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Judge Quashes Subpoena of UVA Research Records
esocid writes "An Albemarle County Circuit Court judge has set aside a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to the University of Virginia seeking documents related to the work of climate scientist and former university professor Michael Mann. Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli can investigate whether fraud has occurred in university grants, as the attorney general had contended, but ruled that Cuccinelli's subpoena failed to state a 'reason to believe' that Mann had committed fraud. He also set aside the subpoena without prejudice, meaning Cuccinelli can rewrite it to better explain why he wants to investigate, but seemed skeptical about the underlying claim of fraud. The ruling is a major blow for Cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic who had maintained he was investigating whether Mann committed fraud in seeking government money for research that showed the earth has experienced a rapid, recent warming. Mann, now at Penn State University, worked at U-Va. until 2005. 'The Court has read with care those pages and understands the controversy regarding Dr. Mann's work on the issue of global warming. However, it is not clear what he did was misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia,' Peatross wrote. The ruling also limited Cuccinelli to asking about only one of the five grants issued, which was the only one using state funds."
Cuccinelli is trying to use professor Mann as a political piñata to further his career. I'd shit in my hat if I thought for one second Cuccinelli gave a rat's ass about science (except for how science affects the teaching of evolution in schools).
... just that trying to silence a scientist just because he doesn't agree with his findings shouldn't be a top priority for politicians (such as those in Cuccinelli's position).
If a climatologist is the biggest fish on Cuccinelli's radar then he needs to take a closer look at local problems that directly affect his constituents. I'm not saying global warming wouldn't directly affect his constituents
I tend to agree. I'm a political junkie by nature, so take this with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that Judges do a good job of holding true to law. The big news going around about stem-cells has a lot of my peers -I work in a University- roiled, but let's face facts, if it's true that he ruled based on a 90s law that forbids stem cell research, then maybe it's time to change the law and not bend it? Same goes for this case, as it was for the big evolution case in PA where a conservative appointed judge ruled that evolution is a real scientific theory and intelligent design was a ploy to rename creationism and thus illigal to teach in public schools.
2.5 cents.
He's abusing taxpayer money to fuel this religious right-wing witch hunt.
This isn't even a prosecution yet. It's an investigation....
And you have no clue if it's politicians bloviating with public resources or not until something is found or nothing is found. As the judge said, the argument could be made, it just wasn't on the warrant, to investigate the use of the one grant.
The really scary part? In Virginia, the Attorney General usually has the inside track for his party's nomination for governor in the next election.
RTFA, it was not a FOIA request. That may have in fact been much more successful. It was a subpoena request for information based on trumped up(invalid) fraud charges. However a FOIA request would have been much less politically advantageous if it went through, which is all that this whole thing was really about, he wasn't looking for evidence he was looking to be able to smear the guys name with the fact that there may have been enough evidence against him to even start a full scale legally backed investigation.
You should be thanking this judge for setting this idiot in his place and not allowing him to abuse the legal system and your tax dollars purely for his own political gain.
It is also still left open for the guy to back up his trumped up fraud charges a little better and resubmit the subpoena request.
Sorry if I'm less than sympathetic towards the guy but his entire career reeks of abuse of power to push nonsensical politically advantageous policies while largely ignoring bigger problems. Global warming and its existence isn't even on my top TEN list of things for politicians to be worrying about.
As a professor who has supplied documents on many open records request. If you've done nothing wrong, why fight it? I have never quibbled over giving documents or emails. I've given CD's with years of emails to fulfill requests. If y0u work for a state institution or on a government grant, they are public documents. The only thing I would fight would be FERPA protected data.
Ok, but then you have to propose things that actually will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Banning nuclear power, and even LNG terminals really doesn't accomplish that goal.
Hint, natural gas comes off the top of oil wells. If the oil companies don't capture it and sell it, then they burn it off, and the extra reliance on coal burning because of it doesn't help things any, either.
Neither does Ethanol fuel help anyone but corn farmers.
Similarly "Carbon Offsets" mostly don't.
There is a raft of schemes and scams and wishful dreams out there that people are screaming, "We have to do something, and this is something, therefore we have to do this," that will ruin us if we fall for them.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Why?
Can you access your local mayor's email account?
Can you download the full schematics for the space shuttle?
Why isn't your local police department's incident reporting system completely open source?
I'm all for increased transparency, but there is no reason that all information from publicly funded work should be publicly available.
Because:
- Overheads. The costs of doing this would be huge.
- A lot of publicly funded work is done by private companies, who might not want to release their work to their competitors.
- Most people don't want every piece of work, every correspondance that they've ever done accessible by everyone for the rest of time.
It is fair to see the final reports/papers/etc... produced by most government departments, and some information on how those results were obtained, which is pretty much what happens for most government funded scientific agencies.
When you hire an architect to design your house, you will get a copy of the plans. He will file the plans on your behalf (or give them to the builder to file on your behalf). They are suing the architect for the designs (and all designs he's ever done, completed or not, but that was struck down) when they already have the finished plans. The results include the results, the methodology to get it, the data, and such. If there's a problem, a peer review will find problems with the methodology, and the data should be replicable by others. Filing suit against him when there's no actual evidence of wrongdoing in the hopes they will find something that at least justifies the harassment, even if not enough for a conviction, is unlike anything they'll do to an architect. You don't sue the architect after he delivers the plans and the civil engineer signs off on the plans and claim, without any evidence at all, that the building will never stand and the architect should be prosecuted for manslaughter because someone could die in the unsafe building.
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