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Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments On Leaked Documents
Layzej writes "Bloggers around the world have been commenting on recently leaked Heartland Institute documents that reveal their internal strategies to discredit climate science. These posters are now under threat of legal action. According to the Heartland Institute 'the individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages'"
Strangely, there don't seem to be many comments on the subject of "Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments...".
Their view of law is very similar to their view of science.
Hiring Barbara Streissand as a legal consultant was not their smartest move.
They seem to be a bit confused about the authenticity of the documents:
"Therefore, the authenticity of those documents has not been confirmed." (in bold none the less)
then at the bottom:
"How did this happen? The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to “re-send” board materials to a new email address."
Err so they are your documents but you cannot confirm that they are your documents?
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
The most fascinating thing about this is the general hypocrisy involved. Whenever the whole "ClimateGate" matter occurred, Heartland was at the front of trumpeting the documents from that (which incidentally turned out to be utterly benign), with zero concern about the ethics of taking confidential documents from other people using hacking. Yet now, when the same thing happens to them, they use every bit of the legal system to go after not just the people who actually did do it but anyone who is then commenting or reproducing the documents. Really charming behavior.
I guess they're hoping that their opponents are as gullible as their supporters.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Heartland Institute didn't find it necessary for following this protocol for commenting on leaked documents when it came to Climategate.
Although I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly I don't think 'begs the question' means what you think it means
They claim at least one document has been faked (the climate strategy memo) and others may have been altered. If this is indeed the case, the documents aren't authentic.
Megan McArdle? Really?
Just what does an economics writer who knows nothing about either economics or simple math have to do with document authentication?
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Of course they claim one is faked. It's so damaging to them they don't have any other means of defence other than to claim fake. We can expect them to say it's faked either way.
Whether it actually is faked or not is another matter. There's no evidence one way or the other. But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine.
The innocent have nothing to fear, yes, I know that.
If they fear commenting on these documents to such a degree, I have to ask why, All they have to do is never confirm the documents (or wait a few months, on a Friday, at midnight). So there is an easy route of censorship there.
Second, the whole climate change is bunk movement's claim is that politics is being played, and you can't trust the results saying it is happening. We have a memo here implying that politics might be being played, and research/motives to be questioned. Revealing this is grounds for being sued.
Third, lawsuits potentially coming? Even ignoring the chilling effect, do we really need to reach that stage of escalation int his subject where every time someone speaks for one side the other side begins suing?
They are all attacking the messengers and trying to cease the message. They have yet to put out anything to show these are false. Just silencing the people trying to talk about this.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
"But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine." No, it doesn't. We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents are there is dishonest and has an agenda.* How does the "balance of probabilities" say that this person didn't do something else dishonest to further his agenda? We have no knowledge on this point one way or the other.
*I know some people say the same thing about the institute itself. Which is why I have no idea whether that document is fake or not.
we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation.
Translation: we're going to sue everyone we possibly can, because the papers were correct, our position is publicly indefensible, and the only resource we have is lawyers and money to threaten people with like mafia leg-breakers.
This from the same money-laundering front group (I call them this as they REFUSE to disclose their donor list) who commissioned bogus "studies" to try to claim cigarette smoke isn't dangerous.
The first thing a defendant's lawyer is going to do is subpoena a true copy of the originals. Then the cat will be out of the BAG for sure.
The innocent have nothing to fear, yes, I know that.
Actually, what the innocent still have to fear is HI acting like every other right wing shill group. They have two things on their side: money and lawyers. They can bankrupt an innocent person through the act of barratry and as a corrupt right wing shill group whose previous exploits involve funding faked studies to do things like claim cigarette smoke isn't dangerous, they've already shown that they have no moral compass stopping them from doing so.
If they fear commenting on these documents to such a degree, I have to ask why,
See above. If they get exposed so blatantly, they might have to fold. And the people writing for them might have to find real work rather than being right wing shills.
Second, the whole climate change is bunk movement's claim is that politics is being played, and you can't trust the results saying it is happening. We have a memo here implying that politics might be being played, and research/motives to be questioned. Revealing this is grounds for being sued.
Third, lawsuits potentially coming? Even ignoring the chilling effect, do we really need to reach that stage of escalation int his subject where every time someone speaks for one side the other side begins suing?
They are all attacking the messengers and trying to cease the message. They have yet to put out anything to show these are false. Just silencing the people trying to talk about this.
Right wing shillery RELIES on two things: the echo chamber and the chilling effect. Ever noticed how a Fox News viewer screams about the "liberal media" nonstop? It's because if they ever listened to both sides, they'd realize their side's argument is more full of holes than a loaf of aged swiss cheese.
When you have the law in your favor, bang on the law,
When you have the facts in your favor, bang on the facts,
When you have neither the law nor the facts in your favor, bang on the table.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Truth is a complete defence against defamation." And you know the disputed document is authentic how, exactly?
It doesn't matter whether the documents are authentic. The issue at stake is whether anyone who read the documents and commented upon them had reason to believe that their own comments were false.
"For example, the Minnesota Supreme Court has held:
We hold that a private individual may recover actual damages for a defamatory publication upon proof that the defendant knew or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that the defamatory statement was false. The conduct of defamation defendants will be judged on whether the conduct was that of a reasonable person under the circumstances."
Since there's clearly no way to know whether any statement related to these documents is false, the commenters are clearly safe.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Of all the people in the world who could have provided an analysis that it's a fake, it's the wife of a fellow in the Koch Foundation. The Heartland Institute's biggest donor.
And then all the evidence she gives isn't that it's a fake, but only that the author is different from the other documents. And that the person that wrote it did so later than the other documents and referring back to them. But Heartland is a lobbyist organisation with multiple employees spread out over America, so none of that is evidence of a fake.
It's basically someone with the objective of showing it's a fake throwing everything at it. All of it sounds plausible, but none of it actually logically stands up as evidence of a fake.
Sorry, that is really shitty, argument. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion probably included some accurate quotes from The Talmud. (mixed in with the faked stuff) The presence of any such quotes, wouldn't prove them genuine,
I hasten to offend in every way I can the Heartland Institute. I hope they spend a vast fortune trying to sue me. I'm willing to do most anything to expose these creeps and could care less whether I win or lose a law suit with them. Fact is I am immune from bad consequences to a civil court. I intend to remain immune as well. In my state a person on Social Security, disabled who only owns one home and one vehicle can not be touched by a civil suit. So if these think tank types wish me to let up on them they better give me a small fortune so i would feel some sorrow if they win in court. I think these creeps rape babies. They might be the ones who murdered that Ramsey child. They might even have murdered Nicole Simpson. Worse yet I suspect they are Republicans.
No, the real evidence that this is all genuine stuff is how freaked-out and panicked this philistine think-tank is over the public revelation of their dishonest agenda.
Fuck them.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
There is actually a pretty significant amount of evidence it's faked. ...
No, what you listed is merely evidence that the pdfs were not all produced at the same time.
This is interesting, but has no relevance to whether it's faked or not. There is no reason that real documents might not have been pdf'd at different times.
...The problem for Heartland is that they're acting like dicks toward a lot of people, when they should be upending heaven and hell to find the [putative] memo forger and crucifying him for libel.
Which brings up an interesting question. When somebody broke into the CRU and published (what turned out to be a highly edited selection of) stolen e-mail, the response of "let's upend heaven and hell to find the thieves" did not seem to be high on anybody's priority list. So, apparently, it's only an important crime if you steal documents from people denying the science?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You've got it exactly backwards. Remember the Dan Rather memo? When that came out, everybody was talking about the forgery, and nobody was talking about the rich frat boy who used his family connections to weasel out of military service.
I hope the same thing doesn't happen here. The Heartlanders are doing real and lasting damage, the last thing we need is to give them more ammo.
> We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents ..
> are there is dishonest and has an agenda.*
> *I know some people say the same thing about the institute itself.
"some people say"?? it's their entire reason for existence and they've never tried particularly hard to hide it!
some people also say the pope is catholic.. there is a time for
choosing your words carefully, and there are other times to call
a spade a spade.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Unfortunately, the thief was apparently smart enough to photocopy the documents and then pass them through a filter. Poof, no yellow dots.
The problem for Heartland is these guys got caught with their pants down and revealed they have quite a few less inches than they were claiming.
We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents are there is dishonest and has an agenda.
This statement, on it's own, impinges on the authenticity of every whistleblower, ever.
Of course, for the aggrieved party, every person who betrays confidences is dishonest and has an agenda. It remains then, for the 3rd party observer, to determine if that evaluation holds up against the scrutiny of the agenda of the aggrieved.
Frankly, "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."
So you're saying that if Heartland was willing to lie about science then they'd be willing to lie about lying about science? Very interesting ... </Artie Johnson>
"Turning everything into a massive conspiracy theory is not going to help you do this."
One side promotes the idea that there has been a massive global conspiracy by scientists, across a number of disciplines and organizations, lasting over decades, to lie about a central scientific result in their field. There is no sensible organizational backing or motivation to this.
Scientists try to "engage people" by doing as good science as they can and working hard over decades to produce consensus estimates of the best known status from high-quality experimental and theoretical research, and work to explain it in (highly educated) laymens' terms as well as they can.
The other side yells that they're lying scumbags out to attack freedom.
The other side promotes the idea that there is a small political conspiracy to gain by people who have previously been known to engage in political conspiracies of a a similar nature. There is a well known organizational consistency and economic motivation to this.
You know, when you say, "They both do it, and they're both the same", you deny what's going on in this story and in all politics across the nation.
You're responding to the news of a killing spree by saying, "Well, the other side has used spitballs to annoy people", so they're murderers, too.
"They" and "Them" was not an invention of the Left in America. Demonization of the "Other" was purely the Right's innovation. If you go over the history of the US since WWII, you'll find that the Left's approach has been, "Let's get as many people on board as possible" and the Right's approach has been, "We're being victimized by THEM".
Even in the area of racism, which was a huge problem for the Democratic Party in the post-war era, you'll find a steady effort by the Democrats to make the party as uncomfortable for racists as possible, so that by the time a black man was the head of the party, the racists had left. And just guess where they all went. When all those racists left the Democratic Party, which party do you think they went to? You think they all became Libertarians? You think they all started voting for the Green ticket?
Even so, if you look at tip of the spear of the Left in America currently, the Occupy Movement, there is still an effort to invite and include the tea party and disaffected poor white working class people (which has been surprisingly effective, by the way). How inviting were the Tea Party to people who were pro-choice or pro-union or pro gay marriage. Even though the Tea Party was ostensibly focused singularly on government spending, there was a whole list of exclusionary issues with which one had to agree with them before they'd even consider you an American, much less "one of them".
From Edmund Burke on, the Right has been purely reactionary. It's what's given them their amazing draw with racists, sexists, bigots. It's what makes every single right-wing talk show revel in racism, sexism and bigotry. Check out at random any right-wing talk show and listen to the callers. Listen to the hosts. There is an effort to outdo one another. If one says "Obama is a liberal" the next will say, Obama is a tyrant, the next will say he's Hitler, and the next will say he's the Antichrist (though, to be fair, "Antichrist" is usually where they run out of steam, because it's hard to top that one, which is why it's usually saved for the most horrible crimes of this President, such as showing respect to a foreign head of state).
You want to say "Oh both sides are equally horrible" you're going to have your judgment called into question, friend.
And who the fuck is "We", white man? You got a mouse in your pocket? And who are YOU and your "WE" losing your country to, exactly? The liberals? You start out decrying how someone's comments are horrible because they talk about "THEY and THEM" and then you say, "We're losing OUR country". Do you even realize that the statement, "We're losing OUR country" is the very definition of pointing a finger and blaming, "THEY and THEM"? "We're losing OUR country" has zero meaning unless there is a THEM that you are demonizing. So who the fuck are you losing YOUR country to, exactly?
Now I'm going to give you a pass, because it's Sunday and maybe you've had a rough week. But you're going to have to spend a little time thinking this over. You can come back when you've learned something.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Also note that they haven't said the document is not authentic. They just said that until they are sure what their liability is for either statement, they refuse to comment. They've never said they are false. They just threatened anyone who talks about them before they verify them, then refused to verify them.
Learn to love Alaska
The "strategy memo" is, from what I have read, dated on the afternoon before this was all released. I suppose your scenario might apply if it was dated even a few days earlier, but 3:41 pm Pacific is 5:41 pm Central - i.e., Heartland's offices would almost certainly have been closed. And that strategy memo, which is the one whose authenticity is most suspect, is also the one that makes the broadest, most vilifying claims (about preventing teachers from teaching science, or the megabucks from the Evil Kochs to trash talk global warming, or the journalists who are supposedly in their pockets). In at least one case - the Koch funding - it's clearly contradicted by the other documents, so if you want to be a responsible journalist you'd have to question your source's reliability when the document with the juiciest information isn't supported by anything else.