The Guardian Is “Bemused”
by Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 6 August 2011
David Leigh of the Guardian has been added to the list of UK journalists who’ve engaged in phone hacking and other illegal/unethical conduct. Some of the more questionable conduct by UK journalists has involved their acquisition of information from police that police were not legally entitled to disclose either for payment or as a favour. David Leigh also had a role in the Empire Strikes Back phase of Climategate early last year and, in today’s post, I’ll discuss the connection.
Leigh’s admission of phone hacking is discussed at Bishop Hill here; Guido Fawkes here. Leigh himself admitted here.
There is certainly a voyeuristic thrill in hearing another person’s private messages…
Leigh differentiated his illegal phone hacking from that practised by News of the World because his cause was noble:
unlike Goodman, I was not interested in witless tittle-tattle about the royal family. I was looking for evidence of bribery and corruption.
Now the Climategate connection.
In February 2010, a couple of months after Neil Wallis of Outside Organisation had been retained by the University of East Anglia to help them strike back against critics, Leigh authored a smear against Paul Dennis of the University of East Anglia, entitled:
Detectives question climate change scientist over email leaks: University of East Anglia scientist Paul Dennis denies leaking material, but links to climate change sceptics in US drew him to attention of the investigators
Leigh’s smear began by reporting that Norfolk police had interviewed Paul Dennis (as, presumably, other faculty of the University of East Anglia.) However, Dennis had “refused to sign a petition in support of Jones when the scandal broke”. Furthermore, according to Leigh’s apparently disapproving “university sources”, Dennis was reported to have sent a letter to UEA head of department Jacquie Burgess “calling for more open release of data” – suspicious activity indeed. Dennis had also refused to observe the fatwa against communication with climate blogs that were critical of CRU and the Team and had even sent an article on isotopes to Jeff Id.
Leigh’s article disclosed two pieces of information that were not in the public domain.
First, Leigh “outed” Jeff Id by name, occupation and hometown. To that point, “Jeff Id” had been anonymous. His registration at WordPress was anonymous and his gmail account was anonymous. To Jeff’s knowledge, there was no public information that would enable Leigh to identify him.
Complete writeup here at Climate Audit
=======================================================
Bishop Hill writes here:
Leigh’s name has come to prominence in recent days, with the UK’s premier political blogger, Guido Fawkes, accusing the Guardian man of being involved in phone hacking. The evidence seems pretty incontrovertible, and Leigh appears to be highly unamused to have it broadcast to all and sundry. All good clean family fun.
h/t to Benny Peiser at The GWPF.
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For the non-UK readers, the Guardian has been stoking the News International hacking story for some time, bring it back from the dead at least twice and has been taking a holier than thou stance to boot. The Chickens are coming home to roost.
According to the Press Complaints Commission statistics, the Guardian is up to its neck in phone hacking. Pot/Saucepan/Black …
../kettle.
Poor Jeff. I’m appalled.
Gaining access to someone’s private correspondence and reproducing it in the public domain without their permission.
Got any more Climategate files to share with us Anthony? Oh, wait.
REPLY: Got any more smart-assed quips that don’t speak to the issue of law and journalistic integrity? Oh, wait – Anthony
Kettle, Pot
Goose, Gander
Glass Houses, Rocks
First Stone
Last Laugh
I’m still betting that the whole reason the Outside Organization folks were hired was to do some of that “unofficial information gathering” on their opponents and CRU’s own employees, and phone hacking was probably part of it.
Think about it: when the investigation of Climategate kicked off, they could have hired a LOT of different public relations firms – what are the odds they’d randomly hire the one that was already involved in the phone hacking scandal?
To Shaun Dunne:
Indeed, the release of private correspondence without the permission of the author is something that all sides are quick to condemn . . . when it happens to them. Are you equally sanctimonious regarding the pentagon files and wikileaks? That being said, Anthony did not release the CRU e-mails. He repeated them. There is a pretty substantial difference there. What is more important, the CRU e-mails and all of their content were subject to FOI legislation. As such, they were always public domain. Jeff Id’s identity was not.
Ok, enough feeding of the trolls for today.
JE
The attitude of leftist media towards illegaly obtained materials demonstrates the power of doublethink; compare “Wikileaks” media treatment to “Climategate”.
Shaun Dunne demonstrates it perfectly.
Looks like the Grauniad is getting hosted on its own petard.
So, according to this Guardian hack, his breaking the law is okay because he’s
a lefty lickspittlenobly sticking it to people he fails to agree with?I hope they throw the book at the hypocritical creep.
Shaun D. confirms the impression one gets that only Warmists and liberals are above the law. Climategate was an obvious attempt to expose a hoax. Mr. Leigh was involved in covering up the hoax.
“We know that the University of East Anglia retained a former News of the World operative with close connections to the police as an agent to strike back against their critics.”
As well as complicit left-wing journalists that put cause above ethics.
The real problem is one that the government of the UK should be concerned about: How did information from a police investigation get into the hands of a Guardian reporter? How did The Guardian get access to confidential “police files” and publish that information without any consequence at the time?
The other question is exactly why would The Guardian publish Jeff’s personal details in the first place? How did that further the story? My own speculation is that the purpose of revealing that information was to send a message to anyone else who may wish to cooperate with authorities in the investigation. The notion being that the AGW “industry” has “friends in high places” and if you cross them, you might pay a price for that. Basically, I see it as intimidating others by making an example out of Jeff.
I would want the police unit involved to explain in fine detail to the citizens of the UK exactly how the information contained in those “police files” come in to the possession of The Guardian.
The Guardian faces both ways
Hacking and theft of email and other data is ok by the Guardian if it’s called Wikileaks
I agree that the Police corruption element is the most worrying because it’s the most common. As for Leigh; dodgy Barnet, dodgy geezer.
[Snip. You’re not going to insult our host like that. ~dbs, mod.]
Humpty Dumpty / Fall
One possible link between the retention of Neil Wallis of Outside Organisation by the University of East Anglia could be Norfolk’s former Chief Constable (also former Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police) Andy Hayman the tyro jouranlist now writing regularly for the Times.
Anthony, this is indeed an intriguing direction in the Climategate affair. The implications here are staggering – in fact far beyond mere hacking but that of the personal privacy of ever citizen on the planet is called into question. That those in the so called “respectable” press who “we” trust as the guardians of our freedoms in western society have been the very culprits hacking private citizens and buying information on private citizen from police (who themselves are supposed to be the direct guardians of western freedoms) are horrifying.
Moreover, technology companies who supply private communication devices used by citizens must also be called to the carpet to answer to the ease of the hacking now revealed in the UK using their very own products. No one here in North America should sleep well knowing the vulnerabilities of such poor devices making everyone at risk. No doubt this is only the tip of the iceberg – but in this particular case the damage to Paul Dennis is done.
As per the refusal to answer Steve’s direct questions – someone will soon be suing both The Guardian, David Leigh, and the police for millions. I hope they break those criminals. The message needs to be harsh and brutal otherwise a slap on the wrist will merely open the floodgates to hacking worldwide.
Well Well Well!
Last year in June I attended a public event on “Privacy and Public Policy”
http://www.idea.leeds.ac.uk/2010/01/public-event-on-privacy-and-public-policy-18th-june-2010/
Looky who was on the speakers list.
After listening to this hypocritical toerag waffle on about ‘legitimate use of sources’ for 20 minutes I was pretty annoyed by his obviously partisan slant.
After the event I fronted Leigh up and told him about my little adventure with the Norfolk plod interviewing me as a possible suspect in the climategate ‘hacking’ and asked him eye to eye what he thought of the UEA passing my details given on my FOIA request to Plod and the contrast with the lack of information UEA was prepared to give to me. Then I asked him if he thought public policy on climate justified that.. He instantly broke eye contact, waffled more platitudes about legitimate investigation and legitimate (a favourite word of his) refusal of FOIA requests, shuffled his feet and couldn’t wait to get away.
What a lying unethical slimeball this man is.
@Shaun Dunne
Got any more Climategate files to share with us Anthony? Oh, wait.
Thanks for the invite, fella, ‘cos I do – just in case you haven’t read it all properly:
http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/
Shaun Dunne: There is generally no expectation of privacy when using or communicating with tax payer funded communications equipment. Or, for that matter, corporate equipment. The communications are the property of the owner of the equipment, be it public or private.
On the other hand, there is an expectation of privacy in most communications with police, and if its explicitly asked for with a reporter (unless of course its newsworthy).
See the difference? Oh, wait. That requires clarity and objectivity. Never mind.
It’s truly amazing how lefty trolls descend to crude invective.
Is that a characteristic of ‘believers’ (‘warmist/alarmists’ – your choice)?
Civil suit, I think. Plus prosecution under a whole range of legislation. Computer Misuse Act 1990 (UK) to name but one. I look forward to Leigh and all of those involved losing both liberty and livelihood.
Also, if Leigh has also been complicit in compromising data security of US citizens, might he not be a candidate for extradition? The US penalties are far more draconian, and range from one to twenty years (Plus fine). Ouch.
To commenters with journalism degrees.
If there is any school of journalism graduates commenting, I have a question for you.
In any school of journalism, is there any explicit teaching about higher goals to be pursued journalistically for the benefit of saving to earth (ideological environmentalism). Where doing journalist work on it has a special set of journalistic priorities and special situation integrity? Are strategies of covering ideological environmentalism specifically taught? Etc, etc . . . .
With the swirl of the recent phone hacking incidents and the longstanding MSM silence on climate science integrity, I can only think there must be.
I sincerely am asking
John
It seems Climategate has basically been debunked:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm