ClimateGate Controversy Spreads

Two interesting US developments from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) server's incontinence:

1. The US Government's National Aeronautics and Space Administration is being sued by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for multiple, blatant, violations of the Freedom of Information Act. The leaked files from the CRU's server provided evidence of intentional violation of the FOIA by NASA GISS and associated organisations.

2. Members of the US Congress are considering holding hearings concerning the leaked CRU files and their bearing on US Government climate policies.

ScienceMag.org published an article noting that deleting e-mail messages to hide them from a FOI request is a crime in the United Kingdom. George Monbiot, a U.K. activist and journalist who previously called for dramatic action to deal with global warming, wrote: "It's no use pretending that this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging." _Much more of interest at CBSBlogTakingLiberties

Al Fin hackers suspect that other climate research center servers will be targeted for similarly incriminating material in the weeks to come.

When famous and generously funded researchers misbehave at the levels displayed by Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, etc., they give all of science a black eye.

Al Fin information scientists urge all readers to get to the bottom of this issue. Read the emails and commented files yourself. If anyone tells you that you should ignore the controversy and just "believe the science", ask them to be specific about what science should be believed. Good science or bad science? It is likely that they cannot tell the difference.