Thanks to the marvelous generosity and support received following the seizure of my computers by the Norfolk Police acting in collaboration with the NDET and the MET I have been able to make some progress on the legal front, with high quality and friendly-priced qualified legal assistance from my fellow climateer Stephen Wilde of Wilde & Co.
- The defamatory post put up by Zachary Shahan at one planetsave.com has been entirely removed.
- The defamatory post put up by Greg laden has been substantially revised, partially retracted, and an offer of a reply to be prominently promoted on scienceblogs.com has been received.
- The Norfolk police have confirmed by email that I am not suspected of any crime, and have authorised the submission of estimates for repair to my property and for losses incurred through depriving me of my computers.
- Although we have not yet secured the services of a stateside lawyer on suitable terms I will be pursuing this now that Stephen and Wilde & Co have completed their UK based work and are taking a back seat in order to allow me to preserve the funds donated for the battle ahead.
Once again I want to thank everyone who has been generous with support both moral and financial. It has helped my lady and myself through a tense and tiring run-up to Christmas and the New Year. We have for the present closed the appeal so as to draw a line between phases of the campaign.
I hope readers will understand that I can not be too revealing about finances at this stage, as we don’t want to assist the opposition’s strategic planning. Due to Paypal putting a block on withdrawals from my account (Despite me phoning and them assuring me all was well), and then going on Christmas holiday, I was unable to transfer the funds to Wilde & Co’s client account. Now that they are taking a backseat role, I will administer the fund myself and produce full accounts in due course. Rest assured that as a tightwad Yorkshireman, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the purse strings and avoiding any unnecessary expenditure. I will also update everyone of payments made via the blog.
OK That’s it for now, I have letters to write! I’ll let Stephen set out his assessment in comments to cover anything I’ve missed.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
I’m very pleased to have had the opportunity to have been of assistance at a critical moment.
The longer haul will require the work of specialists and I wish Roger well in his quest for fuller redress.
A bottle of Scotch (NOT Old Pulteney), purely for medicinal purposes, must be a reasonable, allowable, expense – surely?
Thanks Stephen your assistance has been timely, generous and invaluable.
Joe: My whiskey cupboard is already filled, by my brother and a couple of other friends. Not a penny of the legal fund will be spent on anything other than legal assistance and the most economical and unavoidable travel arrangements.
Give em hell Roger.
Good luck Roger and a happy New Year to you and your wife.
Things are happening on a number of fronts and I’m hoping 2012 will be a landmark year in bringing down the Climate Change scam.
Well done TB, keep it going as many I know here in Oz are your side.
Roger, it is encouraging news that the plods will be reimbursing you for repairs to your property. Will they be paying for the phone company to repair your outlet?
YAY! I’ve been following you for some time and you’ve really got a good blog going here. I wish I had donated… 😦
Signed,
The Ominous Joker
Aussie, yes, they told me to get two estimates for the repair to the phone socket. BTW, check your paypal balance for the funds to buy your quiz prize. I just got the all clear from Paypal. Just to be clear, this is funded from money donated to me personally, before the legal fund appeal got under way.
OJ: Welcome, and don’t worry, there will be further opportunities to help. Thanks for your support.
Thanks Roger, it has been ordered 🙂
Roger, I forgot to add, I am pleased to see that they are going to pay for the cost of repairing your phone line (and so they should pay for the repair).
You have been very inconvenienced by the whole raid, and you still do not have an explanation as to why your computers and modem were taken. It is not good enough, especially when they keep on saying that you are not a suspect in the case.
Besides, from what I have been reading, the real crimes have been committed by various members of the CRU as well as by Michael Mann, with their cover-ups and their lying, and the deletion of information that is required for FOIA purposes.
What is of interest to me is whether or not under legislation in the UK the records that Jones has deleted were meant to be retained per archival requirements.
Hi Aussie, good to hear your prize is on its way. Just to clarify your point about ‘real crimes’:
Although they might appear such from the moral point of view of someone who disagrees with the scientific interpretations or actions regarding the handling of communications, the process of law might take a different view. So we need to be careful about making statements which could be construed as accusations by the litigious.
Thanks for the update Roger. Go Roger them.
Tallbloke, happy to hear things are progressing. I thought the plod might offer some reembursement. Oz law is based on British common law. In Oz the police could have not taken your computer away without having a good case to charge you.
Sorry, my contribution was not more but having some real personal family problems.
Like your blog, good to see some intelligent science.
Hope you and your family have a healthy, prosperous and safe New year
(the same to all the intelligent sceptic contributors & commentators)
@Roger, that is a point that is well taken. For me, it is not disagreeing with their science, but it is the fact that they have not been open about their methods.
I think that if I was referring to their science, I would use other language, and not that of “crimes”. Having read what these people have been stating in recent times, they are intent upon claiming that anyone who disagrees with them is committing a “crime”. They have recently hijacked the word “moral” to give it a new meaning. Thus they talk about “moral obligation” to “do something” about something controlled by mother nature. There is no moral obligation to do anything about something that is natural in the first place.
As someone who has gone through many droughts, a flood, a blizzard, a cyclone, extreme hot and cold temperatures and yes, even a threatening tornado, I find that there is a real gap in what people understand about the weather these days. Simple things, like cycles is never mentioned. If we have a few days of very hot temperatures they start screaming about globull warming, even though those temperatures were not the hottest on record!! Only in the USA did I experience a record low temperature which I have never experienced before or since. It was -28F and we Aussies are not used to that kind of cold!! As for our extreme hot days, the record for the hottest day which belongs to Oodnadatta in 1960 has not been broken, not even by the record high for Pilbara in recent weeks!!
Science itself can be fascinating. There are all kinds of things that can be seen to be science. Nearly all of us have studied some science basics. Personally, I do not believe in the false dichotomy of Creation vs. Science. There is room for both things. It is how we understand things that matters.
The problem with “climate science” is the way in which the hypothesis has been developed in the first place. It is the things that have been left out which causes people on the fringe, like myself, to be very sceptical of what we are being told. I use the unscientific method of experience as a guide. I think what has made me so sceptical in the first place is the level of the alarmism, and the level of the rhetoric regarding natural events such as a week of high temperatures followed by a bushfire such as we experienced at the beginning of 2009. The alarmists screamed “climate change”, but the alarmists failed to recognize that the high temperatures had been experienced several times in the past. Bushfires caused by spontaneous combustion are rare, and experience tells me that the majority of the bushfires are caused by people being careless, or by firebugs. Even something as simple as an early start to spring should not be seen as “climate change” because it is nothing new.
Roger, looks like good progress to date.
Climate “bullies”, like all bullies, cringe in the face of real resistance.
If litigation is the only thing that the Ladens and others of their ilk understand
then it is important to make an example “pour encourager les autres”.
Nail him to the floor- and if more money is needed for a nice big hammer, I’m sure
that there are many happy to help.
Hey Tallbloke,
Glad to hear that your phantom lawsuit against the UK police to challenge the search warrant is going phantomly well. Let me know once you’ve gathered the phantom evidence of phantom “malfeasance” by the policemen, will ya?
Or perhaps you might want to actually explain why you and Wilde still aren’t going to sue the UK police over the supposed “inappropriate” nature of the search warrant, instead of simply pretending that you never mentioned it.
— frank
[Reply] I’m consulting directly with UK Civil Rights lawyers on this issue. It does not involve Wilde & Co.
Thanks for the update, Roger.
I hope you and your wife can have a good New Year’s Eve celebration now – my best wishes for 2012, for you all.
Don’t hesitate to call on us for more funding when needed, I am sure we’re happy to chip in again.
In the immortal words of a certain Winston Churchill – KBO!
@Frank, really? Phantom evidence?
The raid happened. The police who entered the premises caused some damage. They have not returned the computers to date, and they refused to provide the grounds on which the raid took place. They also said that Wilde was not a criminal lawyer.
You need to pay more attention to what has been written because the rest of us seem to know what is happening.
Aussie: Wilde himself pointed out he isn’t a criminal lawyer.
I have just had a brief exchange on Deep Climate Dave’s website:
Here’s the comment still awaiting approval
tallbloke | December 28, 2011 at 5:23 pm | Reply
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
DC: WordPress forwarded the DOJ notice it had received to the bloggers concerned merely as a courtesy, they were not obliged to do so. Quite the contrary. From the wording of the DOJ notice, it seems they would have preferred to leave us in the dark. WordPress added no advice or instruction additional to the DOJ notice.
Reading between the lines of a reply I got from wordpress’ legal team, they are holding the logs, but have not as yet supplied anything to anyone.
I’m impressed by Automattic’s commitment to our privacy on the wordpress platform and their willingness to share information concerning us even when requested not to do so.
This is about freedom of speech and privacy. All WordPress bloggers of whatever stripe should be pleased to know WordPress is on their side so far as possible within the law.
Aussie:
Really. Phantom evidence.
The ‘evidence’ that the police have broken any laws? No such evidence whatsoever — looks completely phantom to me. The ‘evidence’ that the police was discriminating against climate ‘skeptics’? Again, looks completely phantom.
— frank
[Reply] I think maybe you should spend less time listening to the sound of your own voice and projecting your own formulations of what you think other people said into other peoples mouths. It’s a bad habit you and Dave share.
Heh. I wonder if Deep Dave will approve this reply:
tallbloke | December 28, 2011 at 7:08 pm |
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
DC: “So you do admit that the hacking and dissemination of the CRU emails was criminal activity”
It’s not even known at this stage whether the CRU emails were hacked or released by a whistleblower.
The only thing that isn’t in any doubt is that their contents confirm that it is in the public interest that they are in the public domain. Even Greg Laden now admits that. 😉
@Roger,
thanks for the heads up regarding who made the statement about Stephen Wilde not being a criminal lawyer 🙂
@Frank,
since when is it ok for police to raid any house without the necessary writs etc? It is definitely not ok to raid any property without a proper warrant!!
What is missing in this scenario is the information that led to permission to raid in the first place.
Property was taken and there was damage to the property.
From the civil rights pov such a raid could be seen as a violation of a blogger’s rights because person holds a contrary view on the bs relating to alleged manmade globull warming.
The police keep stating that the blogger in question has not committed a crime, yet they seized his property based upon what evidence?
oh and Frank, in another case involving a host for blogs, the FBI served the notice on that person’s web hosting company. In that particular case, they were following up on the publishing of “Inspire Magazine” which was run by the now late Samir Khan and Anwar al-Awlaki. Khan was using a Canadian blog host company. The FBI then took the server records and well after that there was a bit of fuss because the webhost company shut down the bloghost. That was resolved. Had the FBI contacted the Canadian they would have gotten full co-operation in the matter.
It is a total contrast to what has gone down in this case where nothing is being proved!!
Aussie:
We are waiting to find out if we can obtain the information we need to form a legal opinion on whether the grounds for obtaining the warrant were reasonable. I suggest we restrict discussion of that until we are in possession of ‘the information’ used to get the warrant granted, if we can obtain it.
The whole thing feels kafka-esque to put it mildly.
Good to hear that most is going well (as well as could be expected so far) !!
“a tightwad Yorkshireman”
I myself am a notorious cheap bastard.
Wonder if that has anything to do with my Scottish ancestry??
So I guess Frank, oppressive action by the state isnt real unless the police are sued by the victim? The gutless reaction of so-called “left” warmists such as yourself to the outrageous police action against Roger says more about your and their moral cowardice than Roger’s capacity to take on a protracted legal action against the state. You have no ethics and no credibility.
Heh. It took a bit of a nudge to get Deep Dave to publish my comment. I had to threaten him with adverse publicity:
tallbloke | December 28, 2011 at 8:04 pm | Reply
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Dave, I note my most recent comment is still in moderation.
I’ve screenshotted the comment. I’ll blog it tomorrow if you don’t publish it.
My traffic is great deal higher than yours at the moment.
Your call
Here’s the reply it elicited:
Ian Forrester | December 28, 2011 at 9:42 pm | Reply
Tallbloke said:
The only thing that isn’t in any doubt is that their contents confirm that it is in the public interest that they are in the public domain
Why are you and your cabal of deniers so dishonest? You have no scientific knowledge at all yet you smear honest scientists who are doing a great job despite the harassment they are receiving from the likes of you.
You are playing a childish game which is putting the welfare of future generations in jeopardy.
Good job I have broad shoulders. 🙂
It looks like the meme of the moment is: “you are not a scientist, these are scientists, you are harassing them”….
I guess these people think that there is no obligation on these “scientists” to show how they got their workings…. hmmm
Is this important?_
http://topsy.com/twitter/unileaks_org
Because they are saying that they will relaese ALL climategate emails from 2009 to 2011! Could be just old stuff?
Well, I don’t claim to be a scientist, but my degree in History and Philosophy of science and my background as a qualified engineer helps me in assessing the scientific claims made by the ‘Team’ and their coterie of compliant press release disseminators. Plus the fact that any reasonably well educated person who has immersed themselves in the relevant scientific literature and properly referenced discussion for several years develops the ability to sort wheat from chaff.
And you are spot on Aussie. Without proper disclosure of methods and reliable archiving of data, the work cannot be replicated as the scientific method requires.
@Fitzcarraldo. Keep an eye on it and report back. I think it’s a bit unlikely.
From Jo Nova’s site:
cohenite
December 29, 2011 at 8:54 pm · Reply
It’s what is not said that matters
.
This is so true; recently the article below was submitted to Fairfax with all links to evidence to support the assertions; not a peep; the MSM does not want to know about this:
Email Science
The second batch of emails about man-made global warming [AGW] was released just before the recent conference on AGW held in Durban.
The first batch of emails was released in 2009 just before the AGW conference in Copenhagen. Those emails showed the AGW scientists, who form an integrated network around the world based on the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit [CRU], to be hostile towards anyone who was sceptical of AGW. The emails also showed a lack of transparency and raised some doubts about the science used to prove AGW.
Despite several enquiries which cleared the scientists of any scientific malpractice doubts continued given the limited scope of those enquiries.
The second batch, however, leave no doubt about the doubtful aspects of AGW science because in this latest batch of emails the doubt is expressed by the AGW scientists.
In email after email the scientists express profound doubts about the competency of the computer models, whether different aspects of AGW are actually occurring and the fact that real measurements of temperature, radiation and water levels do not agree with the model predictions.
In short the AGW scientists privately express grave doubts about the science while publically either declaring the science is settled or not contradicting government policies which are based on the science being settled.
Despite claims to the contrary it appears that the removal of the emails was an inside job. The reason for this is that a physical presence or physical access to the internal computers was required.
If that is the case then it would also be the case that the person[s] responsible would have available to them the defence offered by Whistle-blower legislation which protects people for releasing information which is of public interest.
Given that the CRU scientists are paid from the public purse and that AGW is a dominant issue in the World community it would seem the public interest test is satisfied.
In fact the only potential criminal charge connected with the emails is a finding against CRU for contravening Freedom of Information requirements. That is, they unreasonably refused to provide the sort of information which was contained in some of the emails.
Despite this the email saga has taken a sinister turn. Recently one of the bloggers who first published the emails after being given them by the whistle-blower has been raided by English police. The warrant was issued under section 15 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act [1984] which allows for searches of premises pursuant to an indictable offence.
The only problem with this is that if the emails are deemed to be in the public interest whistle-blower legislation would negate any “indictable offence”.
The blogger, who runs his site under the sobriquet “Tallbloke”, may also be covered by legislation and case law dealing with ‘journalism’ and ‘journalistic material’. In Castells v Spain (1992) the European Court of Human Rights overturned the conviction of a non-journalist lawyer who wrote an article criticising Spain. In England the activity of journalism is given special protection in various statutes while in California bloggers are regarded as journalists.
If that is the case why was ‘Tallbloke’ raided and his computers confiscated?
It is of interest that the US Department of Justice was involved in the raid. It is also notable that only [6,000] emails have been released. Approximately [220,000] emails remain encrypted. The [6,000] released emails only deal with the scientists with only one reference to an outside, non-scientist, Goldman Sachs Bank.
There is blogger speculation that the remaining [220,000] emails may involve communications between the scientists and businesses and politicians.
With all the support being given to the Wiki-Leaks founder, Julian Assange, it seems strange that little or no support and coverage is being given to the email whistle-blower.
Numbers in brackets are corrected from the original post (11,000 and 20,000)
If PayPal has frozen the funds should I/can I take any action against them for disrupting my modest donation of £25.00?
[Reply] They have unfrozen the account again now.
Tallbloke:
What you say matters less than what you do.
And what you do is clear enough: you’ve insinuated again and again that you have an extremely solid case and that you’re going to sue the pants off the UK police [snip]
[Reply] No we haven’t. No more from you unless you provide evidence we have.
Hi Roger, there’s certainly a lot of activity about this over at Dave (Deep Climate) [snip] “Open Thread # 11” thread (http://deepclimate.org/2011/11/11/open-thread-11/). For a guitar player [snip] Dave has a lot to say about the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) hypothesis. Although for some of us “Lead guitarist Dave [snip] sweeps you along with both style and substance” I don’t think that the same can be said of his grasp of the processes and drivers of the different global climates.
Several of the CACC supporters commenting on his “Open Thread .. ” have raised the matter of computer hacking in relation to the disclosure of the Climategate E-mails. Guitar player Dave (Deep Climate) [snip], Washington schoolmistress Snapple (with her “f*** you, hackers!” – not the kind of language I’d want my children to hear from one of their teachers) and Florida Citizens for Science treasurer and high school biology teacher Pete [snip] all push that idea, Snapple being the most persistent and Dave following close behind.
As you correctly pointed out to the CACC supporters, it is not yet known whether the CRU Emails were hacked or leaked, but it is typical of CACC supporters to jump to conclusions without there being any evidence to support them. That’s CACC for you.
BTW, I’d have preferred to post this comment on Dave’s Deep Climate thread but I’ve been banned. Dave doesn’t like open debate – gag the opposition.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
[Reply] Pete, people on both side of the debate have various reasons why they don’t want they’re surnames ‘outed’ on the net. Some legitimate, some not. I don’t discriminate, I just don’t do it. Please refrain, I’ve taken the trouble to carefully edit this comment, but your comments tend to be long ones, and I might not have time in future. Cheers – Rog.
@Frank,
have we been reading the same blog? You are making things up!!
Happy new year Tallbloke. All the very best to you and your family. I hope the legal stuff clears up quickly.
I thought this link might interest some people:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2011/05/who-is-deep-climate.html
Tallbloke,
Good to hear you getting through all this. You sound upbeat and that’s good. Love your site and the interesting posts. I have always thought the solar system worked together as if woven in a common thread; so I am interested in planetary patterns and how they affect weather and climate. Have a great New Year!
Greg Olsen
Tempe, Arizona
re: Unileaks
If you click on the link and follow to their website, they seem to have similar aims to that of Wikileaks, but they are aiming at the universities world wide. The information indicates that the set up is in Melbourne, Australia (my hometown), and it is probable, but I am not certain, that they have some kind of association with RMIT.
They have provided a link to climategate emails, but I am not sure if it is the whole lot, i.e. I am not sure if it is the zipped file as well as what has been released. I doubt it contains any new material that covers 2009-2011.
frank:
Your comments are factually inaccurate and misplaced.
Tallbloke has NOT “insinuated again and again that [he has] an extremely solid case and that [he’s] going to sue the pants off the UK police”. Indeed, he has hosted a thread on this (i.e. his) blog where speculations on the possible reasons for the police action were encouraged and tested against logic and known facts. The most important of those facts being the involvement of a security agency in the raid which suggests that the police were within their rights to do anything. And Tallbloke has written above saying he is seeking information on what – if any – action he can take in these circumstances.
So, stop trolling. Your
XXXXassertions are an unwelcome distraction.Richard