Thursday
Dec152011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Norfolk Vice
Dec 15, 2011 Climate: CRU Climate: other Suddenly, as if by magic, Norfolk Constabulary, asleep atop their haystacks, have been transformed into something out of Miami Vice. Tallbloke reports:
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.
I waved the first three in and bid them head through to the sitting room, where there was less of an chill near the woodburner. Then they kept coming, being introduced by the lead detective from Norfolk as they trooped in. I thought I’d been chosen to host the secret policemen’s ball or something.
Reader Comments (160)
I think it was Pointman that said the powers that be would now take off the gloves and go after FOIA with everything they have. Looks like he was right
Can anyone explain what this is all about ? Do they think he is the person who "hacked" the UEA ?
Would they have acted like this if the leaks came from a whistleblower ? I think not.
Knock on the door yet Bish?
I would still like to know on what grounds the search warrant was issued as TB posted over on WUWT that he was told he was not under suspicion of any crime. Has the law in the UK changed?
In this day and age I would definitely have demanded legal representation before they did a thing! Love the answer to how many computers he had in the house. Nice one Roger!
In the old days you got a knock on the door and they hauled you away. These days if you dare speak out against the socialists you get a knock at the door and your computer (and Internet router) get hauled away.
Is this what happened Tallbloke?
The Norfolk Plods Visit The Bish
Good thing @leohickman tipped me off! ;-)
Seriously, what were the police thinking, nearly a MONTH after the leak.. rapid response squad, on the job.....
6 rozzers, not all local, fairly senior and specialists...
There is definitely something behind this, and not just the desire for justice and the common good.
Of course the Guardian will be on the rozzers case, because as with Wikileaks and David Laws (NotW - he would do the same), you know how much they support anti-establishment actions and oppose the suppression of them.
Maybe they think his 'blog' is on his home PC. It would be interesting to see on what grounds they got the warrant. Malicious prosecution anyone?
What distinguishes Climategate2 from Climategate1 is the encrypted messages. Many copies of CL2 have been downloaded and these encrypted messages are now so universally available that if/when the key is released the contents will become public very quickly.
The authors of these messages know what they contain and that the encryptor can publicize them almost instantly. Clearly, if the messages would be of great interest - reveal conspiracy to defraud the public by government entities, or worse, there will be very great interest to discover the encryptor who can then be "leaned on" to not release the key.
They have to hope the "leaning: on him/her will also affect the alternates he'she has shared the key with.
A less paranoid interpretation of the action at Tallbloke's might be a response to some politician's whinge to "do something."
No doubt The Guardian will respond to this with the same force as they did when the police tried to get them to reveal their sources over the Milly Dowler hacking.......
waiting.....
waiting.....
This is a US based outfit that is very active in legal defenses and advice related to internet freedoms:
https://www.eff.org/bloggers
I don't know much about them except that they are in the news now and then for sponsoring a legal case etc. They say they have a special focus on "bloggers' rights" so they might at least be eager to provide some advice if not (possibly) funding and more support. I have no idea whether they focus much upon the UK laws, but since they care about digital rights and freedoms worldwide they might be of assistance.
Funnily enough they didn't take his mobile, presuming it is a smartphone, then I could run the world from a modern smartphone. And if it is on Wifi the Telcos have no logs.
Everything you can do with a laptop you can now do with a smartphone.
His router was taken because it probably has a log file, that stays at the same size by deleting older entries. So you would have a rolling days/weeks worth of traffic info.
Probably more to do with....
" last night when WordPress forwarded a notice from the U.S. Department of Justice."
seems the US DOJ only just discovered the blogosphere
Anthony at WUWT has an update:
UPDATE: I’ve been in contact with Roger (Tallbloke) and he tells me that he is not a suspect, and that they’ll clone his hard drives and return the computers to him. – Anthony
Just covering their bases, and probably trying to put the wind up the blogging community.
Write to your MP's now.
MPs are in on it, why bother? Has Rog been stopped from blogging? Let's not get it out of proportion.
If you want to fight this, it needs to be friendly press and judiciary. But why bother, does it change anything?
Tallbloke possibly has a case for the warrant being issued illegally, but then is it inconceivable that the owner of blog where the first post was made might not have had some contact with the leaker, either knowingly or not? There's probably enough suspicion there for a warrant, the timing is surprising though. With logs and traces being deleted automatically, do they really expect a router log to contain anything useful a month later?
It's nothing, they can't do anything. This is as much as they can do.
@TBYJ "Just covering their bases"
So if you had complete and free access to someone's laptop, before they had a chance to protect anything?
How much do you think you you would find out about their life?
Who they know? What they know? When they knew it...
This is actually worse than if it was a crime. if this had happened to a dissident in the Eastern Bloc circa 1982 (Ronnie and Maggie) there would be hell to play.
Anyone up for contribution to a legal fund? I am.
Good thing @leohickman tipped me off! ;-)
Seriously, what were the police thinking, nearly a MONTH after the leak.. rapid response squad, on the job.....
Jiminy : "This is actually worse than if it was a crime."
It's exactly the same as it would be for a crime. Which it was, legally. They can, with a judge's permission, come into anyone's home and look at anything they want, they can request your bank to disclose account details, they can make your doctor tell them what you ail from, they can make your psychiatrist tell them what your demons are. None of this is new or unusual, no matter how distasteful. You can argue that people are innocent until proven guilty, but how else are the police suppose to establish guilt except by investigation? Would the burglar be justified in stopping police searching his house full of stolen goods?
We are protected from this happening by the intervention of the judge, who is supposed to look at the suspicions of the police and grant permission accordingly. That's the area where any defence against this would lie. What were the grounds of the warrant, and if they were faulty, there is a case for malicious prosecution or the equivalent. The physical facts of the search are well within the law and nothing unusual.
Where did I get the idea that we didn't have enough police to tackle serious crime ?
@TBYJ
As someone who does not use facebook, linkedin etc, we approach that issue from different viewpoints.
By "crime" I meant directly in this action. Not by the emails publication themselves.
Does the state have a right to copy your life? Where was the public harm in the release of these emails?
This is not high treason.
Z
Those MP's expenses that were illegally stolen... Anybody prosecuted ! ? ;-)
Pubic interest, makes it irrelevant, if hacked, leaked, stolen,whidylrblown, or whatever descriptive word you want to use...
Anyway, Realclimite 'hack'. Sounds like someone just had access tobthr passwords, given that CRU scientists and others had actually emailed each other logins and passwords, etc.. access to emails, could very easily mean access to passwords. So not really a hack!
Sweepstakes for leaker..? my money would be on Ian 'Harry' Harris..
Comes across as much mote technicsly savvy than any of the senior 'team'
Obviously Norfolk Police are now embarrassed by their own failure to act and to be seen to be acting over Climategate.
By "them" he mean us all - the skeptics. If they the police, the authorities, can't get the leakers/hackers because of their own incompetence then it will be the skeptics they will go after.
The skeptics are about to meet the full force of the law. That means police raids. That means confiscation of PCs, laptops, smart phones, documents, etc. That means arrests. That means cautions. You have been warned.
Jiminy: "Does the state have a right to copy your life?"
With a judge's permission, yes.
Should they have? Another question.
Under advice, of course plod were just trying to make sure that no emails could be deleted, and to see if there is a secret network of gmail/yahoo/hotmail "cloud" accounts so avoiding any possible disclosure due to legal actions.
The CG1 and CG2 players were obviously the best experts to offer such advice...
TBYJ
So on what basis would a judge issue a warrant in this particular instance? Crime, national security, conspiracy, terrorism????
@TheBigYinJames... no argument.. and also to answer zdb
Authority arises from respect
Respect does not arise from authority
I am FOIA!
Mac -
you brought up Markey. however, there is an influential gentleman, making his voice heard, and not afraid to say the word Climategate:
14 Dec: ScienceMag: Ralph Hall ( (R-TX) Speaks Out on Climate Change
by Jeffrey Mervis
The chair of the House of Representatives science committee doesn’t think much of the investigations exonerating the scientists involved in the 2009 Climategate e-mail scandal. He also believes that climate scientists are driven by hopes of financial gain in producing reports that provide evidence for global warming…
Ralph Hall in a statement to ScienceInsider expanding on his comments to the NJ: …
Recently released emails highlight many of the same concerns that initially emerged in the 2009 ‘ClimateGate’ emails – a small cadre of scientists coordinating advocacy rather than communicating uncertainty; manipulating journals rather than facilitating peer review; and cherry-picking data rather than following transparency principles, which is a central tenant (sic) of science. While several groups have investigated the actions associated with the ClimateGate emails, these straw-man reviews failed to address the real underlying allegations that continue to undermine the integrity of those involved…
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/12/ralph-hall-speaks-out-on-climate.html
Ralph Hall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Hall
Sorry everyone,
you can tell I used to be a Guardian purchaser...
.... MANY years ago...
Funny how times changes.
Mac, they don't need evidence of a crime, they just need to show that investigating the assets may reveal details of a crime. You don't have to be a suspect.
As an analogy, say you have a CCTV camera outside your home. Someone gets murdered outside your home and the police think the identity of the perp may be on your tape. With a judges permission, they can force you to give them the tape, and make you destroying or withholding the tape a criminal offence.
You may argue that you don't want the police to see all your visitors over the last 24 hours, or to know your movements. Both the tape and camera are your property.
It doesn't matter. They are allowed, with a judge's permission, to force you to hand it over.
In this case, all they need is the suspicion that FOIA may have been in direct contact with Roger by some means. They don't need to have evidence that Roger is implicated.
So it must be the considered opinion of the Norfolk Police they now have reasonable grounds that Tallbloke has committed an indictable offence which is triable in court.
It all seems rather desperate on the police's part, but from a security services and a diplomatic point of view it may be considered to be seen to be acting on and attempting to silence dissent to appease our American cousins.
The Special Relationship is truly alive and well.
I must admit that the British Police are doing their best, they obtain a search warrant to enter the home of a UK citizen, confiscate two of his 20+ computers and his ADSL router, confirm that he is not a suspect in any crime and then leave without confiscating his smartphone which he then uses to add a post to his blog, email his co-conspirators, initiate western civilisation meltdown and call his mum.
You can't make it up!
I don't think we should let this rattle us - that's what The Team want.
It would appear that US Department of Justice Criminal Division was also involved.
Now that certainly brings it the home the importance of this event and which also takes it to a new level.
I think I should make a complaint to the Norfolk Constabulary that they don't consider me a suspect.
I feel left out of all the excitement.
Let's be thankful. Obviously somebody has been learning from past mistakes:
2005: Jean-Charles de Menezes killed
2006: Mohammed Abdulkahar shot
2008: 24 Slough Romas (wrongfully) arrested
...
2011: Tallbloke's hard drives cloned
/sarc
'e's a good bloke my Roger, wouldn't hurt a fly
Though the number of times I told him that computers would lead him to ruin. He wouldn't listen. He also had me working on them, claiming it was only me who could swap the mother boards on 20 computers he had clogging he hall.
That laptop had all my "Darby and Joan" snaps as well.
gras albert
until it happens to you
then you will go totally besirk of course
now off back to the OccupyWhatever movement, and their deep-thought on sosh-highetti
"The law doesn't suddenly change so that breaking it becomes acceptable if some small bits of society think it's in the public interest."
Maybe you missed the Iraq war.
Plenty for Josh to get his teeth into here.
I have been watching The Sweeney on DVD this week. I am disappointed to learn that none of Tallbloke's visitors began with the remark, "Aaaall right, Tinker Bell, put your trousers on - you're nicked."
@Dec 15, 2011 at 9:35 AM | John Silver
I am FOIA!
No, I'm Brian!
Fwee Woger!
Where's the People's Front of Judea when you want them?
I'm FOIA, and so's my wife!
No.. wait.. my EX wife is FOIA.. go get her, boys...
@J4R, actually I was thinking...
Maybe some Robert De Niro character in a balaclava had been round in the middle of the night to fix the "never working" ADSL connection...
I think they have mistaken Archibald "Harry" Tallbloke for Archibald "Harry" Hallbloke