My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
Another whopping leak from the IPCC.
A substantial second leak, already nicknamed the Secret Santa leak, of further portions of the forthcoming IPCC AR5 has just occurred. There was a smaller leak of material last year, which was owned up to by the person who did it on their blog.
While everyone is no doubt considering how on Earth to work their way through a gigabyte of dense reading material, my first thoughts before plunging in myself is to wonder if the leaker is perhaps the same person or persons, commonly called FOIA, who leaked the original climategate material.
What caught my eye is the tradecraft used to deliver it. The data was sent to Donna Laframboise a week before Christmas on three USB memory sticks. Apart from a posting address, any forensics would be minimal, especially if Donna has done the usual post-Christmas clear out of all envelopes, wrapping paper, packaging etc etc. I hope you’ve done that Donna. Apart from the three sticks, the IT forensics would also be minimal, especially if any sticks in her possession were merely copies of the originals. I also hope those pictures on Donna’s blog are not of the original sticks.
If it is FOIA, why change their delivery method? Possibly it could be as a result of what happened in the aftermath of CG2, where links to the material were emailed to prominent bloggers around the world. One of them, who goes by the name of Tallbloke, had his home raided out of the blue by six policemen and some of his equipment temporarily confiscated. Not a nice experience for him and his family.
I can’t see anything similar happening to Donna, because, with all due respect to Tallbloke, she’s a professional journalist and writer as well as a blogger, not just a private person doing it as an interest. Getting any sort of search and seizure order from a judge on a journalist’s home would need some very concrete reasons.
If there’s one thing I’ve come to be sure about FOIA, is their determination. Having delivered CG1, they could have left it at that but instead, they once again put themselves in harm’s way by delivering CG2. They won’t be going away. The statute of limitations on any charges connected with the original climategate leak ran out last year. After that, they could have gone public to a heroes welcome in some quarters, and probably started working on a book deal and doing lunch with the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer for the film rights. They didn’t.
Why not? A speculative answer is that by staying quietly in place, they could continue to leak sensitive papers embarrassing to the climate alarmists. If only from grounds of access, I’ve always maintained that FOIA is someone highly placed in the climate establishment and I still do.
Has the climategate leaker just struck again?
©Pointman
Related articles by Pointman:
So, was climategate a hack after all?
Some thoughts and some questions about the Climategate 2.0 release.
Profile of the Climategate Whistleblower.
Pointman's 
Well Pointman – Is it FOIA? I have not the faintest idea but I follow your usual impeccable logic.
I think there are real scientists – you know ones with integrity – in the AGW camp. I thought a year or two back that one or two were developing exit strategies.
2012 saw good scientists speak out. The about-turn by the much respected Fritz Vahrenholt in Germany. For some scientists and engineers data eventually trumps theory – amazing but true!
I enjoyed the headline on the GWPF this last week
http://www.thegwpf.org/2013-worst-year-warmists-records-began/
“2013 to be worst year for warmists since records began”
I have only just recovered from New Year and we have had –
This leak
Met Office says no warming next 5 years – which will make 20 years.
Met Office accused of incompetent statistical methods with rainfall stats.
I see it is only the 8th of January. More to come I think – you can only push water uphilll for so long.
LikeLike
Hi Dave. It’s a very speculative idea but I can’t think of a better start to the year!
Pointman
LikeLike
And with the huge cache of encrypted e-mails still lurking within the mass of data ‘released’ in CG2 (I still think that this is FOIA’s ‘insurance policy’) who can speculate with any degree of certainty what lies ahead?
LikeLike
Greetings Pointman. The recent article from pravda had a few interesting quotes.
This one struck me as a confession of sorts, if not a boast:
“Various groups have fought back. This is including Russian hackers, who published a huge database of UK government, scientific and university emails depicting the fixing of data to sell Global Warming, er Climate Change (as if it never changed on its own).
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/04-01-2013/123380-global_warming-0/
Obviously this was cleared for release.
It “feels” a ‘different’ type of leak, when it’s IPCC related.
The last AR5 leak was someone working on the report, for example.
Enjoy reading your blog.
Thanks.
LikeLike
I do not think this is FOIA.
He released the data 2 times in the same way.
He will do so the next time.
This was completely different.
This is another person, also fed up with the b******t and sending the data to Donna.
The cardhouse is collapsing faster every day.
Harry
LikeLike
It’s a brilliant start to the year, Pointman. It’s good to know there are people in the CAGW camp clearly not happy with the scam, and doing something about it. If FOIA is right up there in one of the top levels, it might be better for him/her/they to remain unknown (frustrating though that may be for us).
Thanks for a great blog, I enjoy reading your words, you have a great slant on things. More than that, I think you are spot on. Cheers. 🙂
LikeLike
Pointman, I remember your posts about the original Climategate leaks and how you went into detailed reasons why they were an inside job and not an external hack. Clearly this is an inside job as well, but for your premise that they were done by the same person, doesn’t that mean that this person has to work at CRU/University of East Anglia and the IPCC?
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop.
LikeLike
seasons greetings Pointy
dont think you are on the right track but what do I know!
2013 will see the CAGW bollox continue to wither on the vine but it is going to take a long time to die
I commend you on your efforts to speed its demise
adieu
LikeLike
Interesting.
Is there any way to find out what was inside?
LikeLike
s/b links to the stuff here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/08/more-ipcc-ar5-the-secret-santa-leak/
Pointman
LikeLike
Pointman, I hope you are right about Donna not being subjected to harassment and legal action over this. She got a letter from the IPCC requesting that she remove the material from her website, with which, of course, she will not comply. The powers that be are getting a little grumpy on the warmist side, so anything is possible.
I doubt the “whistleblower” (my preferred description) in this is FOIA. It could be anybody. All of the material in this leak SHOULD be public. Most of the material in the CG leaks should have remained private under normal circumstances in that everyone should be guaranteed some degree of privacy in personal communications. Which is not to say I condemn the actions of FOIA. If ever a situation required whistleblowing, that was it. He went to war because he was distressed at the moral, ethical and professional transgressions he observed or had knowledge of. It was an act of civil disobedience that his conscience demanded he perform. God bless him.
My sense is that if he has more damning material in the emails, he wouldn’t jeopardize it by leaking IPCC docs. If he doesn’t have more damning CG material, maybe he has opened up a second front and released these docs, assuming he is in a position to do so.
Just guessin’.
LikeLike
An enjoyable read, as always, Pointman. But, in answer to your question:
For some reason (call it feminine intuition, if you like!) I don’t believe that Secret Santa and The Saint (as I prefer to call FOIA) are one and the same – or even necessarily acting in tandem.
The matter for mining – and channels of leakage – are very different.
But speaking of “mining” … I did find some files on the green data stick, which have led me to tentatively conclude that there’s a
Sign of slight improvement detected in IPCC green files
LikeLike
Apologies Hilary. Just released your comment from the spam queue. Why the hell it ended up there, WordPress only knows.
LikeLike
Definitely WP, Pointman … I’ve had same problem commenting on other WP blogs (except my own!) But this is my first try today.
WP, who seem never to have heard of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it … but if ya gotta fix it, at least do very extensive testing before you release it to prime-time live. And, if you must jump the gun, let your users know that you’ve made changes – and give ’em a link to a specific page where bugs can be reported”
I suspected that it might have been sent straight to spam-trap, so thanks for confirming … and fishing it out!
Hilary [wondering if this one will make it through without going to “jail” first!]
LikeLike
Made it thru, no problemos. Didn’t need to be unchained.
P
LikeLike
Yes, I saw that 🙂 … but thanks for this great jog down musical memory lane! As I was listening, I was thinking that perhaps a parody using the melody could be our anthem … “Unchain the passcode” … “Unchain the data” … “Unchain the drafts” … etc, etc 😉
LikeLike
Well, Pointman, name dropping is not nice but if FOIA is the person I think he is, he may come out of the closet in 2048 when he is 65. I’m afraid that I will never know whether my guess is true. I give my self 75 percent. If I’m correct, he is not involved with IPCC drafts. So less than 25 percent chance that your guess is correct.
LikeLike
Hi Mindert.
As I said to Dave, it is a very speculative idea to attribute Secret Santa (SS) to FOIA. Another commonality between the two is they both had good access. FOIA got all the emails and programs and SS got most of AR5 and all the reviewers comments. Reviewers can’t see each other’s comments but someone higher up can. Whoever they might be, they’re both senior figures.
Pointman
LikeLike