2
Feb
Feb
Breaking! Penn State says they are exempt from Freedom of Information Act
This just in from Dr. John Costella:
Ladies and gentlemen,
I don’t know if this is common knowledge amongst you good folk over there, but this is breaking news to me.
Climate skeptic Ron Armstrong of Hoquiam, Washington has today learned from Penn State University that they are exempt from the Freedom Of Information Act and Pennsylvania’ s Right To Know Law.
With Ron’s permission, I have uploaded the email response to his request at
http://johncostella.webs.com/penn-state-foia-response.txt
and the attachment, which is the important document, at
Note: if I’ve missed an attribution link anywhere, sorry, we were working off a quick email and wanted to get this out. Thanks Dr. Costella!
This appears to be true. Go to this website, scroll down to “What are state related institutions”? It appears they made special provisions for Penn State excluding them from this law.
http://www.openrecordspa.org/index_assets/RTKQuickGuide.pdf
They get federal money, I wonder if federal law would require them to disclose information?
i also wonder if they have their own FOIA policy and you could use that?
My suggestion would be to advise NSF, DOE, EPA and other funding agencies that so long as Penn State insists that it is not subject to FOIA then they should withhold funding any grants/contracts etc to the University. Also, ask a lawyer knowledgable about these matters whether you can send FOIAs to funding agencies to have them get records pertaining to official business. And get elected representatives involved.
This answer comes across as, “We don’t have to tell you! Nah nah na-nah na nah!”
Every possible legal avenue needs to be pursued, including a media, “What are they hiding?” campaign.
page 6 of Pen State Document may be helpful to allow us to remain calm.This seems to be a place to rest and collect ourselves.
“And remember that this is a list of what records a state or local agency may legally withhold. It is not a list of what they must withhold.”
: )
If Penn State is exempt from FOIA laws, then the laws should be changed. If they are not exempt, then they should be revealed to the public as the liars that they are. However this matter is settled, what is not debatable is that they harbor one of the greatest criminals of modernity, Michael Mann, who has done more to discredit pure science than any other human being since the communist fanatic Lysenko. Mann should be in prison for life without parole for the damage that he has done to pure science.
Well, if a Freedom of Information request won’t get ‘em to budge, I expect that a subpoena duces tecum (courtesy of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Attorney General) will disimpact the bolus.
Not to mention something from U.S. Senator Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) in the course of his investigation.
The Republican portion of America’s permanently incumbent Boot On Your Neck Party has been in a feeding frenzy since the Massachusetts by-election a couple of weeks ago, and it can be anticipated that the AGW fraud – inexorably identified with their National Socialist colleagues (we’re not calling them “Democrat” any more) – will be leveraged like a bayonet stuck hilt-deep in their enemies’ kishkas.
Ever since 17 November 2009, Climategate and the developments subsequent thereunto have sweetened the flavor of life.
Revenge is a dish best served with hot sauce and a side of fries.
–
Are there no longer in our institutions of higher education authorities with training in science who can say “stop, this must not be permitted.” Apparently not. Mann’s crime is obvious. Having found that fiftty years of temperature data showed that tree ring data diverged from thermometer data, and diverged radically, he invented the “trick,” as Phil Jones calls it, of simply substituting the thermometer data for the tree ring data over the last fifty years. He “hid the decline.” That is lying and it is fraud. A genuine scientist, an ordinary scientist, would have announced to his colleagues that he had discovered data which shows that tree ring proxies are not reliable substitutes for thermometer data. There is no excuse for it. Penn State can fire Mann or they can hang their head in shame and admit that they are a football team that also includes a university.
Remember…cockroaches hate light!
I did talk to an attorney friend who thinks if they get federal money that federal FOIA may apply and they can shove their Pennsylvania BS laws.
But he’s not an expert in this area.
John, early in the Climategate revelations, I spoke with an attorney on the possibility that the CRU correspondents (including Dr. Mann) might well be subject to material and punitive damages in a class action suit brought against them on behalf of folks who had suffered job loss, depression, loss of consortium, business failure, etc. as a direct or indirect result of the global warming fraud they had perpetrated.
He got a kind of glazed look in his eyes (the sort that in a lawyer denotes the sound Ka-ching! going off in his mind) and said he’d have to look into it.
Normally, I don’t hold much of a brief for the plaintiff’s bar, but given the nature of Dr. Mann’s malpractitionate conduct….
Well, hell. Why should those of us in the sawbones profession get all the attention?
Can you say “joint and several liability”?
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I think that a well written letter to the pres of Penn State essentially outlining the potential liability of Mann and that they may incure a substantial amount of that, as well as get the laws changed permanently(which he does not want), and sully the institutions name even further, or they can let Mann take his lumps. This link should help make the arguement that we are not looking to hurt Penn state in any of the ways he outlined in his arguement againt the RTK law. http://president.psu.edu/testimony/articles/208.html .
He(Penn state president) needs to know he is standing infront of a steam roller, and he can either do the right thing and get out of the way or let Mann take Penn state down with him.
The Democrats are not truly “National Socialists”, more accurately they are “Transnational Progressives” or Tranzi(s)
Tsk. They’re a national party. They’re socialists. With their strong link to the unions (and the National Educational Association has never been anything but a labor union, functioning in collective bargaining, and not a true professional association), they’re arguably a “Workers’” political force.
Want to call them the National Socialist American Workers’ Party instead?
–
“Tranzim is the successor ideology to failed and discredited Marxist-Leninsm. Many of the most prominent Tranzis are, in fact “former” members of various communist parties, especially European communist parties………..One of the difficult things about analyzing Tranzis and their work is that they are not a conspiracy. What they are is a consensus…….a fairly cohesive consensus on certain ultimate core issues…… at the highest level……they want an end to national sovereignty and they want global governance…… EU, International Criminal Court, IPCC/Kyoto Accords……”
by
John Ringo
Tom Kratman
Tucci78,
Rings true to me. They are not simple right wing socialists, nor are their goals limited national ones. But what do I know I’m just a Blacksmith and lack the education to argue you with my own words.
Ray
Ah, another fan of Ringo & Kratman’s Yellow Eyes.
In August 2002, Ringo had promulgated a very good blog post debunking AGW, and in his more recent novel The Last Centurion he gave some considerable amplification on the subject.
I think it is a mistake to differentiate between “right wing socialists” and those of the so-called left wing. You might do better to heed the Nolan diagram (to hell with Jerry Pournelle’s older and explicitly statist chart).
Differentiate instead between authoritarian and libertarian in Nolan’s axes and you will understand that the difference between the “right wing socialists” and their blood brothers on the left is of no significance whatsoever.
Thank you for the references. Ringo’s speculations in “The Last Centurian” on the hit or miss Tranzi response to a Flu epidemic was born out during this years H1N1 epidemic, with H5N1 sitting in the wings thank god we got a dress rehearsal. Maybe things will go better next time.
Ray
[...] Yesterday we reported that Penn State University claimed they are exempt from the Freedom Of Information Act under Pennsylvania’s ‘Right To Know Law.’ U.S. constitutional law advisers have reliably informed climategate.com that Penn State’s latest scam to hide wrongdoing by their climatologist, Michael Mann, is contrary to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. [...]
Penn State not falling under Pennsylvania right to know law does
NOT automatically exempt them from Federal FOIA
provisions when dealing with federally funded programs and staff salaries that use Fed grants or are accomplished under Federal contracts.
You’ll notice the Attorney-at-Law letter was very carefully
sculpted to only address Pennsylvania Laws.
It’s time for all good citizens to burrow through:
http://www.justice.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_XVII_4/page2.htm
The Freedom of Information Act
5 U.S.C. § 552, As Amended By
Public Law No. 104-231, 110 Stat. 3048
Even were the good citizens to fail of pursuit in this matter, you can be good and goddam certain that the Republicans will not. There’s the scent of blood in the water.
An upright and honest person and entity would take the stand that despite any legal walls we can build and refuse to give the information freely and without hiding and/or deleting any part of it
we shall open up our records and complete archives to anyone who wants them.We shall certify under oath that we have NOT withheld anything and we shall answer all your queries.
TO MAINTAIN THE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE WE SHALL NOT HIDE BEHIND ANY LAWS.
We live and survive on YOUR MONEY and we owe you the duty to be honest with you and NOT TO MANY WHO HAVE AGENDAS SINISTER OR NOT.
That is the least any person or entity receiving any public money should declare.
Here’s your Penn State response to the initial investigation…they’re going to investigate more….I can figure that they will continue to “investigate” until everyone forgets about this, then go on their merry way.
http://algorelied.com/
I guess it is actually the Penn State Nittany LIARS
I actually worked at PSU about 10 years ago. It has a bit of an odd structure, as I think (you should check the exact words) that it’s a *public* institution with a *private* “Board of Directors”, which in practise means whatever they want.
I’ve also had problems (as a researcher) with determining whether (say) an NSF grant makes the attained knowledge therein “public domain” (as required with federal employees), and in general the whole bureaucracy with grant agencies and university overhead is an accountant’s nightmare (or dream, if you are corrupt).
This is just from a “intro” but it is likely correct. FOIA is mostly with government records, so you are unlikely to get much beyond that.
“Q. Who can I send a FOIA request to?
A. The FOIA applies to Executive Branch departments, agencies, and offices; federal regulatory agencies; and federal corporations. Congress, the federal courts, and parts of the Executive Office of the President that function solely to advise and assist the President, are NOT subject to the FOIA. Records obtainable under the FOIA include all “agency records” – such as print documents, photographs, videos, maps, e-mail and electronic records – that were created or obtained by a Federal agency and are, at the time the request is filed, in that agency’s possession and control. Agencies are required by FOIA to maintain information about how to make a FOIA request, including a handbook, reference guide, indexes, and descriptions of information locator systems. The best place to get this information is on the agencies’ websites. Doing research to determine the right office to send the FOIA request to within the right component of the right agency will make your FOIA efforts more productive.”
I think the FOIA would need to go to the NSF, though from them I think you are unlikely to get anything more than forms relating to grants (applications, renewals, progress reports). So I disagree that federal grant receivers are subject to FOIA, though I haven’t looked at every place such a requirement could be noted. If you desire http://www.nsf.gov/policies/foia.jsp