Criminals // Current TV

Climategate investigation warms up globally-computers seized, US denier told to preserve records

Police officers investigating the theft of thousands of private emails between climate scientists from a University of East Anglia server in 2009 have seized computer equipment belonging to a web content editor based at the University of Leeds.

The glacial investigation into the stolen emails has experienced rapid, unprecedented warming that very much appears to be caused by humans, in this case the Norfolk police.

The UK Guardian reports today:

On Wednesday, detectives from Norfolk Constabulary entered the home of Roger Tattersall, who writes a climate sceptic blog under the pseudonym TallBloke, and took away two laptops and a broadband router. A police spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday that Norfolk Constabulary had “executed a search warrant in West Yorkshire and seized computers”. She added: “No one was arrested. Investigations into the [UEA] data breach and publication [online of emails] continues. This is one line of enquiry in a Norfolk constabulary investigation which started in 2009″….

Both Tattersall and a US-based climate sceptic blogger known as Jeff Id said they had received a “formal request” via the blogging platform WordPress from the US Department of Justice’s criminal division, dated 9 December, to preserve “all stored communications, records, and other evidence in your possession” related to their own blogs as well as to Climate Audit, a climate sceptic blog run by a Canadian mining consultant called Steve McIntyre. All three blogs had received messages from “FOIA” last month pointing to the link hosting a second tranche of emails first taken from the UEA in 2009.

It’s funny to see the hyperventilating at the denier websites. As you know, the deniers routinely assume any scientist being independently investigated is almost certainly guilty, that any scientist exonerated by an independent investigation is definitely guilty, and that thousands of actual evidence-based studies are part of a grand conspiracy to deceive humanity.

Unlike the deniers, however, we stay evidence-based, so the fact that the police have seized TallBloke’s computers and told a U.S. denier not to delete or destroy any evidence is not proof in the least bit of their involvement in any crime.

Tattersall posted his own account of the police search on his blog: “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 … They ended up settling for two laptops and an ADSL broadband router … I got the feeling something was on the go last night when WordPress [the internet host for his blog] forwarded a notice from the US Department of Justice.”

Speaking to the Guardian, Tattersall said: “I am happy to assist the police with their inquiries because I haven’t been hiding anything important like some people have. I assisted them with their inquiries, which involved voluntarily answering some questions regarding computer use etc.”

Last month, Tattersall’s blog, as well as at least four other blogs popular with climate sceptics, received a comment from a user called “FOIA” providing a link to a Russian server hosting a compressed folder containing more than 5,000 emails exchanged between climate scientists, along with a short message setting out the perpetrator’s motives. The folder also contained an encrypted subfolder containing a further 220,000 emails. It was the second time such a release had occurred.

More at the linkPolice officers investigating the theft of thousands of private emails between climate... more

JanforGore
added this
1 month ago
|
3 comments

Interactive Gasland site

Interactive fracking information.

treewolf39
added this
1 year ago
|
4 comments

John Boehner’s Lobbyists Plan A Massive Hit Job On Occupy Wall Street

Source: Politicususa John Boehner’s lobbyist pals are so afraid of Occupy... more

KB723
added this
3 months ago
|
112 comments

Congress:Trading stock on inside information?

"I was watching this tonight and found this video worth sharing!!! Seems, that... more

KB723
added this
3 months ago
|
115 comments

Keep Your Money Close

Dear Bank of America,

I closed my checking and savings accounts today, because I heard that Bank of America foreclosed on a Florida couple who did not even have a mortgage loan through B of A. When this couple sued you and won, your company stiff-armed them and refused to pay the court judgment. The couple then foreclosed upon one of your branches in an attempt to recover the judgment and their costs.

When I think about how stupid someone would have to be to foreclose on someone who does not have a mortgage loan, it boggles the mind. Not only is it indicative of appalling ignorance and lack of true customer service ethics, it is a clear sign that your company is being run by criminals.

When I went into the branch today to close my accounts, I heard that you have now decided to close the local branch in order to save money; no doubt, you need to save that money because of the way you have been pissing away cash by financing bogus mortgages. Now the decent and friendly people at my local branch who have been serving this community for up to 20 years will soon be looking for work rather than having to drive many miles to work at the nearest remaining branch. I commiserated with them and wished them all well. They have been loyal to your company and to people like me for years, and they are being shafted by snot-nosed crooks (probably with freshly-minted MBAs) in the higher echelons of your criminal enterprise.

I took my cash and went home only to see that your dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks online banking system had sent me an email stating that my account was now empty and had fallen below the minimum $25 balance. Amazing deduction, Sherlock! I closed the account!

I am now sorry I ever allowed myself to associate with your company, for it enabled people of no character to conduct business with my cash, which, you can bet, you will never see again. I will tell everyone I know of my experience and urge them to put their money in reputable institutions which do not attempt to extort money from innocent victims.Dear Bank of America, I closed my checking and savings accounts today, because I... more

Progresshiv
added this
5 months ago
|
49 comments

MILITANT RIGHT'S CIA & JUSTICE DEPT CRIMINALS !

THE MILITANT CORPORATE RIGHT'S CRIMINAL COVERT ACTIVITY, DATES BACK TO WWII AND... more

COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
added this
7 months ago
|
0 comments

Criminal Underworlds on Current - Every night at 9pm from Monday 13th June

Current TV takes us deep into the corrupt and sordid heart of organised crime. From... more

saverio
added this
8 months ago
|
0 comments

One Lawman With the Guts to Go After Wall Street

The fix was in to let the Wall Street scoundrels off the hook for the enormous damage they caused in creating the Great Recession. All of the leading politicians and officials, federal and state, Republican and Democrat, were on board to complete the job of saving the banks while ignoring their victims... until last week when the attorney general of New York refused to go along.

Eric Schneiderman will probably fail, as did his predecessors in that job; the honest sheriff doesn’t last long in a town that houses the Wall Street casino. But decent folks should be cheering him on. Despite a mountain of evidence of robo-signed mortgage contracts, deceitful mortgage-based securities and fraudulent foreclosures, the banks were going to be able to cut their potential losses to what was, for them, a minuscule amount.

In a deal that had the blessing of the White House and many federal regulators and state attorneys general—a settlement probably for not much more than the $5 billion pittance the top financial institutions found acceptable—the banks would be freed of any further claims by federal and state officials over their shady mortgage packaging and servicing practices and deceptive foreclosure proceedings.

At the same time, the SEC and other federal regulatory bodies are making sweetheart deals with the bankers to close off accountability for creating and collecting on more than a trillion dollars’ worth of toxic mortgage-based securities at the heart of the nation’s economic meltdown—a meltdown that has seen the national debt grow by more than 50 percent, stuck us with an unyielding 9 percent unemployment and left 50 million Americans losing their homes to foreclosure or clinging desperately to underwater mortgages. On top of which an all-time high of 44 million people are living below the official poverty line and fewer new homes were started in April than at any other time in the past half century. With housing values still in free fall, we continue to make the bankers whole.

As Gretchen Morgenson reported in The New York Times, the Justice Department division responsible for checking for fraud in the bankruptcy system has found a widespread pattern of deception by banks foreclosing homes, and she concluded: “So an authoritative source with access to a lot of data has identified industry practices as not only pernicious but also pervasive. Which makes it all the more mystifying that regulators seem eager to strike a cheap and easy settlement with the banks.” Not really surprising given both the enormous hold of Wall Street money over the two major political parties and the revolving door through which executives travel between firms like Goldman Sachs and the top positions in the US Treasury Department and elsewhere in the government. The financial crisis occurred only because Republicans and Democrats passed the laws that Wall Street lobbyists wrote ending reasonable banking industry regulation installed in the 1930s in response to the Depression. And when the greed they enabled threatened the foundations of our economy, under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, it was the bankers who were assisted into lifeboats that had no room for ordinary people.

Not surprising then to find all of the power players in on the latest deals: the Obama administration that had bailed out the banks but not troubled homeowners; the regulators and Fed officials who all looked the other way when the housing bubble was inflated; and the state attorneys general who backed away from going after the perpetrators of robo-signed mortgages and other scams used to foreclose homes.

But now Schneiderman has a chance to derail the deals, given that he is supported by the state’s tough 1921 Martin Act, which one of his predecessors as New York state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, had used to good advantage in exposing the financial behemoths that are so heavily based in New York. The Wall Street Journal describes the Martin Act as “one of the most potent prosecutorial tools against financial fraud” because, as opposed to federal law, it doesn’t carry the more difficult standard of proving intent to defraud.

Last week, it was revealed that Schneiderman’s office has demanded an accounting from Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as to the details of their past practice of securitizing those mortgage-based packages that proved so toxic. Maybe he will fail against such powerful forces, as did Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo after him, but it is a test worth watching, since no one else, from the White House on down, seems to be concerned with holding the bailed-out banks accountable for the massive pain and suffering they inflicted on the public.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/one_lawman_with_the_guts_to_go_after_wall_street_20110518/The fix was in to let the Wall Street scoundrels off the hook for the enormous damage... more