
Judge preserves privacy of climate scientist’s emails - ananyob
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/judge-preserves-privacy-of-climate-scientists-emails.html
======
CWuestefeld
Without making any statement about the climate change debate itself...

It bothers me more than a little when research is funded by taxpayers, yet we
taxpayers are forbidden from seeing what was happening with our money.

Even absent public funding, the nature of science is that, at the very least,
all results, data, and methodological information should be wide open. When
you add in that we're paying for it, I can't see where they get the right to
conceal part of their work. If you don't want open books, then don't look for
open funding; the private sector would be happy to keep your communications
secret, if it's on their dime.

~~~
demallien
I'm curious - a quick look at your comments history shows you to have a fairly
libertarian type of political leaning. But in this specific case you seem all
for the government intruding to force one organisation to hand over
information to another. Why the change of heart on the role of government?

~~~
rjsamson
I don't mean to speak for CWuestefeld, but from my perspective its about
transparency in government. Mann is/was a government employee (I'm not talking
about federal funding, but the fact that he was an employee of the
Commonwealth of Virginia through UVA), and as such should be subject to the
same laws and ideals governing transparency with regard to government workers
(and resources), from the Governor down to low level bureaucratic civil
servants.

~~~
demallien
It is my understanding that university employees are not civil servants.
According to Wikipedia, public universities in the US on average receive only
43% of funding frOm government, the rest is made up for by student fees and
endowments. Also according to Wikipedia, UVA has the biggest endowment of any
public university in the US.

All of which is to say that universities, even public universities, are not
government entities in the same way that public schools are. It is far from
clear to me that libertarians would support the idea of a private citizen
working for a non-government organisation being compelled to hand over private
communications by the government.

Of course I might be wrong about UVAs status, but I did a fair amount of
searching, and could not find anything that would indicate that university
employees were in fact government employees, and the information that I did
find tended to support the idea that they were not. If I'm wrong about this,
then the OP's position is easier to understand...

~~~
rjsamson
Interesting point to think about, however the % mix of funding source has
little to do with whether employees of an organization are classified as civil
servants. An example of this would be departments of transportation or other
toll collecting public agencies - generally tolls and fees provide the bulk of
the funding with taxpayer dollars making up a smaller percentage, yet the
employees are very clearly civil servants.

Since UVA employees's salaries are publicly available through FOIA (see
[http://datacenter.timesdispatch.com/databases/salaries-
virgi...](http://datacenter.timesdispatch.com/databases/salaries-virginia-
state-employees-details/)) I think that's one pretty good indicator of civil
service status. In Virginia, the University is required to report salary
information, etc, to the Virginia Department of Human Resources Management.
They are able to adjust how they report salary information for employees who
are paid a portion through endowments and other outside sources.

Now, I have no idea or information about the specific case with Mann - who
knows, maybe he was being paid exclusively by some special endowment and so
his records would not be subject to a FOI request - but I would have thought
they would have used that in part of their justification for not complying
with the request.

Also - I don't consider myself a libertarian so I won't speak for them - I'm
just a big proponent of government transparency.

------
tomjen3
If they want people to not care about their emails, stop using Global Warming
to take away our freedoms (I can't get a decent light bulb anymore because of
this shit) and make 21 century living unreasonably expensive (yeah, we need
gasoline).

Don't get me wrong, the environment is important but maintaining it as is
should not be a priority. Nature is not holy, but it is useful.

~~~
scarmig
Not to diverge too much from the article (which should be about expectation of
privacy rights) and get into politics and moral philosophy, but people in
Bangladesh could just as well be like "quit using your lightbulbs to violate
our property rights."

It's not a matter of whose "rights" are going to be violated, it's a matter of
configuring property rights to improve human well-being.

~~~
glenra
First off, Bangladesh has been on-net _gaining_ land mass in recent years.

Quote: "Satellite images of Bangladesh over the past 32 years show that the
country is growing annually by about 20 square kilometres (7.72 square miles)"
(source: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7532949.stm> )

Now, it's true that that article claims that _eventually_ sea level rise will
overcome this, but the rate of sea level rise has actually _not_ been
accelerating in accordance with the predictions made back then - sea level has
been continuing to rise at about the same low rate it had been doing for the
last century. (Um, here's one source on that:
[http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/current-
wisdom-n...](http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/current-wisdom-no-
climaterelated-acceleration-sea-level-rise) )

In short, if the people of Bangladesh have any reason to be concerned about
"our lightbulbs", it's a distant future concern, not a current one.

------
prawks
Very glad to hear this. These people aren't criminals, they're researchers
publishing their findings and proposed hypotheses.

~~~
vixen99
These findings and proposed hypotheses likely influence policies which
financially hit just about everyone. Billions of tax dollars have been
diverted on the basis of climate research. Is it really an extravagant demand
to know what these scientists' discussions amount to?

~~~
cantankerous
Verifiable and reproducible publications are all the communications you need.
The public pays for their research, not their emails.

~~~
tomjen3
You and I both know that the most WTF results are not published precisely
because you can't write them up in any way that would be reproducible.

But what I am really interested in is reading any and all political stuff in
those emails. Global Warming is too hot a political tropic to allow a few
percent insiders to stir the pot to take away what little freedom we have
left.

~~~
thirdtruck
I'm glad you agree that a few profit-driven CEOs shouldn't hold more sway over
policy than hundreds of hard-working researchers.

~~~
tomjen3
I was refering to the leadership of the so called democratic party.

------
Buzaga
no link at all to the story that precedes this one? :/

~~~
talmand
Yes, it does seem a rather one-sided article. Notice how they give a quote as
to how the scientists are being "attacked" by people "abusing" public records
and FOIA laws. No real indication of why these people are using public records
and FOIA laws nor what it is they wish to find.

