Police Abuse in Norfolk 134


I am very worried by the report of a heavy handed police raid on Tallbloke, a blogger in Norfolk. According to this account, he was raided due to a link to leaked documents posted in a comments thread. We have become far too blase about the rapid erosion of civil liberties in this country. Norfolk is not devoid of serious crimes which these six detectives should be better employed in investigating.

I had not heard of Tallbloke and know nothing beyond the report to which I have linked. His blog discusses climate change at scientific levels well above my understanding, but scarcely seems a subject for the police. I do not share Tallboy’s views – in particular, I think man-made climate change is a fact we are not tackling with nearly sufficient seriousness. But whether or not I agree is irrelevant. What is important is the free speech issue. It is astonishing our media are criticising government handling of protest in Russia, when we have police raidng dissident bloggers in Norfolk which goes unnoticed.


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134 thoughts on “Police Abuse in Norfolk

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  • Qark

    “I do not share Tallboy’s views”
    >
    None of which you quote.
    >
    But you “think man-made climate change is a fact we are not tackling with nearly sufficient seriousness.”
    >
    Do you actually know anything about Tallboy’s views?
    >
    Do you actually have any reason to believe that Tallboy thinks that “man-made climate change is a fact” that we should not tackle seriously?
    >
    I seriously doubt that you do, since that is not the question that Tallboy seems to discuss very much, if at all.
    >
    As a scientist, his interest seems to be in what is actually happening to the climate and what evidence there is, or is not, for claims that have been made about anthropogenic climate change.
    >
    Which makes one wonder, do you have the slightest idea of what you are talking about, or any purpose other than to smear Tallbloke as someone who denies the need for concern about human effects on climate.
    >
    Anyone interested in what Tallboy actually thinks would do well to visit his blog: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/

  • Qark

    Re: Mandass’s comment on Tallbloke’s blog,
    >
    “It is full of woo and discredited nonsense – such as his view that the General Theory of Relativity”
    >
    In a post entitled Relativity on the rocks?: Mercury perihelion precession anomaly explained, which is evidently beyond the intellectual grasp of Mandass, Tallbloke offers a scholarly comment on a claim that the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, may have been miscalculated by just the amount supposedly explained by the General Theory of Relativity.
    >
    He ends his post as follows:
    >
    “No doubt this post will enhance my reputation as a ‘relativity denier’ (John Mashey, Tim Lambert et al). My response to them is, show us where Alsor’s maths is wrong if you disagree. I’m a historian of science and I record unexplained anomalies and paradoxes without passing judgement on whether this or that theory is supported or refuted by the solutions offered.”
    >
    So let’s hear it Mandass. Where are the mathematics wrong.

  • glenn

    SB: We can scratch around all day about the science, the fact of the matter is we’re not qualified to make definitive statements on the subject. Shame that you had no time to address one single point of mine in your reply.
    .
    This is like us discussing a complicated medical diagnosis – we can ‘opine’, but we’re never going to lay one slammer down which settles it (although I think my chances are good, frankly!), because we’re not qualified in the field. I take it you generally accept the scientific method when it comes to keeping your aeroplane from making a hard, unscheduled landing, your car to function as expected, your mobile, TV, PC and every other product of applied science to function as it should. But when it comes to climate science, now it’s suddenly all wooly, and we should be highly suspicious and dismiss all that peer-reviewed this-and-that. Pointy-headed ivory-towered idiots! They’re all bought off!
    .
    But you’re not interested in any of that. You’re just going for some vague pseudo-scientific (i.e. not peer reviewed!) anecdotes more suited to the Journal Of Irreproducable Results. Do you want me to trade peer reviewed research for whatever’s quoted on your climate conspiracy sites? Why is it people – with no disrespect – like yourself, want to refer to some whacked out conspiracy nut/site instead of research articles in respectable journals, when it comes to genuine science like this?

  • angrysoba

    By the way, I’m not sure if I understand why this guy’s house was raided.
    .
    If he’s simply putting up leaked documents, then this sounds outrageous. If he was hacking and stealing information which he was putting up then that’s different and I think is worthy of police action.
    .
    Anyone have anything a bit more concrete?

  • angrysoba

    They Thought They Were Free
    Milton Mayer Germany 1933 1945

    .
    I think I should point out that this work is not taken seriously by reputable historians. Those who “thought they were free” or said they did were actually members of the Nazi Party who were simply making excuses to their interviewer after World War Two. And, no, I don’t mean Germans, or bystanders but actual members of the Nazi Party.

  • oddie

    as a left-winger who has voted Green, and as someone who totally believed in ManMade Global Warming, i can only say do some study because, once you do, you may be shocked by what you find. i know i was, yet i will not be voting for any rightwing party, and i will continue to care for the environment to the best of my abilities. i now stand with the sceptics, whilst Shell Oil and their Patron Prince Charles are demanding today that the EU save the carbon trading scam, which is tanking day by day.

    people so readily condemn righting american politicians and ignore rightwing european governments who are fully with the global warming program.

    millions marched against Bush’s wars, yet the same people wouldn’t even complain, much less march, against the Libya attack…or potentially Syria, Iran, or Obama’s hundreds of drone attacks which have killed so many innocent people. think about it.

  • anno

    Fedup
    I’m sure the CO2, radiation etc emissions of weapons have all been calculated to death, documented in ISO papers. Even the moral fall-out has been calculated by UN boffins: Do they kill Muslims? Yes. Cheap at the price. We’ll place an order for a million. Half for ourselves and the rest for distribution among the sectarian parties we want to divide and rule.
    It is obvious that the concept of damage by fossil fuels will necessitate a revolution in energy sourcing from fossil fuels to nuclear power and renewable sources, using electricity and thermal efficiency. That was already politically unacceptable before Japan. It is equally obvious that the human cost of obtaining fossil fuels will inspire a human challenge, the start of which is the Arab spring.

    The heavy handedness towards Tallboy was probably the result of the historical heavy-handedness of the authorities towards everything nuclear. Like the small boy in Palestine who went to the industrial area to collect scrap, he crossed over one of the state’s secret boundary lines without realising what that would mean to evil, military minds. The fact that the next generation of nuclear power stations has been put on hold suggests to me that the state is neither convinced of its own theory of human damage to the climate system, nor of its ability to continue holding back the explosion of internet truth which is swiftly eroding its habit of lying.
    Rather than worrying about CO2, the state is concentrating full-time on capturing all the remaining real money in exchange for empty bonds, before the whole financial system explodes. There are no plans or even plans for plans for what happens after their stupid ponzi boil pops. You could run a car on the fetid puss of their greedy brains.

    It would be very beautiful if Tallboy’s hunch came true that soon the world will experience cooling, because this would return the Muslim lands to their former greenness, while the savage Western nations enter the outskirts of a new ice age.

  • craig Post author

    Qark

    You appear a complete fool. When I say I do not agree with Tallboy, and I believe man made climatr change is a fact, I quite obviously understand that Tallboy believes man madw climate change is not a fact.

    The problems of determining cause and effect in climate change are extremely complex. The change in the composition of the atmosphere caused by man’s combustion and other activities seems to me an obvious fact, and credible as a factor. I do not claim expertise.

    But on the information available to us, Tallboy is being harassed for thought crime. Whether I agree with his thoughts is irrelevant.

  • Uzbek in the UK

    @ Anno
    .
    For once I partially agree with you. With only one exception as to me nature is in charge and ‘man-madeness’ of the climate change is to some great extend is exaggerated. This exaggeration serves its masters very well. While top guns of the scientific world are arguing about climate change at yet another international conference where no doubt they have arrived by plane, and accommodated in hotels and provided hot meals 3 times per day, millions of people in so called developing world are dying of starvation. WHY? Because some decisions of these scientific top guns have already resulted in slight food price increase that is unaffordable for millions the poorest in the world.

  • Andy

    ”By the way, I’m not sure if I understand why this guy’s house was raided.
    .
    If he’s simply putting up leaked documents, then this sounds outrageous. If he was hacking and stealing information which he was putting up then that’s different and I think is worthy of police action.
    .
    Anyone have anything a bit more concrete?”
    .
    The Independent says it’s part of an ongoing police investigation.
    .
    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bloggers-computer-seized-in-climategate-police-raid-6277726.html
    .
    Just a thought….
    .
    If creationists hacked a university paleontology department’s e-mails and published them claiming their motives were sound because there is a world-wide conspiracy to cover up the fact that earth is only 4000 years old – could the hackers say they were acting in the public interest and avoid prosecution?

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq

    Angrysober,
    .
    No Roger Tattersall (Tallbloke) a former web content editor at Leeds Uni. was obviously a suspect as the originator of the leak(s) – He was questioned by police after the first batch of emails ‘leaked’ in 2009. Why he was a suspect is unclear to me because this man was provided with an HTTP link to a Russian server where the ‘leaked’ emails (held back from the original release)were stored in a folder. (The MIME Headers are online at a different location to prove authenticity I guess).
    .
    Professor Mann of UAE said of the ‘leaker(s)’ (called ‘swifthack’ and later FOIA2011):
    .
    “So they have instead turned to smear, innuendo, criminal hacking of websites, and leaking out-of-context snippets of personal emails in their effort to try to confuse the public about the science and thereby forestall any action to combat this critical threat.”
    .
    The first “ClimateGate” material arrived on the web almost exactly two years ago, just before the UN climate summit in Copenhagen that was scheduled to see about 140 heads of state and government deciding on a new global climate treaty.

    A hacker entered a backup server at the university and downloaded a file containing administrative passwords, which were subsequently used to access a vast number of files and emails dating back to 1997.

    Three inquiries in the UK in 2010 found that the CRU team had not acted fraudulently or tried to manipulate data, as they were accused of doing.

    But the university accepted it needed to revise its policy for dealing with Freedom of Information requests, which it has now done.
    .
    In partnership with the UK Met Office, CRU maintains one of the three most important global temperature records that have been used to demonstrate the reality of 20th Century warming.
    .
    http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/15/390674/climategate-uk-police-seize-tallbloke-computers-us-justice-dept-involved/

  • ingo

    Anybody who believes that our exhorbitant impact on the ecology, athmosphere and our future has no consequences on the overall equilibrium, is living in a hole of their own making. Don’t know tallboy, but his activities do not deserve this infamy over being arrested.

    The Tyndall centre’s own environmental footprint as well as their social responsibility towards UEA’s wider impact on the surrounding environment is bad, indeed I dare to hasten that it is non existent.
    During my time there researching internal social responsible attitudes towards UEA’s wider environmental goals, I found out that UEA’s environmental and climate section is very good at preaching these messages but lacks the internal resolve to actually put it into practise on their own campus. Erecting a wind turbine won’t change this.
    The development of arresting bloggers on a whimsy does not fill me with confidence, but they are welcome to my old steam iron.

  • Pointman

    Craig, as you’re no doubt finding out from the comments, this is a highly emotive area. I am a skeptic of global warming and you are not. The middle ground we share is a conviction in freedom of speech. This debate so often descends into tawdry veniality so I have to thank you for your integrity, irrespective of your personal views on the subject being debated.

    Pointman

  • Scouse Billy

    Komodo, I am neither falling for anything nor using emotive labels to describe others.
    .
    I look at evidence only.
    .
    The hypothesis that CO2 heats up the lower atmosphere is unproven empirically.
    .
    It is nonetheless a major component in all climate models.
    .
    The undue weighting in these models of climate sensitivity to CO2 is born out by the empirical data, both current and paleo.
    .
    The Nic Lewis article at Dr Judith Curry’s blog is very clear.
    .
    http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/05/the-ipccs-alteration-of-forster-gregorys-model-independent-climate-sensitivity-results/
    .
    Above all, I am concerned about fuel and food poverty as a direct result of disastrously misinformed “green” policy.

  • Mary

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8960701/Climategate-police-raid-home-of-blogger-in-UEA-stolen-emails-probe.html

    .
    Note that the above omits all mention of the request from the US Dept of Justice which I think is the most important fact. ie that we dance to the tune of the US government.
    .
    I see that the action took place in Yorkshire and that the Norfolk police were involved because that is where the UEA is located. The story becomes stranger the more you read.

  • Andy

    Scouse Billy
    .
    ”Above all, I am concerned about fuel and food poverty as a direct result of disastrously misinformed “green” policy.”
    .
    What green policy?

  • Scouse Billy

    Mary, we cannot assume that the lead came from the US.
    .
    Not that I am a fan of the US DoJ but it has been pointed out that for Norfolk, the Met or West Yorks Constabularies to get access to wordpress data files they would need US (DoJ) co-operation.
    .
    Either way, this action has woken up many to the “strange” goings on to defend the “concensus” regarding climate science and in particular the heavy handed treatment of dissenters.
    .
    Good, solid science stands on its merits and can be debated freely – this smacks of faith, dogma and a new inquisition.

  • Scouse Billy

    Andy, how about the switch to inefficient renewables – note your energy supplier adds a green tax on your bill (nicely hidden but there nonetheless). The landed gentry get a nice subsidy for destroying our countryside with windfarms – just ask Cameron’s father in law, Sir Reginald Sheffield…
    .
    Then the switch from food crops to the production of bio-fuels that increases the price of staples to the 3rd world poor.

  • Scouse Billy

    Here’s a list of funders for the UEA’s Climate Research Unit (from their own site) – a consortium of diverse vested interests:
    .
    British Council, British Petroleum, Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, Central Electricity Generating Board, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Commercial Union, Commission of European Communities (CEC, often referred to now as EU), Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), Department of Energy, Department of the Environment (DETR, now DEFRA), Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Eastern Electricity, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Greenpeace International, International Institute of Environmental Development (IIED), Irish Electricity Supply Board, KFA Germany, Leverhulme Trust, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), National Power, National Rivers Authority, Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), Norwich Union, Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Overseas Development Administration (ODA), Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates, Royal Society, Scientific Consultants, Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, Shell, Stockholm Environment Agency, Sultanate of Oman, Tate and Lyle, UK Met. Office, UK Nirex Ltd., United Nations Environment Plan (UNEP), United States Department of Energy, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wolfson Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).
    .
    http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
    .
    Press releases from UEA should be treated with extreme caution 😉

  • nuid

    “Qark, You appear a complete fool”.
    .
    This calling your commenters “fools” is becoming rather a habit, Craig. Your comment would have been quite adequate without it.

  • Katabasis

    I wonder how many of you so quick to assert your own loony conspiracy theory about us evil “big oil/Koch” funded “deniers” are even aware of the message included by FOIA in the latest climategate release:

    “Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”

    “Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.”

    “One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.

    “Poverty is a death sentence.”

    “Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize
    greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”

    Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on
    hiding the decline.”

  • Roy Everett

    The data fraud has been known to Norfolk Police for years, who not only fully understood it but also why they were not allowed to pursue the case. In part it consists of “skimming” millions of temperature records to make appear that earlier years this century were cooler than they actually were. The latest heavy-handed action to “shoot the messengers” (or at least inconvenience one of them)rather the seek out the fraudsters and bring the case to trial. Had this been a simple case of academic fraud without such a major political and economic impact it could have been dealt with quietly by the academic institutions, the local police and Crown Court. Before it collapsed the matter escalated to the biggest racket in history apparently involving collusion at government, US and UN level, which is presumably why retribution in the form of police harassment, requested from overseas, has now begun.

  • Andy

    I don’t understand why 1000s of scientists, along with every government in the world, would conspire to falsify data to make it look as if CO2 was warming the earth etc.
    .
    And then why would ExxonMobil spend $8.9 million and ”Koch Industries-controlled foundations contribute $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the ‘climate denial machine’.”
    .
    http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/media-center/reports/koch-industries-secretly-fund/
    .
    Also”Records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published ‘misleading and inaccurate information’ about climate change”
    .
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding
    .

  • Andy

    ”I wonder how many of you so quick to assert your own loony conspiracy theory about us evil “big oil/Koch” funded “deniers” are even aware of the message included by FOIA in the latest climategate release”
    .
    The Koch’s have funded climate denial organizations.
    .
    http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/media-center/reports/koch-industries-secretly-fund/
    .
    So have ExxonMobil
    .
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding
    .

  • craig Post author

    Nuid

    How dare you question me, fool!
    Oh dear, I see what you mean 🙂
    I think I reserve it for people whose argument depends on a misinterpretation of what I wrote, which I suspect is a wilful misinterpretation. It is a form of argument that particularly annoys me.

    Sometimes it is more likely a sign that something else completely has put me in a nad mood. A bad tummy today, to tell the truth.

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