Fenbeagle does the full Star Wars parody for Christmas, check it out! This is just a part. But before you go, if you haven’t already read the letter from Tallblokes attorney, see below. All jokes aside, we don’t want the establishment to think they can get away with invasions of privacy like this. UVA spent $1million helping Mann to hide the emails that the public paid him to write. Tallbloke (Roger) was just writing from home when 6 police turned up to take his computer and copy the entire contents.
Fenbeagle
——————————————————
Tallbloke will pursue legal action and could use some help
I’ve received this email from Roger Tattersall’s attorney (known as a solicitor in England) with the request that I post it. I’m happy to do so. Please see in the letter where the legal fund is being setup. – Anthony Watts
To:
All those who feel offended and/or threatened by the actions taken against innocent climate enthusiast Roger Tattersall aka ‘Tallbloke’ as a result of the unsought anonymous drop of data from the person or persons known as ‘FOIA’.
That data is clearly in the public interest by virtue of having relevance to the wisdom of certain global policy decisions relating to energy use, energy supply and possibly global rationing of energy sources and the direct or indirect taxation of every individual on the planet for the foreseeable future.
Roger has been publicly libelled and abused across the world to the detriment of his reputation and has suffered distress, inconvenience and damage to property. The worst such offender appears to have been a contributor at ‘Scienceblogs’.
His privacy has been invaded and he and his family have been intimidated.
It is possible that treatment of that nature could be meted out to any persons expressing sceptical views about the so called climate consensus.
A clear signal needs to be sent out that such treatment is an abuse of process and a negation of free speech and democratic freedoms.
It is proposed to investigate all options open to Roger for the obtaining of suitable redress within the law. In the event that legal actions are considered appropriate it will be necessary to appoint suitably experienced Counsel to represent his interests and in this matter Roger’s interests coincide with those of all of who find themselves unable to feebly acquiesce in the pressure that is being applied to prevent them from exercising their hard won freedoms.
To that end, an appeal fund is being launched in order to finance the necessary steps. Contributions can be made via Roger’s Paypal account as displayed on his site (http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/) and all funds received for that purpose are to be transferred to the Client Account of his solicitors Wilde & Company.
Any funds not eventually used for necessary legal expenses will be donated to a selection of climate sceptic organisations. Accounting procedures will be put in place in compliance with the requirements of the UK regulatory system governing the proper use of Client monies held by UK solicitors.
Stephen P R Wilde. LLB (Hons.), Solicitor.
Wilde & Co. Cheshire England
—————-
Hat tip to Fenbeagle for the link to his site! Ta!
Hat tip to Janet J for the link to WUWT. 😐
Already contributed.
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“Ultimately, this has real implications about shutting you up too.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/its-not-just-tallbloke-whos-in-the-firing-line-you-are-too/
Pointman
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We most certainly do not want anyone to think it is acceptable for America to send 6 British policemen, from three different British tax payer funded branches, to the doors of an internet user, to confiscate his computers, for the private information they contain. Even though they state that he is not a suspect of any crime.
..This particular issue is not about the causes of climate change.
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My guess is that this was initiated by the Norfolk constabulary, and they don’t suspect Tallbloke of anything.
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Read this recent article by Judith Curry; http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/14/another-ipcc-error-cloud-albedo-forcing/
This and the other fraud, the claim of 33K present GHG warming, are the only evidence for ‘high feedback’, supposed to hide non-existent ‘back radiation’ [it’s really Prevost Exchange Energy]. The cat’s out of the bag. It’s the end game for this new Lysenkoism.
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@ geronimo. That’s certainly what the public records will say. That Tallbloke is not suspected of anything is already in the public domain.
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I’d like to reiterate a comment on WUWT – perhaps we can stop using the term “sceptic”, and replace it with “realist”. In addition, global warming believers might be referred to as falling into one of two camps. Those who are not part of scientific/policy process yet nontheless believe its pronouncements we might refer to as “fantasists”, and those who are promulgating the lies and misinformation could rightly be termed “conspirators”.
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Fenbeagle (#3) makes a good point. There are two quite clearly separate issues here.
Firstly, and in my view most important, is the invasion of privacy. The police do not appear to have had material grounds on which to seek a search warrant. I would be interested to know what material grounds they used to support their request. They may have made the mistake of suspecting that Tallbloke was sent a copy of the original file (as, ahem, I did), but suspicion alone is not sufficient.
The second, and less important issue, is the underlying question of why the original file exists at all. But of course, that question will almost certainly be deemed extrinsic to the matter, and will thus never be aired in court.
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I suppose in a few days the Storm Troopers will converge on Jim Hanson’s and Michael Mann’s abode to seize their computers because it is they that have committed the crime and not Tallbloke. This is indeed a disturbing event and I will try an donate as much I can to Tallbloke.
O/T but very important I wish Joanne, her family and all the bloggers here a very safe and happy holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
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Let’s not get carried away guys. This is why Tallbloke got the legals going in the first place;
“Roger has been publicly libeled and abused across the world to the detriment of his reputation and has suffered distress, inconvenience and damage to property. The worst such offender appears to have been a contributor at ‘Scienceblogs’.”” http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/12/computers_of_criminal_cyber-th.php.
Stephen P R Wilde. LLB (Hons.), Solicitor, has seen a bigger fish to fry, and the resulting fees.
I doubt if his first action to test the validity of raiding a bloggers home will succeed. Even the second one would be pushing uphill to secure a win, Americans are heavily protected by their first amendment.
(I saw his original post.BEFORE he edited it.It was worse than it is now.) CTS
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Your slur against Stephen Wilde is unjustified. He is acting pro bono. The donations will help fund (amongst numerous associated expenses) the engagement of other necessary legal professionals.
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Yowie, We fed the referenced post through our “bullshit detector” (prose analyzer to the more prosaic) and it went off the dial. It has never done that before. I do hope it’s not broken.
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I was shocked by the police actions against Tallbloke. I agree with most here that this action is designed to attack the messenger and to protect the fraudulent scientists. After all Tallbloke hasn’t caused the world to waste billions on a natural occurrence.
I will probably contribute to the appeal however I sent money to Tim Ball for his legal fees and have never even received an acknowledgement let alone seen an update of the case. By way of comparison if I send money to Jo she says thanks.
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Lawrie this probably won’t be a popular comment but it has to be said.
If you do something in anticipation of ‘quid pro quo’ you’ll always be disappointed
I also donated to Dr Ball’s legal fees but I did not expect thanks from Dr Ball nor do I expect an update of his case. I did receive a receipt for my donation
In Dr Ball’s case my donation was paid to his legal firm whereas in Tallbloke’s case donations go to Tallbloke’s blog. Tallbloke then has more of a handle on what’s coming in.
Dr Ball is in a much more dangerous position than Tallbloke; Dr Ball is the defendant in the legal proceedings commenced by Mann and if he had not responded then damages and costs could be more than he could pay. Dr Ball is retired and could lose his home
Tallbloke on the other hand has an option – whether or not to commence legal proceedings
And I have donated to WUWT whose blog I admire and have received no thanks and nor do I expect any other than WUWT keeps on posting
Not receiving an acknowledgement doesn’t mean WUWT or Dr Ball are ungrateful or unreceptive
If you want an update to Dr Ball’s case I suggest you contact him – here’s the link
http://drtimball.com/contact/
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http://mathaba.net/news/?x=629498
Senate wants to turn USA into a world police battlefield,internment for Americans –
“…America’s Military is already operating in roughly 200 countries, dishing out detention and executions to citizens of other nations. As unrest erupts on the country’s own soil amid a recession, economic collapse and protests in hundreds of cities from coast-to-coast, is it that much of a surprise that lawmakers finally want to declare the US a warzone?
Maybe not, but if the Senate has their way, the consequential could be detrimental to the US Constitution.
“The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president — and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world,” adds Anders. “The power is so broad that even US citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.”
“American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?”asks Anders.
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Tallbloke’s Paypal account will almost certainly be frozen for “irregularities” within a couple of days. This is how Wikileaks was shut down.
IMHO his solicitor is being sloppy. He should have set up a (multiple) trust fund(s) to receive donations in several countries.
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Agree – not easy and costly to change to GBP
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Yes keithH, you might be right.. It could be considered as a slur to Stephen, I should have expanded on my thoughts.
I just have a healthy skepticism of all things.
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Point taken Markus. I’m a similar sceptic of most things, particularly in the legal sphere, but Stephen Wilde made the offer to Tallbloke and has considerable knowledge of the AGW debate. He should therefore be ideally placed to help.
Visit Climate Realists site for some of the interesting theories of Stephen Wilde on climate change. He has a genuine interest, is an honest seeker of the truth and IHMO, he’s no fool! Cheers..
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Justified as it is, it is probably not a good move to pursue bloggers as it would contribute to tit for tat legal actions .
For the average blogger even an unsuccessful action would break them. Sometimes in the blogging world you have to take as well as give.
Having been threatened myself for something beyond my control I understand these difficulties.I would hate to see an all-out legal war against bloggers
on both sides as free speech would be the loser.
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A lot of messing about trying to donate on the paypal site.
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The only locations I could select on the PP site were all UK.
I could not choose my own city is Australia so gave up.
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In fact, if you followed what Tall Bloke has to say, the “Americans” didn’t do anything but comply with a request from the Norfolk Constabulary. The servers for the blogs are on US soil and thus need a US warrant. The NC is simply continuing the “investigation” triggered by CG1. This time around, TB broke the story first and he’s on homw soil as far as British police are concerned. They would have had several levels of bureaucracy, and some serious constitutional issues to deal with, trying to have the Air Vent computers seized.
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Baron says:
“”Justified as it is, it is probably not a good move to pursue bloggers as it would contribute to tit for tat legal actions.””
It’s a bit deeper than that Baron. If it was, he said I was poo and I said he was poo, then yes it is only tit for tat.
But when a blogger deliberately puts false and defamatory articles on the web and falsifies comments on the blog, that misleads the greater public, then it is all our business to stop that type of behavior. It demeans us all.
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18 Dec: Reuters: Barbara Lewis: EU parliament set to call for carbon market
European politicians are expected on Tuesday to vote through an amendment that could pave the way for direct intervention in the EU carbon market, which has sunk to record lows.
Businesses and environmentalists have heaped pressure on the European Commission to bolster the EU Emissions Trading Scheme…
“We have not voted yet, but I expect broad, cross-party support for the compromise amendment,” Dutch Green Member of the European Parliament Bas Eickhout told Reuters.
“A broad majority in the parliament is really concerned about what’s going on with the carbon price.”
The vote is not binding. If passed, it would require a further vote next year and debate by member state governments.
But it would “send a strong signal,” Eickhout said, and could help to overcome deadlock within the Commission, which has stalled for months on the issue. The Commission would comment “in due course,” a spokesman said…
Although the parliamentary vote would not be binding, another signatory of the statement, campaigner E3G said it could sway the Commission by signaling broad political support.
“We are at a do or die moment,” Sanjeev Kumar, senior associate at E3G, said. “If they get the vote wrong, billions of euros could be wiped out alongside our future.”…
For some environmentalists, such as the wind lobby, raising the EU’s green ambitions is the most obvious way to increase the carbon price.
They say the current targets of a 20 percent cut in emissions and a 20 percent increase in the share of renewables in the energy mix by 2020 are not ambitious enough…
Environmentalists are looking to the presidency and Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, also a Dane, to build on the EU’s achievement in Durban in bringing the Kyoto Protocol, the only global treaty on tackling climate change, back from the brink.
“In our view it puts a lot of pressure on Europe to act decisively where and when it can on climate and energy policy,” Jason Anderson, head of European climate and energy policy at WWF, said of the outcome of the Durban talks.
“With the ETS in dire need of reform, the first opportunity is already upon us.”
(Additional reporting by Jeff Coelho, Nina Chestney and Ben Garside in London; Editing by John Stonestreet and Jon Loades-Carter)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-eu-carbon-idUSTRE7BH0DZ20111218
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19 Dec: Financial Times: Brian Groom: Industry demands incentives for low-carbon growth
The EEF industry federation says two-thirds of UK manufacturing companies see an emerging low-carbon economy as an opportunity, but only one in eight views Britain as a favourable place to invest in this area…
Three-quarters of the 76 executives surveyed said the rising cost of environmental policies was damaging competitiveness…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b631de1c-281c-11e1-91c7-00144feabdc0.html
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fightback…
18 Dec: Livemint/WSJ:Tarun Shukla: India asks its airlines not to submit carbon tax data to EU
Reuters contributed to this story
New Delhi: The Indian government has asked the country’s airlines to refrain from submitting carbon emissions data to the European Union (EU) for a new tax that will become applicable from 1 January for flights to Europe, hardening its stand further against the imposition of the levy…
India has led the opposition to the move with support from more than two dozen countries including the US and China.
“I am directed to say that the ministry has decided that there is no need for Indian carriers to submit any data to European Union under EU-ETS,” the civil aviation ministry said in a letter to all the domestic airlines that fly on international routes on 25 November. The letter was reviewed by Mint.
“Any correspondence received at your end (airlines) from the EU in this regard may be forwarded to this ministry, for taking necessary action,” the letter added…
The EU maintains it’s not a tax. “Yes, the inclusion of aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme is on track. Our law will be implemented on 1 January 2012, as planned and announced,” Valero-Ladron said…
It remains unclear what could be the result of India not allowing its airlines to submit data to EU.
India’s next step will be in consultation with other countries including the US, said a civil aviation ministry official who declined to be named.
“Whatever happens will happen in a coordinated manner,” he said…
“The last thing that airlines need is another operating tax,” said Steve Forte, a former CEO of Jet Airways. “A united front among non-EU countries would certainly help in changing the mind of the EU and placing the subject of reducing aviations emissions where it belongs: Icao (International Civil Aviation Organization).”
Forte added that he does not see a trade war looming.
“Worst comes to worst, the US will impose a similar tax on all EU carriers operating to and from the US, and the EU carriers will scream bloody murder until an amicable solution can be found.”
http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/18224636/India-asks-its-airlines-not-to.html?h=B
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why isn’t our govt being asked to comment?
19 Dec: Scoop NZ: Price floor for carbon not good for New Zealand
Restricting prices at the lower end of the carbon market would be self-defeating, says BusinessNZ.
The price on European carbon credits have fallen recently, leading some to call for a floor on the carbon price in New Zealand.
But BusinessNZ Chief Executive Phil O’Reilly says that would harm New Zealand’s interests.
“New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme lets companies reduce their emissions within a market system – with a price ceiling to protect New Zealand companies’ international competitiveness.
“Now, with recent low carbon prices, some want a price floor as well.
“However this would be counterproductive. It would increase the price we pay for carbon, raising new competitiveness problems for New Zealand businesses. Meanwhile, it would not necessarily encourage more emissions reductions and would be complex to set up and administer.
“But it would definitely introduce uncertainty for investors and harm prospects for ongoing growth of the carbon market.”…
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1112/S00682/price-floor-for-carbon-not-good-for-new-zealand.htm
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19 Dec: Jakarta Post: Is the huge delegation to the UNFCCC necessary?
Evan Oktavianus and Ary Adiati
As seen in the conference’s list of participants, Indonesia sent 230 delegates, the second largest after Brazil with 289 delegates…
Because the presence of most people there is not a necessity, the cost incurred by sending them there cannot be justified. The estimated cost for sending 230 people to South Africa, including flights, accommodations and allowances, can reach US$800,000. In a year, dozens of similar international negotiations on environmental and other issues take place. Such an amount of money will serve our environment better should it be allocated for tangible environmental protection and conservation efforts.
Not only that, probably less in magnitude but still crucial in essence, the carbon print of air travel is so massive that the demands to put a special environmental tax on air travel has surfaced. Sending 230 people to Durban means, we emit tons of carbon into the atmosphere. This is clearly an act against the spirit of climate change mitigation efforts.
Most importantly, with all the costs, the progress we have achieved in international mitigation and adaptation efforts in climate change this year remains minor. The clarity of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is still in doubt.
The progress made in the promised Green Climate Fund, which should reach $100 billion for climate mitigation and adaptation projects per year by 2020 has not been materialized. And lastly, the future of Climate Development Mechanism and REDD+ (Reducing Emission through Deforestation and Forest Degradation) to support green projects in our industry and forestry sector is still unclear…
Evan Oktavianus is an analyst at the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia, currently a masters’ student at the University of Oxford, UK, majoring Environmental Change and Management. Ary Adiati graduated from the Department of Communications, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Diponogoro University, Semarang.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/12/18/is-huge-delegation-unfccc-necessary.html
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I’m just getting up to speed on this but the above section of the warrant is of interest. If tallbloke had asked the constabulary to name the indictable offense to which the materials sought is relevant and they could not do so, that search warrant would have been both illegal and unlawful.
Obviously, I don’t believe an indictable offense has been committed in relation to the files which were linked on tallbloke’s blog.
Never, ever let the police into your home before a thorough legal vetting of the warrant itself. This is critically important people. The warrant had no immediate timeframe for execution(3 months) and by letting police into your home you waive all rights granted to you by your country’s constitution. If you don’t understand the language on the warrant then it is unlawful. It is the judiciary’s duty to make clear what the meaning of the language that they use to enter an agreement with you is.
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Politicians, magistrates and police etc are public servants and we are sovereign entities. They have got our brains so screwed up that we think it is the otherway round.
As a Christian I assert that their is no authority if not under God – that every soul is subject to higher authority and the highest authority in this age is Jesus Christ.
Police and magistrates are way down in the pecking order but by their making of laws they would have us think that they are God.
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Then, Kevin, you will no doubt take full cognisance of,”Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s. also, “My Kingdom is not of this World”. It was a Zealot who betrayed our Lord. after all.
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Whatever in this world does caesar own by right of creation?
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And those who believe Christian teachings are in this worldly system but not of this worldly system, which is why the government corporation hires policy enforcers. You are part of the system if you accept the company systems terms and conditions. I do not consent.
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It doesn’t work like that in the real world. If you resist the police will simply wait outside your house while they get a new and far more extensive search warrant. They will then systematically trash your house looking for “evidence”. It is far better to cooperate.
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In the US [inc] this is the situation-
http://policecrimes.com/police.html
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From what I can make out on the warrant it had no proof of claim. My highlighted section shows that the effect was to “say whatever fudge you can get away with to in order to enter into an agreement with the target of the warrant”. The execution time of three months means that the onus is on the police to adequately provide proof of claim within the three months. No new warrant would have been issued until the expiry of the standing order(and tallbloke could always invite them to search his home at his convenience), which is plenty of time to come up with an actual indictable offense which the search relates to.
Cops and judges are like politicians, they need to be held to account or, your freedoms disappear down the pit of incremental fascism.
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It is about time that a registered charity was set up – the Climate Realists Anti-Defamation League (CRADLE). The purpose would be to sue or threaten with libel actions any blogger or media outlet who made defamatory comments eg “big oil shill” about climate realists. That would force Warmists to stick to the science rather than engage in ad hominem attacks.
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Hi Joanne. First comment from me on your blog, similar thrust to one I left at the air vent.
Where is all this talk about shutting down bloggers coming from? Tallbloke is free to write what he wants and that will and should continue. The issue as I understand it resides within the ‘comments’. If someone wanted to make a case that by allowing comments without moderation, a blogger leaves him/herself open to abetting a ‘crime’, in this case the unwitting distribution of emails – said to be ‘stolen’ by some – from a third party, then perhaps they could.
I don’t know the answers, but here are some questions. Does each site that RC/FOIA chose for the linked emails ‘comment’ have no comments moderation? (Any comment I’ve made at WUWT goes through moderation first. Did WUWT receive the ‘stolen’ emails link under comments?) To put it another way, if a blogger allows unmoderated comments, and a schmuck decides to waltz in and commit libel, it is possible the target of the libel would sue the host blogger right alongside the schmuck. See what I’m saying?
So the conjecture on my part is that it is not what Tallbloke writes. It is what he has allowed within comments, and that he then becomes a part of. If the coppers find the email ‘thief’, and charge that person with theft, they may want to bring Tallbloke into it as an accessory because he did not take action to stop the distribution.
This is all so very unfortunate, and it is my dear hunch that the coppers are simply looking for clues and evidence against FOIA from Tallbloke’s gear as he is conveniently located down the road from the scene of the ‘crime’.
——————–
Ron – they don’t need to write a law saying “no more bloggers” to stop people blogging. If they make it onerous, risky, or painful, it will silence people because people will choose not to take the “risk”.
This has got nothing do with publishing a link, nor is it about libel (FOIA was not libelous). It’s supposedly about finding the so-called “hacker” who is probably a leaker and as such was not acting illegally. These emails were legally meant to be given out freely under FOI anyway. — Jo
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Ron:
Nothing has been physically “stolen”, regardless what “some” people may say. CRU are still fully in possession of all their emails. The emails were simply copied and the copies (after some sanitation) were released to the public.
Plus there has been no claim by CRU or anyone else that any of the COPIED emails contain any form of intellectual property that could now be construed as “stolen property”. Even if there were questions of intellectual property involved, it could not be regarded as stolen” until somebody attempted to use it for their benefit.
So the question of theft doesn’t even come into the picture.
The emails were copied and released by somebody who hacked into the CRU servers, or were copied and released by somebody who already had access (an insider).
If the act was perpetrated by an outside hacker, then it is possible some law covering unauthorised access to other people’s computers might have been broken. About the only person who could be prosecuted would be the hacker. Which has nothing to do with Tallbloke – unless of course he is the hacker.
If the act was perpetrated by an “insider” who already had authorised access, then it is doubtful any crown law has been broken. Almost certainly the leaker would have breached the terms of their employment, but that is hardly a matter for the police. It certainly has nothing at all to do with Tallbloke.
Whether hacker or leaker, there is also the question of motive. In either case the perpetrator would have a very good defense under Britain’s “whistleblower” laws, which would provide immunity to prosecution. If this was the situation then such immunity would almost certainly extend to Tallbloke and anybody else who helped “spread the word”.
In fact, until the perpetrator is identified and a motive subsequently established, it is virtually impossible to say whether or not a prosecutable crime has, in fact, actually been committed. That being the case, the wording of the warrant against Tallbloke starts to look decidedly “iffy”, and I certainly would not like to be the detective or policeman responsible for it.
In fact, given the added points of a task-force of six to serve the warrant, and exercising it at midnight, if I were in any way involved I’d probably be considering alternative career options right about now.
Last, your example of “libel” within moderated or unmoderated comments is entirely irrelevant. If someone were to post a libelous comment about me here, then I would contact Joanne and she would take down the comment (assuming she agreed it was libelous).
Provided Jo immediately took steps to rectify the situation once made aware of it, she has not committed any act exposing herself to either prosecution or civil action.
Consider for example, someone who lived in the flight path of a busy airport, and somebody got up on their roof and painted a great big sign libeling a local airline. The home-owner could not be held responsible, and could not be sued for anything, until and unless they refused to do anything about it. And they could not refuse to do anything about it until it had been first brought to their attention.
To date, neither the police nor the CRU have asked Tallbloke – or anybody else for that matter – to take down the original posted comments relating the release of the emails, not in this case nor even in the 2009 original “climategate” case.
That being the circumstances, neither the CRU nor the police have any case whatsoever to proceed against Tallbloke for anything relating to the release of the emails.
Unless, of course, the police find something else unrelated to the climategate emails – something nefarious – on Tallbloke’s hard drives.
I’ve already commented elsewhere on the “convenient” timeline:
DAY 1: Tallbloke’s computers seized in the UK.
DAY 2: Trolls and cultist blog sites start writing about Tallbloke being investigated for “something else” – like kiddie porn.
DAY 3: Interpol announces the discovery of a major online kiddie-porn ring in Europe, including the UK.
All a bit too “convenient” for my suspicious mind.
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Wow, MV, You got my vote!
What an unbelievable description of the unfolding, uncomfortable, unforseen, unlikely, unaustralian way of doing things.
I`ve said this before and I will say again!
My Grandpa who fought for this great country in WWII, 2nd 43rd,
….would be f#*%&’n rolling in his grave at the state of this country and the world.
He fought for freedom.
He fought for the right.
He fought for justice.
He fought for the truth.
How far have we come in 70 years ???
Tallbloke is just gettin` it out there man!
I am now waiting for the knock on the door…..
How does Jo feel?
How does Tallbloke feel?
We live in a weird world.
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I have put quotes around words like ‘crime’ and ‘theft’ in quotes because these are allegations only. Allegations being made by someone, not me, who thinks a crime and/or theft has occurred in the copying and release of emails. Police don’t normally go around raiding homes unless they believe a crime has been committed.
It is fair to assume the Norfolk police are involved with Tallbloke specifically for jurisdiction, UEA being just down the road. (The speculation that the raid is about something other than the Climategate emails is just that. Did I not read somewhere that the police confirmed the raid centred on their search for FOIA??)
I work for a newspaper. Any difficult story we work on is carefully lawyered prior to publication. Even then, we are sued at times, and regularly threatened with suit, even when we are ‘just the messenger’.
As to my libel example, fair enough, Jo, but a careful reading of my post should tell you that it was a simple example, and that I wasn’t equating FOIA with libel. I included it only to help understanding of my main point. Which is: bloggers, just like journalists, leave themselves open to aggrieved parties, and that could include the Crown in this case. The police, if they believe a crime has been committed, must argue their case through a prosecutor in order to lay charges. Until then, it is an alleged crime, and will be so until someone is found guilty.
I think bloggers must avoid a Pollyanna-ish stance on this, and be prepared for blow back. People at the center of these emails are madder than a stomped snake. They are going to take every measure open to them to see to it that the rest of the emails are not released, and that whoever did release them is ‘punished’ in some fashion. The only ‘punishment’ open to said snakes, the only redress, is through the courts.
While Jo and I and memory vault may agree as to the legal status of FOIA and the questionable tactics of the police (and we do lol), the authorities may not. We shall see… they want their day in court.
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What Act of the British Parliament is being used by the ‘Crown’ on the presumption that Roger Tattersall was under contract?
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re Paypal
Just send the money in your home currency and Rog will get it in UK Pounds.
I believe the computermabob does the conversions for you. Simples!
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The problem isn’t currency conversion. The problems is that Paypal will freeze Tallbloke’s account if any pressure is applied by the authorities. Paypal immediately buckled in the Wikileaks case.
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Worry about that if it happens, and not a nanosecond earlier.
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No. Once the account is frozen you get $0 from that nanosecond onwards. Paypal obviously won’t warn people they are thinking of freezing an account it just suddenly happens.
As for moving it out, Paypal charge high rates for currency exchanges, so it’s best if you can avoid that. Store US dollars in the US if needed?
But don’t leave money lying around…
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The advice I give to my clients who wish to transact with Paypal is the same advice that Gerald Celente gives about holding money in bank deposits. Only hold enough to transact daily expenses and incoming monies. My recommended limit is $500. Paypal is a global corporation and hence, accountable to no-one. Your Paypal account is legally described as a record of gifts made to Paypal and gifts Paypal has made to you.
It takes one customer complaint for Paypal to freeze your account. One. There are plenty of horror stories out on the net about Paypal and they run pretty much the same way:
1. Person does business on the cheap using Paypal.
2. Customer complains about late delivery or damaged goods to eBay or Paypal.
3. Paypal freezes tens or hundreths of thousands of doallars in person’s ‘account’.
4. Person goes out of business, or even becomes bankrupt as a result.
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“It doesn’t work like that in the real world. If you resist the police will simply wait outside your house while they get a new and far more extensive search warrant. They will then systematically trash your house looking for “evidence”. It is far better to cooperate.”
That depends on guilt Banana.
If guilty, the best strategy would be to make as much disruption as possible so the plods make mistakes, during the serving of the warrant. Then your solicitor has a better change to minimise the aggravation of your offence.
Tallbloke made the right choice.
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Not sure of the UK equitant but in Australia we have the Trade Practices Act which regulates unconscionable and unfair business and governmental conduct.
It is about time that someone can actually use Government legislation to hold Government action to account.
In common parlance, you (read the Government) can be at risk of having the law say you are acting in bad faith, unfairly, or unconscionably if:
• Your conduct amounts to more than simply striking a hard bargain and more than just “sharp” conduct, but falls on the wrong side of the latter;
• You engage in or facilitate sharp business practices which do more than strike a hard bargain and exploit other parties in some way;
• You diverge from announced procedures and guidelines in a way which discriminates against an individual within a group;
• You show favouritism towards people with whom you prefer to deal, and you do so without good reason;
• You treat some people differently from others without good reason;
• You use your stronger bargaining position to extract a concession which is commercially valuable to you but which is either commercially irrelevant to the particular transaction or else relevant but “over the top”;
• You exercise a legal right or discretion which you clearly have but you do so with an ulterior motive (eg exercising a contractual right of termination expressed in very general terms in a capricious and unreasonable way, such as cancelling a contract and taking over the work without calling on the contractor to show cause or otherwise satisfy the principal14);
• You act in a way which won’t put you in breach of contract, strictly speaking, but which is designed to cause another party to terminate or fail to renew the agreement because you want to be rid of them;
• You “stack the deck” against someone in commercial decision-making;
• You are involved in a joint enterprise with others and set up guidelines or criteria which look neutral on their face but which will really disadvantage one of the parties involved in the joint enterprise;
• You set someone up for a fall;
The GW scare is a fraud against The People who are being asked to pay for this mumbo jumbo GW rhetoric as espoused by self interested powerbases hiding under the skirts of the unbridled power of “Mother Bureaucracy” – that unelected sloth of corrupt power – wielded by the hidden “unknown’s and undeclared” who see it as their right to control our freedom; which by their action alone – is oxymoron.
We’ve been waiting for them to slip up and perhaps they now have.
The logical discipline invoked by a Court hearing under the UK equivalent of the Trade Practices Act will trouble them greatly. Summonsed to a Court Hearing (or Jail for contempt in not making ones self available for cross examination) is not exactly the cross examination rules they would wish for, nor part of the rules they have been playing thus far. Examinations-in-Chief could pose an issue for the Global Warming unwashed.
Bring it on I say! Supporting Tallbloke NOW may well prove our best initiative!
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The more I read about Climategate, the more I think that Jo is absolutely right, this is all about politics, in particular the US Presidential election next year.
Kendra Ervin, who signed the DOJ ‘preserve records’ letter to wordpress, works for the DOJ as an attorney in their computer crime and intellectual property division. Her boss is therefore Eric Holder, the Attorney General, nominated by President Obama in 2008 having been Deputy AG under Clinton.
Holder has been under pressure from Republicans to resign over the scandal of Operation Fast and Furious. Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia (and Michael Mann’s nemesis) said that it left “open whether we should be hoping for some changes at the DOJ”.
Serving under Clinton, Holder was involved in two controversies: obtaining freedom for members of a terrorist group known as FALN and facilitating a pardon for fugitive billionaire Marc Rich.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/the_ethics_of_eric_holder.html#ixzz1gyR3Nc7C
Holder is also fighting changes in some States which make voting harder for minorities, the uneducated, the poor, the elderly, the newly arrived, students and other groups that traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.
Climate is one of the biggest dividing lines between Republicans and Democrats with the proportion believing in AGW being 70% respectively. This seems to coincide with Democrat attempts to impose government caps on CO2 emissions. Al Gore recently said, “the falsehoods of climate denial will be unacceptable as a basis for policy much longer”. Is he suggesting legislation directed against questioning AGW?
Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli served a demand on the University of Virginia in early 2010 seeking documents related to Michael Mann, who had left for Penn State in 2005. According to Wiki, “Cuccinelli is investigating Mann’s putative violation of the 2002 Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, although no evidence of wrongdoing was given to explain the invocation of the law”. The UVa has refused claiming the demand violated academic freedom and that Cuccinelli did not agree with Mann’s theory of rapid, recent AGW.
Coming full circle, Kendra Ervin attended the University of Virginia School of Law. The recent actions of the DOJ and thereafter the British Police seems likely to have emanated from political infighting in the US.
The threat to the Democrats may be what they fear is in the encrypted emails. With billions of taxpayers money involved worldwide, allegations of fraud, reputations on the line and maybe even the outcome of the US Presidential election at stake, decrypting the foia emails could be crucial.
The authorities having now realised that they have no idea what has been found by foia on the University of East Anglia computer system, the investigation into Climategate seems to have a renewed urgency about it.
What I believe they are frantically seeking is the decryption key for the encrypted emails to find out what they reveal and then try to prevent the key ever being made public. Tallbloke is the innocent victim of their increasing desperation, perhaps even panic, to track back to the Russian Server to try to find the source of the emails and the decryption key.
Then again I have been known to add 2+2 and make 5.
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Of course, anyone in authority who needs to know what is on the encrypted emails probably already does. As memory vault says, above, the emails all still exist on the relevant servers. They were copied and released. The effort is to keep them under lock and key, so the desperation the Team and their powerful lapdogs show in ferreting out the leaker is indicative of what is on the emails. Stay tuned.
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“the proportion believing in AGW being 70% respectively” should read “the proportion believing in AGW being 30% to 70% respectively.
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On the tallbloke event. I agree with many posters at WUWT that it is a clumsy and desperate move by the police. Why would you? given the bad press that it will generate and given that it was likely to galvanize bloggers into action.
Someone wants to find the zip passphrase. Whatever is in that zip file is trouble for someone.
If tallbloke gets some legal support, that password will become unimportant. Courts make news.
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But not if they were acting on information received, and not if that information implied that the situation was urgent.
There is the possibility that this was all a PR stunt to give more milage to the propaganda wagon that Marcus referred us to at 6.41 and others like it.
“They” have been shown to be doing bad stuff, so “we” (well Tallbloke, anyway) need to be shown doing bad stuff as well – I mean Tallbloke must have been doing bad stuff, the police had a warrant and everything!
It is “their” idea of a counter attack. Pathetic, I know.
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Looking around the blogosphere, it’s interesting to see how many of the trolls have been mobilised in a rather unsubtle group effort to persuade someone not to sue someone else. They’re really running scared on this one …
Pointman
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I see places where they keep referring to the emails as stolen, how can that be said when their is no official word given in that regard? I hope Tallbloke can put a push back on them so they see they do have to explain themselves to him. It appears some beaureaucrat is upset.
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Poor Greg. That ominous flushing sound you get when people bale on you …
Pointman
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My hunch is that Tall Bloke is more C3P0 than Chewbacca
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The most practical thing to help Tallbloke, if indeed he does actually need help, would be for the hacker(s) to come forward and admit what they have done. But I don’t see that happening.
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You’re not making any sense: How would that help Tallbloke, when he isn’t suspected of any crime?
(Except, of course, for the constant insinuation by warmists that he must be some kind of criminal.)
Waiting for your answer — unless this is just another attempt to smear Tallbloke without tripping the libel laws.
Pathetic.
A much better way to help him is to contribute to his legal fund for suing the somewhat dimwitted warmist bloggers (and scientists, like Mann) who are libeling him.
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Job done.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBksHaTQCbU
Pointman
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TallBloke on BBC TV on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10lUiNvpOYM
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