Those lefties, they are so stupid, of course, that is why they are lefties.
Hey dude, your collection agency is calling again.
gw
November 20th, 2009 | 3:50 pm
In this case, the means are preferable to the ends.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:56 pm
Yes, uh, Pentagon Papers, like Bill said.
Stifles free discourse? You can get the files on torrents free, you know?
Goddam.
November 20th, 2009 | 3:56 pm
nice try. this one is not about the hacking but about what the hackers revealed. and don’t get started trying to distract by saying the hackers selectively leaked anything. In a real scientific research environment there is _nothing_ to hide, it doesn’t matter which side of the debate you are on. If these ‘scientists’ were actually doing science and pursuing truth regardless of outcome, there would be no ‘sides’ taken.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
No, mfish, this is bigger than the global warming issue. It is how we interact and contest public controversies. I hate it when animal rights activists, as one example, pull these things. I can’t forgive it because I oppose the global warming hysteria. Thanks for writing.
November 20th, 2009 | 4:41 pm
Wesley, debate on GW has been stifled by the entrenched powers for years. The GW promoters refused to ‘interact and contest’ this issue so I was thrilled to see that some people, as huge personal risk, exposed what could be the beginning of the end.
As to your animal rights analogy. Such protesters often destroy millions of $ of lab equipment and ruin experiments that had been running for year. It literally takes years to bring an animal research lab back on-line. If Animal rights protesters uncovered genuine and illegal abuse of animals and doctoring of data, then I think we’d agree that their attack was warranted.
And hacking into computers is in no way comparable to destruction of property and destroying data. (curious though, it appears that CRU may have destroyed data)
November 20th, 2009 | 4:44 pm
[...] Wesley Smith raises a point that I should have noted earlier. Hacking private email accounts is a crime and should be fully [...]
November 20th, 2009 | 5:21 pm
Nixonian? Yes, but in the vein of Deep Throat! Good luck in defending the president of Hadley CRU!
November 20th, 2009 | 6:03 pm
Sometimes, you need to break the law to save the world. This might be one of those cases where a little civil disobedience is a virtue.
As an aside, I don’t see how stealing information stifles free speech. What it does do is invade privacy. And in some cases, it exposes fraud.
November 20th, 2009 | 6:35 pm
[...] I will update asI find more Ace: An Internet Uproar Wes Smith: The hacking is a crime, yes, inexcusable. The boondoggle was, too. Comments [...]
November 20th, 2009 | 8:10 pm
Bruce Chapman has some good thoughts on this: http://www.discoverynews.org/2009/11/science_conspiracy028471.php
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Proving once and for all that the DI does not give marching orders. : )
November 20th, 2009 | 8:19 pm
OK, Mr. Smith. Hacking is a crime. However, if the government, the scientists and the mainstream media is subsidizing and colluding in a grand scheme too defraud all of mankind, is the crime more ethical than the law?
Were blacks who refused to adhere to segregation laws more ethical than the governments that passed them?
If you do everything in your power to stop a LEGAL abortion….
You get the picture. Sometimes, the law IS an ass.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
EJHill and others supporting the hacking and publishing: This isn’t the sit ins against segregation. And what disturbs me is that so many people are willing to toss integrity and lawfulness aside if they agree with the side engaging in lawlessness. When Al Gore called for lawbreaking in the name of “saving the planet,” I knocked him. Was I wrong to do that? Or, is the only thing that matters which side one is on?
November 21st, 2009 | 1:30 am
Wesley, you’re insisting that the site was hacked. Why? Because the meretricious gang whose activities have been exposed tell us that it was hacked. How do they know? Hadley CRU found out about this when the “hacker” posted a link to the file on Real Climate, aka AGW Central, starring Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann.
I’m betting (as is Robert Bolt, one of the first in the media to break the story) that this is a inside job. It’s a whistleblower.
Much of the information in this file had been requested repeatedly under FOI, and one of the more entertaining themes in the email is the story of how to subvert FOI requests.
Hadley CRU was set up by the British Government, and another email thread will tell you how many millions in grants have been funnelled through Prof Phil Jones at Hadley since 1990. I don’t know what the situation is with NASA Goddard, but I believe it is funded by the US Government. The Bureau of Meteorology in Australia is taxpayer funded. All of the work done in such institutions ultimately belongs to the public. FOI is a recognition of this fact.
If this is a whistleblower, and information of great moment has been revealed to those who have been legitimately requesting it for years, who is in the wrong?
If it’s a hacker, we have a more delicate moral problem, and I’m not going to argue a utilitarian calculus here. If it was hacked, and the hacker is found, he should answer to the law under which he was operating. If it was a whistleblower, do we give him a medal and shower our gratitude upon him? (Or, of course, her?)
November 21st, 2009 | 1:32 am
Andrew Bolt, I should have said. I different kind of writer altogether.
November 21st, 2009 | 3:04 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vera , Vera. Vera said: Nixonian Tactics: Stealing Global Warming Proponents' E-Mails is …: As to your animal rights analogy. Suc.. http://bit.ly/07yIkRV [...]
November 21st, 2009 | 3:20 am
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November 21st, 2009 | 11:19 am
Wesley, you say a “whistle blower” must work within the organization. So what if the organization from top to bottom is corrupt. Kind of like going to the “godfather” and saying people in his organization are breaking the law.
This crew at CRU, with help from Goddard, have had this thing going for years. The cost is billions of $’s wasted on theories, for funding by PUBLIC FUNDS.
November 21st, 2009 | 1:12 pm
If there is a global warming conspiracy designed to give a social class control of the world’s economy forever, and the conspirators win, one result will be Third World poverty forever. A person who believes this and could get access to the conspirators’ emails, is morally required to respect the conspirators’ privacy? Is this ‘hacking’ better or worse that eavesdropping on the KGB in the cold war or stealing Al-Qaeda emails today? Among the accusations are that the conspirators destroyed data that would contradict their thesis. Is there anyway to get information like this without invading privacy? A member of a gang of bank robbers is allowed to stop robbing banks, but he can’t disclose the confidential communications of the gang members?
You might be right on global warming, or you might be right about this “invasion of privacy,” but you can’t be right on both.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Roger Conley: Well, yes I can. If this is what politics is going to become, it will destroy human freedom, because it will end in nothing but a free-for-all. No rules.
November 21st, 2009 | 4:35 pm
Our human laws simply cannot provide for perfect ethics every time. Sure, I think that if the hacker is found, that he should be prosecuted. But I thank him for his work and his willingness to put himself on the line for the rest of the world.
This hacker isn’t the only one putting himself in line of a legal issue to help expose fraud. The ACORN videos expose fraud but we’re finding out they are “illegal” because they didn’t get permission to film or tape all subjects in the video. Those two reporters may be subject to the fullness of the law. I’m sure they didn’t want to be sued for destroying the whole organization. Fair? No. Legal? All the way.
Both these episodes have similarities that make the public more accepting of the crimes: they didn’t harm anybody, used their own words against them, exposed a crime, and did this for the public, not private gain. Simple fact is, ever since the Louisiana Purchase by Jefferson, we always had a bit of give in the law.
November 22nd, 2009 | 8:11 am
More on hacker vs whistleblower from Steve McIntyre (on his Climate Audit mirror site.)
http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/test/
Steve’s suspicions that it is an inside leak is reinforced by the timing of the refusal of his last FOI appeal.
November 22nd, 2009 | 12:52 pm
Yes. This is a crime. This doesn’t mean we must act as if this material had never been revealed. We all, I think, expect that authorities will investigate this crime and take appropriate steps to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Nevertheless, this crime has revealed far more significant violations of ethical standards, violations with grave consequences around the world.
There is nothing we, as opposed to the authorities, can do in response to the hacking. What we must do is re-evaluate the “science” behind the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis because its integrity is in question.
Imagine that a shoplifter uncovers evidence of mass murder in the course of stealing. Isn’t it a bit weird to obsess about a shoplifter in such circumstances? Let the police do with the shoplifter what they do with shoplifters. Can we act as if mass murder hasn’t taken place?
November 22nd, 2009 | 1:45 pm
Just to get your position straight, is this it? If you had a private email describing illegal activity and publishing it would stop global bureaucrats from imposing poverty on the Third World forever, you couldn’t do it, they’ll have to stay poor. Mafia informants disclosing private information is wrong. Whittaker Chambers was wrong and Alger Hiss right. People trying to hack Al-Qaeda emails better stop right now.
November 22nd, 2009 | 2:34 pm
Fred J Harris said, >>>We all realize that hacking is bad. But these hackers went right into the soul of the devil.<<S if one of your cells hacked this information from the devil’s soul or did some of your spiritual/reality cells simply whistle blow on him?
I hear ya! Give your head a shake Victor in hope that some of those brains cells might find themselves back into reality!
Be like that but if the alien gods of “Satan’s Trinity” find out about “IT” don’t say that me, myself and I didn’t warn you all! :)
Peace
November 22nd, 2009 | 2:42 pm
Wesley, please tell those hackers to stop “IT”… They forgot to include some of my writing which goes as follows..
Fred, Could you tell U>S if one of your cells hacked this information ……………
I hear ya! Give the devil is dew or is “IT” dues? :)
November 23rd, 2009 | 10:13 am
Looks more like the the deniers have read and applied Saul Alinsky’s Rules for radicals. Funny how the knife cuts both ways.
November 24th, 2009 | 3:48 pm
I think that those who are saying that the website was hacked are jumping to a conclusion not supported by the facts.
http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Who-leaked-the-Hadley-CRU-files-and-why is a reasoned argument in favor of the theory that the information was leaked by an insider who logged on to the site, downloaded the date and uploaded to an anonymous FTP site in Russia. I’m not a lawyer nor knowledgeable in British law, but if the data was downloaded legally, I don’t believe any crime has been committed by the person who leaked the data.
Staff members at the CRU may have violated the law by not releasing this information earlier in response to legitimate Freedom of Information Act requests.
Computers at a British university funded by British taxpayers are NOT private computers.
November 24th, 2009 | 10:43 pm
[...] whether in support of a side I am on or not. It seems to me that such Nixonian tactics–as I wrote here–destroy the comity necessary for democracy to function. (Yes, I am aware of the NYT’s [...]
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