Virginia’s Highest Court Denies Access to Climate Scientist’s Emails

Wall Street Journal ^ | April 18, 2014 | By JACOB GERSHMAN

[usconservative]

The Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday held that the public university wasn’t obligated under the state’s freedom of information law to release thousands of emails that Penn State researcher Michael Mann wrote while he was a UVA professor several years ago.

A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY, funded with TAXPAYER DOLLARS isn't required to conform to the Freedom of Information act?

Burn that University to the ground. Burn the Virginia Supreme Court to the ground too. The collaborative corruption between the two calls for drastic action.

[usconservative]

Actual state employees at a government agency, different story.

Stunning. Professors at STATE UNIVERSITIES are STATE EMPLOYEES using STATE FUNDED computers on STATE FUNDED networks in STATE FUNDED facilities provided for by STATE TAXPAYERS. There's no difference between a state employee working at the secretary of state's office and a STATE UNIVERSITY professor. Both are employed using STATE TAX DOLLARS. Shocking you can type the sentence above and not see that.

[Sherman Logan]

I sometimes am involved as a consultant on legal cases.

The problem here is that email has evolved in most people’s minds as the equivalent of a phone conversation, ephemeral and informal. Not of a formal letter.

So people chat and discuss things in email, and such communications are extremely easy to take out of context and portray a person as believing or doing something that just isn’t true. And email is forever.

On one recent case that lasted several years, all the parties involved were restricted by the attorney for our side from communicating via email for anything other than setting up a call or something otherwise innocuous. Amazingly difficult to work that way. Didn’t realize how dependent on email I’d gotten.

But the attorney was able to demonstrate how he’d won some very big cases based on incautious email that he’d been able to mine under discovery.

[usconservative]

If they won’t release the emails, why not have Mark Steyn demand them in discovery and deposition? Mann is suing Steyn

Steyn would have to prove the email's relationship to the case, otherwise that's a brilliant suggestion.

[Sherman Logan]

“In response to a 2011 court order, the university handed over about 1,800 emails. Another 12,000 emails were withheld because they were deemed exempt from disclosure under a records law provision that protects proprietary research produced by a public university.”

Whether there should be such a law is debatable.

I agree that Mann is obviously much more of an advocate than a researcher.

I assume you will agree that requiring people to scan every sentence of every communication for possible ways it could be misconstrued has a significant chilling effect. That is a cost of totally open records.

[usconservative]

That is a cost of totally open records.

That is a cost of being a STATE EMPLOYEE being paid by the TAXPAYERS.

As a TAXPAYER I absolutely have the expectation and the legal right to demand to know what STATE EMPLOYEES are doing with time and equipment funded with my tax dollars.

We may be coming at this from two different views, mine is that if you're a state employee consuming my tax dollars you have no right to "privacy" or any kind of shielding while you're on my dime.

I think our country would be in a much better spot if a whole lot of other people demanded what I do.

[Sherman Logan]

The STATE passed a law exempting certain types of communications for what seemed to it to be perfectly valid reasons. These emails were not released based on that law.

The STATE’s highest court has ruled against their being released.

On what basis do you think the STATE’s right to make such decisions should be overturned? Should a federal judge override state’s rights in this case?

I think a lot of conservatives get so focused on federal abuse of power that they forget states will not always make decisions they like either.

For instance, with regard to the Bundy case out in NV, is there any particular reason to think the case would be playing out much differently if the land was state-owned? Would a state agency not charge grazing fees? Is Nevada, where 90% of the population lives in cities, all that much more likely to respect the interests of rural people?

[Agamemnon]

Every email written by a professor at a state university should not be available for the public to dig through at random under FOIA. Actual state employees at a government agency, different story.

Oh I get it... in your world state educators are not state employees enough to be treated like any other state employee?

No accountability for tenure-protected public state educators?

Assuming you're employed by someone other than yourself, you are probably naïve enough to be of the mistakenly belief that your eMail node at work is somehow "private" simply because you say it is.

State employees are accountable to taxpayers. Everything from salaries to benefits are a matter of public record. Any and all communications made on a state computer that do not pertain to personal tax filings made by citizens (as protected under law) can and will be made a matter of public record eventually.

It's just a matter of time before Mann's eMails see the light of day. With the disclosure the Stein litigation portends, this may be sooner rather than later -- with or without a state or VA Court directive to block it. And Mann will regret it all soon enough.

[MamaTexan]

“If U.S. scientists at public institutions lose the ability to protect their communications with faculty at other institutions, their ability to collaborate will be gravely harmed,” wrote UVA provost John D. Simon in one of the filings.

There IS a difference between collaboration and collusion, you dipstick.

[AppyPappy]

The difference being that the emails have already been released. The environuts are claiming the emails are not real.

[AppyPappy]

Their communication should never need to be protected EXCEPT for grant work.

[353FMG]

Always follow the money.

This country is up for sale for 30 pieces of silver.

[VRW Conspirator]

bump

[Solson]

Since when is conversation between two government employes considered protected?

[Solson]

Why should those emails or other correspondence be protected?

[Solson]

Am I correct when I now understand this is only a state law for VA? What happens when the other university is outside the state of VA? What if the correspondence is with an NGO?

[Luke21]

“It was the correct decision by my standards. I’m no fan of Mann and his hockey stick. But black out the word “conservative group” and “environmentalist” and use something like “Atheist group” and “Professor of Theology” or “PETA” and “Nutritional Researcher” and even “CAIR” and “Nuclear Physics Researcher”, and see if you feel the same way.”

Wouldn’t happen the same way.

[usconservative]

I think a lot of conservatives get so focused on federal abuse of power that they forget states will not always make decisions they like either.

Are you saying the STATE isn't abusing its power in this case?

I'm sorry, but the collusion between the State and the State Judiciary here just reeks of corruption. The bastards have forgotten who they work for (US.)

Any and ALL State Communications for ALL State Employees should be subject to FOIA requests. It's not like the individual States are responsible for national security or anything "secretive." The lack of transparency in this case is really quite stunning. It's an abuse of power at all levels.

[usconservative]

On what basis do you think the STATE’s right to make such decisions should be overturned?

To directly answer that question: WHEN TAXPAYERS DEMAND accountability for the use of their tax dollars.

Here's a novel thought: If you're a state employee (and Mann was) and want privacy while sending email, DON'T DO IT ON STATE TIME using STATE Computers paid for by TAXPAYERS.

Seems this douche wants us to pay for his manipulation of his fake "science." I say HELL NO to that.

[usconservative]

On what basis do you think the STATE’s right to make such decisions should be overturned?

Insert any other interest group other than Mann, let's say a Conservative Organization and you'll see liberals SCREAMING and filing lawsuits left and right for disclosure under FOIA.

Hell, they may not even have to file the lawsuit if an activist judge steps in.