Cops target climate-sceptic bloggers in three countries • The Register

Cops target climate-sceptic bloggers in three countries • The Register: - Enviado mediante la barra Google

Cops target climate-sceptic bloggers in three countries


Hardware seized in UK, feds request evidence in America

By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author

Posted in Policing, 15th December 2011 15:19 GMT

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Police have targeted at least four climate bloggers in three countries, with constabulary taking computers and networking equipment from a science blogger in the UK.

Roger Tattersall, aka "Tallbloke", a Digital Content Manager at the University of Leeds, posted that six police officers identifying themselves as being from Norfolk Police and the Metropolitan force entered his home at midnight and took away two laptops and a router.

Norfolk Constabulary told us in a written statement that "Norfolk Constabulary executed a search warrant yesterday (Wednesday 14 December) in West Yorkshire and seized computers. No one was arrested. This is one line of enquiry in a Norfolk Constabulary investigation which started in 2009."

That's a reference to the "Climategate" investigation by Norfolk police into the release of emails, raw data and computer code from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which two years on has yet to yield any results. A second batch of emails from the CRU including a large encrypted container was distributed last month. Amongst the recipients were Tattersall and Jeff Id of the Air Vent.

Norfolk Police told Tattersall they will clone the seized drives and return them.

Last week WordPress hosting site Automattic, based in San Francisco, notified several climate skeptics including Tattersall, Id and Canadians Steve McIntyre (Climate Audit) and Donna Laframboise (No Consensus) that the US Department of Justice Criminal Division had requested evidence for the period in November when the second batch of emails were uploaded.

The Green Police are presumed not to be involved.