Dec
Climategate: U.S. Lawyers to the rescue!
Apparently Senator Inhofe (we hear) has pressured the US Department of Energy (DOE) to issue a “Litigation Hold Notice” asking its departments to retain any Climatic Research Unit at University of East Anglia documents. Below is a copy of the notice sent to the DOE’s Savannah office in South Carolina:
December 14, 2009
DOE Litigation Hold Notice
DOE-SR has received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to “global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.”
As a reminder, this Litigation Hold preservation obligation supersedes any existing statutory or regulatory document retention period or destructive schedule. The determination of what information may be potentially relevant is based upon content and substance and generally does not depend on the type of medium on which the information exists. The information requested may exist in various forms, including paper records, hand-written notes, telephone log entries, email, and other electronic communication (including voicemail), word processing documents (including drafts, spreadsheets, databases, and calendars), telephone logs, electronic address books, PDAs (like Palm Pilots and Blackberries), internet usage files, systems manuals, and network access information in their original format. All ESI should be preserved in its originally-created, or “native” format, along with related metadata. Relevant backup tapes and all indexes for those tapes should also be preserved. Further, information that is reasonably accessible must nonetheless be preserved, because such sources will, at the very least, need to be identified and, under compelling circumstances, may need to be produced.
If you have any doubts as to whether specific information is responsive, err on the side of preserving that information.
Any employee who has information covered by this Litigation Hold is requested to contact Madeline Screven, Paralegal, SRNS Office of General Council, 5-4634, for additional instructions.
Michael L. Wamsted
Associate General Council
Full story: What’s Up With That | Discuss: here
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Michael is the Associate General Counsel, not Council. And its the Climatic Research Unit not Climate Research Unit. The US Dept of Energy has an Office of the General Counsel but not of the Council.
It’s signed Michael L Wamsted, Associate General Council, as you said. Not sure what you mean there. As for Climate versus Climatic for the CRU, that how the copy of the email was as it we found it.
Based on my experience as a legal advocate in both the US and UK, I believe that the many well-funded litigants now serving writs on those dodgy climatologists will totally discredit the warmist movement tying them up in courtrooms for the next two or three years. The Professor Joneses and Michael Mann’s of this world will never have the time or resources to do climate ‘research’ ever again. The whole ‘hockey team’ is a busted flush.
This was always going to be for the greens a loose coalition of unlikely accomplices ranging from the extreme left of the communists at Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and the far right of the rich elite of Bilderberg, the Club of Rome, the Murdoch-moneyed mainstream media and self-serving politicians. We were able to expose the fragility of that axis of evil after Climategate and now on the world stage in Copenhagen the scam is unravelling in front of the eyes of the whole world.
Climategate Professor Phil Jones is very much in the frame to be indicted under US federal laws for conspiracy to defraud US tax funding. The leaked CRU emails include much of his correspondence with American-based climatologists, Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, etc. They are all key contributors to the IPCC policy statements process and influential advisers. Between them they have influenced the spending of over $50 billion spent worldwide by governments seeking to prove a link between co2 and climate.In the leaked email entitled, 1120676865.txt, Jones says:
“Neville,
Mike’s response could do with a little work, but as you say he’s got the tone almost dead on. I hope I don’t get a call from congress ! I’m hoping that no-one there realizes I have a US DoE grant and have had this (with Tom W.) for the last 25 years. I’ll send on one other email received for interest.
Cheers
Phil”
Note the worried tone in his comment? Jones ( or more precisely, his department) has benefited to the tune of almost $20 million in funding from US and UK government sources. Both jurisdictions have similar laws relating to malfeasance of public office as well as safeguards for public interest under their separate freedom of information acts. The UK and US have exemplary extradition treaties under the Hague Convention and Professor Jones has made himself a prime candidate on RICO racketeering charges as well as spoliation (destruction of evidence) being that he admits destroying data. If he is convicted for those offences he may serve a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail and/or a fine of up to $250,000. If I were him I’d be a very worried man. As they say in New York, he’d better get lawyered up damn quick!
Any court action will be preceded by lengthy discovery process. What I noticed yesterday was that the University of East Anglia, contrary to the public statement 10 days ago, has removed pages from their website that contained portions of the disputed data. This may be indicative of a presumption that litigation (criminal and/or civil) is in the pipeline. This story is going to run and run!
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