“I have seen apparent proof that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Criminal Division, is working with United Kingdom police to pursue the leaker of the 2009 and 2011 “Climategate” emails,” write Chris Horner in the Washington Examiner.
Horner continues,
I have learned that last week DOJ sent a search-and-seizure letter to the host of three climate-change “skeptic” blogs. Last night, UK police raided a blogger’s home and removed computers and equipment.
The leaked records derailed “cap-and-trade” legislation in the U.S. and, internationally, as well as talks for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The emails and computer code were produced with taxpayer funds and held on taxpayer-owned computers both in the US and the UK, and all were subject to the UK Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and state FOIA laws.
They also were being unlawfully withheld in both the UK (by the University of East Anglia) and the U.S. (Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including stonewalling me for two years, and three other requesters for longer).
The hunt involving U.S. and UK law enforcement agencies is now escalating. On Wednesday night UK time, six detectives with the UK police (Norfolk Police Department) raided the home of at least one blogger, removing his equipment to look for clues to the identity of leaker “FOIA 2011.”
On December 9, DOJ sent a preservation letter under 18 U.S.C 2703(f) to the publication platform (website host) WordPress. This authority authorizes the government to request an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to preserve all records of a specific account for 90 days while the feds work on a warrant.
Norfolk PD affirmed to the subject of at least one of their raids that this international law enforcement hunt is for the leaker, meaning not for those whose acts the leaker exposed by making public emails containing admissions in their own words.
In the U.S., the academic and political Left have had fits about Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli exercising even more specific, anti-fraud authority to seek further records from University of Virginia in following up on indications from the first Climategate release of possible fraud against the taxpayer.
Apparently, that represented an abuse of the police power. No word yet if they are outraged by DOJ’s current foray or that of the UK raiding team.
The DOJ attorney sending the preservation letters, as it happens in this small world, a graduate of the University of Virginia (UVA). And UVA is also the subject of litigation a group I am associated with, the American Tradition Institute (ATI), that has filed suit on behalf of Virginia taxpayers seeking Climategate-related emails the school holds.
This is a case which has members of the Virginia faculty and establishment beside themselves and demanding an all-out effort to oppose production of the requested documents in an effort to wear us and Cuccinelli down.
So far UVA has spent upwards of $1 million fighting Cuccinelli’s request, and school officials continue to fight us in court every step of the way.
Clearly, this is no small matter in the quarters insisting that this taxpayer-financed information never see the light of day. Even the criminal legal apparatus of the U.S. and UK must be invoked against this threat, apparently.
We are the losers…….
If one cent of taxpayer money is spent on something, it is public knowledge by definition. THe colleges receive tax dollars. The crime here is not perpetrated by the whistleblower, but by those who are perpetrating fraud on the taxpayer nickle and then trying to hide their misdeeds.
I was under the impression that the US Justice Dept. did not have jurisdiction in the UK. We are in the EU not the 51st state.
A point of correction, we do not have Police Departments in the UK we have Constabularies, oh and the Metropolitan Police who can be a bunch of thugs.
My hat’s off to the people that hacked those emails and made them public. It’s now very obvious that a fraud was being committed against us all, and the US Government among others was steamrolling the American public into accepting some very flawed theories about an issue that isn’t! Well connected people in both the public and private sectors had themselves setup to gain wealth and power, and all on the backs of the taxpaying public. I find it interesting that our DOJ seems to be more interested in finding the people who exposed this scam instead of going after those who actually perpetrated the many frauds that continue to this day. Typical behavior for the present occupant of the WH and his corrupt Administration!
More proof it’s not about the planet’s temperature, but it is all about control.
Make that 220,000 emails.
Beware of the hand on the bomb trigger.
2200 more emails encrypted as protection could be 2200 more emails exposed,
Julian Assange (whistleblower) has let it be known that if he goes down, a lot of information would be dumped into the public arena.
Why not Climategate Leaker ?
Wonder how the resources being expended on this fool’s errand compare to what our government spent tracking down the Wilileakers.
If the mysterious FOIA does get found, would he or she not be protected under whistleblower laws? I don’t know about Britain, but in America, you cannot be punished by your employer for releasing evidence of illegal activity. If no computer crimes were committed (ie: it was, as most suspect, a leak instead of a hack), then what prosecution could be done? This seems more of a persecution.
Is *anybody* surprised by the double-standard exercised by the authoritarians?
Of course you are helping to fund it, Dr. Bob! UVA, Penn State and the rest only understand money. You need to cut off the supply and tell them why you have stopped and urge the rest of the alumni to do the same. That is the only way they will pay attention to your message.
Achtung! Beware of the Climate Gestapo.
Who says we are not being trampled over by faceless bureaucrats? One law for them and another for we much maligned sceptics
A nice example of turning the victim into the criminal.
Actually finding this guy could backfire for them. What if he turns out to be a major insider? Strange though, whistleblowers are usually venerated by the left.
Dieu et Mon Droit. The right of the new royalty. The war with George III might have been in Vain
People speaking for the IPCC have also just reportedly declared themselves exempt from law (FOIA laws that is). So, who’s the bigger criminal? The “leaker” of information required to be made public or those who will not comply with that law?
It is possible to have serious reservations about WikiLeaks and even the Pentagon Papers leaks and not be conflicted about this leak. In this instance, the information is specifically required to be released and the national security threat is by those who conspire to withhold that information in manipulative and misleading furtherance of their own partisan political agenda while holding themselves to be above the law.
Serious stuff. All of it having nothing to do with the legal technicalities of who released the information and whether the U.S. is required by treaty to assist the U.K. in an internal legal matter.
As a graduate of UVa myself, I wonder what side Thomas Jefferson would have been on. As a contributor to UVa in a small fashion, I wonder if I am funding this resistance to openness. Keep up the pressure!
This is war, and who do you think will be the losers…?