Inval politie bij klimaatblogger

Degene die de tweede serie Climategate e-mails openbaar heeft gemaakt en die opereert onder de naam FOIA (waarschijnlijk refererend aan de 'Freedom of Information Act'), heeft het materiaal ongevraagd aan een aantal bloggers toegezonden. Eén daarvan was Tallbloke, die naast andere zaken ook over klimaat schrijft.

Tallbloke kreeg onlangs thuis bezoek van 6 (!) rechercheurs die de inhoud van zijn computers wilden kopiëren. Zij namen twee computers in beslag. Hij schreef daarover:

An Englishman’s home is his castle they say. Not when six detectives from the Metropolitan Police, the Norfolk Constabulary and the Computer Crime division arrive on your doorstep with a warrant to search it though.

I waved the first three in and bid them head through to the sitting room, where there was less of an chill near the woodburner. Then they kept coming, being introduced by the lead detective from Norfolk as they trooped in. I thought I’d been chosen to host the secret policemen’s ball or something. I managed to log out of my email on the big lappy as they sat down, to the annoyance of the Computer expert. He soon regained his composure though and asked his first question. How many computers do you have in the house? Oh, I’m not sure around twenty. I breezily replied. Some glances were exchanged. “So where are they” he asked. “Most of them are up in the attic bedroom. We’re in the middle of decorating it. You’ll have to mind the wet paint ”

After surveying my ancient stack of Sun Sparcstations and PII 400 pc’s, they ended up settling for two laptops and an adsl broadband router.

I’m blogging this post via my mobile. ...

Lees verder hier.

Uiteraard leidde deze actie tot grote verontwaardiging in de klimaatblogosfeer. Vooral Joanne Nova schoot uit haar slof.

Tallbloke’s computers were confiscated by police today, allegedly in the search for the climategate leaker. But it’s obvious that there won’t be any clues left on Tallbloke’s computer .

The point of this is not to catch the leaker, it’s to intimidate bloggers.

Jeff ID writes: Tallbloke a fellow recipient blog of the climategate emails, and linked on the right, was raided today in what seems to be a coordinated effort by Metropolitan Police, the Norfolk Constabulary and the Computer Crime division and the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division. His home was raided and computers were taken for ‘examination’. They don’t really want to catch the leaker, because a whistleblower is protected by UK legislation. The proof that this is aimed at intimidating bloggers rather than catching the climategate leaker is the coordinated and pointless US dept of Justice action through wordpress.

To wit: Both Tallbloke and JeffID received “the following notification from the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division and forwarded by Ryan at WordPress. ClimateAudit is also mentioned yet I’m not certain that Steve Received notice. It seems that the larger paid blogs may not have received any notice. On pdf -WordPress Preservation Request-1“ The notification apparently asks them not to make the information public or else... they may terminate their wordpress account.

This has nothing at all to do with finding a hypothetical hacker. How would anyone feel knowing that agents may turn up at their home, take all their computers, phones, routers and records, and have a copy of all their emails, their tax records, letters to friends, music, photos, information about family and friends, and their passwords?

The inconvenience of living without their computer, software and everything else would cost potentially thousands but worse, for someone who values their privacy, just the knowledge that so much personal information was in the hands of strangers would be unsettling.

Furthermore, there’s the risk that a single malicious person in the government could “leak” the emails, photos, or letters, medical records and spread them on the internet. These are home offices, so everything is on the computer. It would only take one agent — someone thinking it was “only fair” to release all that information.

There’s a perverse logic that though the climategate leaker carefully removed personal emails, and was releasing work related information from a work account, it was somehow “just” to release irrelevant personal information from the accounts of volunteers. If the establishment was really in the mood to send a signal that blogging is a risky business, what’s next — Nixon style tax audits?

Now, more than ever, all the people that value their freedom need to stick together. Whistleblowers and radio personalities need blogger back up, big bloggers need small bloggers, every blogger needs commenter and emailer support, with letters to editors and friends. Every link in the chain helps.

The establishment need to know that we will not be intimidated, there are many of us, and the more they push, the more we will tell the world. Spread the information on the net while we still can.

Lees verder hier.

Hoewel deze reactie mij wat overtrokken lijkt, kan toch niet worden ontkend dat een bezoek van 6 (!) rechercheurs door een normaal mens toch wel als een intimiderende inbreuk op de privacy wordt ervaren. En dat allemaal vanwege de openbaarmaking van e-mails die onder de FOIA al lang vrijgegeven hadden moeten zijn door de Universiteit van East Anglia! Het is de omgekeerde wereld! Zoals ik al eerder schreef: klimaat maakt meer kapot dan je lief is.

Tallbloke heeft inmiddels een advocaat in de arm genomen om gerechtelijke stappen te overwegen met het oog op schadevergoeding. Voor de financiering van de kosten van de procedure is een apart fonds opgezet.

Lees verder hier.

Voor mijn eerdere DDS-bijdragen zie: