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Wayback Machine Trumps FOI Tribunal
New submitter calder123 writes "Last week, the BBC won an FOIA tribunal ruling that they didn't have to reveal the names of attendees at a seminar in 2006, designed to shape the BBC's coverage of climate change issues. The document, uncovered by Maurizio Morabito, puts comments by the BBC that the meeting was held under Chatham House rules, and that the seminar drew on top scientific advice in an interesting light. In a bizarre coincidence, four of the BBC's attendees at the seminar have resigned in the last few days."
So the BBC is happy to take public money, but doesn't think there should be ANY strings or responsibilities attached? Must be nice. I wonder if they would accept other public agencies refusing THEIR Freedom of Information requests. I suspect not. And yet that is the precedent they could set.
Personally, I think it's a bad precedent to be set by a institution that has a journalistic wing itself. But, then again, I'm a little creeped out by the whole idea of a state-run media in the first place, even one that stringently attempts to remain objective. It's bound to produce conflicts of interest, no matter how much you try to avoid them.
And, even putting the precedent aside, it just looks bad. If you're going to ask others to be open, it's really embarrassing when it looks like you're trying to hide something yourself, especially when openness is one of your stated goals, oft-repeated.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I don't want to die for any of the regular, boring reasons.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This FOI request, like so many others, is another polluters attempt to disrupt those who are telling them they must stop polluting.
yawn.
I have a message for these denialist children: Please grow up and stop helping the greedy pollute our planet.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
That's why BBC had to do this:
- This is incredible. In Jan 2006 the BBC held a meeting of “the best scientific experts” to decide BBC policy on climate change reporting (t)
- The BBC has been in court blocking FOI attempts to get the list of the 28 attendees, but it’s just been discovered on the wayback machine (t)
- It turns out that only 3 were current scientists (all alarmists). The rest were activists or journalists (t)
- The BBC sent four low level representatives: Peter Rippon, Steve Mitchell, Helen Boaden, George Enwistle. All have since risen to power. (t)
- Amazingly, those are also the exact four who have thus far resigned this week over the false paedophilia accusations against Lord McAlpine. (t)
From childhood to today, I've heard it asked many times in so many different ways "What would you live if there were no tomorrow?". People say stuff like "I'd party and have fun" or "I'd quit my job and spend time with my family" and all kinds of great stuff. Rubbish! Most people are just gonna find ways to loot whatever is there for the taking, quit acting responsibly, and/or sit around blaming and complaining about the problem.
or is it a FOIA ?
And what are Chatham House rules? (I know where the Chatham Islands are, but I don't think that has anything to do with this)
And does a "Wayback Machine" look like a blue phone booth with the word "Police" on and a flashing light on top?
Lets see, if you live in the UK and have a TV you have to pay it, and if you don't its a criminal offense.
Sounds like a tax to me
Test your net with Netalyzr
Probably.
Maybe it's a cultural thing, but everyone I know here in America lets phone calls go to VM if it's not from a number they recognize. Even more so if they have google voice because then you don't even have to listen to it.
moox. for a new generation.
And it's interesting. Apparently, the Beeb decided that the overwheling evidence of climate change and global warming rendered dissenting views not only null, but dangerous, in that these dissents would only impede what is necessary action, and are either specious, disingenuous, false, or all of the preceding. So the BBC essentially wanted to suspend even the pretense of impartial reporting and just go all in for acknowledging man-caused climate change as fact.
Now, it may well be, but this decision had the effect of marginalizing opposing points of vew, on the BBC, to the point that there would be NO dissent.
I wonder if there are any other issues that the Beeb (affectionately referred to as 'Auntie' in the Register article referenced, and also by some of those Brits old enough to suspect the Beeb is less than honorable in some areas) would similarly suspend impartiaility (sometimes considered a foundation of journalism, so therefore suspending the practice of 'journalism' in reference to these issues) and thereby become essentially the mouthpiece of one side or the other in a dispute? Other than the Israel/Palestine conflict, Islamic terrorism, and perhaps global crony capitalism, I can't thing of a thing.
Ssadly, the BBC is become just another media outlet, adding to the spew of whatever meme is advantageous to the powers that be. Those powers, for those of you at home scoring in pen, do not include us.
And of course, the BBC would prefer to not even be asked these questions, much less have to answer them honestly or at least be compelled to admit they even discuss such things. Here in the U.S. we don't have such a problem. Our media outlets are essentially divided into three camps; Leftist, Rightist, and irrelevant. And these outlets are hardly called to account for anything, except by an opposing camp, though the Irrelevants tend to question everything, even themselves, perpetuating their irrelevancy. You know which outlets belong to which camps, right? Ok, score this one in pencil until you get time to review the action and come to a better decision...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
... but there's some hoops to jump through to get them to stop bugging you about it.
Not according to my British friends, there's not. They just keep bugging you. One of my friends (generally known in the Crome OS and Raspberry Pi communities as "Hexxeh") finally just gave in and paid the fee, even though he only ever uses the thing as a monitor. I told him he was nuts, but the lack of a BBC weenie calling him on his cell phone weekly apparently causes the license to pay for itself in reduced cell minutes.
I suspect if the UK ever got a working "do not call list", then the BBC would do the same thing the US companies and "free cruise!" scammers in the US have done, and just offshore the robo-calls.
Lots of things wrong with that.
1) The TV licensing people don't pester you if you tell them (possibly in writing?) that you don't use the TV to receive broadcasts. I have a TV, and haven't been asked to buy a license for over three years now. I was originally asked once, when I moved into this house and the previous resident's license (the license is for the property) expired.
2) They don't call, they send letters and -- very occasionally -- visit in person.
3) It's free to receive phone calls here.
4) A company you don't have dealings with is breaking the law to telephone you, as they don't have your permission.
A clown who makes up words to try to hide the fact he has no idea what he is talking about.
The case was about if the BBC has the right to protect it's journalistic sources or must it disclose them to a freedom of information request.
I've never heard of a phone contract in the UK that limits incoming minutes... He is right that they tend to be extremely suspicious of people claiming not to need a license though. When I was a student I had a TV for playing games and watching DVDs on, and got harassed on the regular by the TV licensing heavies. And by heavies, I mean they literally sent a huge enforcement officer to our door once, demanding to be let in to inspect our property. I politely told him to fuck off because he had no right of entry and I had informed them time and again that we were within our rights not to have a license. We still got the threatening letters after that, but no more unfriendly faces at the door.
Heck with visual voicemail you don't have to listen to it either, you can easily delete it without wasting any minutes. I wish my desk phone had visual voicemail, it would make the LCD screen a lot more useful =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I love how the list of attendees includes Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy.
Paid Q&A/Research
I love how the summary of the article doesn't tell me how the Wayback Machine is related to this at all, but it's mentioned in the title!
pfft! The Pentagon! That bunch of tree-hugging pinko commie hippies.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That doesn't make sense. We don't pay for *incoming* phone calls on a mobile phone in Britain (or on a landline phone for that matter). You only pay for *outgoing* calls.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
While it annoys me how everyone is quickly wearing out the expression, "the new normal", I'm going to do my part and point out that stupidity seems to be the new normal.
First of all, weather professionals and even climate change advocates are careful to point out that Sandy is an individual even that cannot be proven to be related to climate change. Only dim witted sensationalists and politicians are claiming it to be further proof of climate change.
Here is a list of storms and hurricanes that have impacted New York over the years. Please be sure to note the lack of meaningful differences in storm count between now and our pre-carbon fearing days.
Proclaiming Sandy to be proof of climate change/global warming is stupidity. Unfortunately, stupidity seems to be the new normal.
(Because we're not fucking mental.)
I'm too busy trying to find the point of this stupid story.
Yes, I'm a person that believes that we should try not to damage our biosphere 'anyway' because clearly there are enough of us involved in polluting activities to unbalance it. Therefore we should tread as lightly as possible, this is a matter of respect and an aesthetic matter as well as a matter of scientific precaution. Also climate change is probably going to bring extremes rather than 'global warming' but since we don't really know, it's better not to mess around with it, in so far as it's not too late.
That said, I agree there are very few experts, many campaigners and shills and one 'head of comedy' involved, part of the decline of science and rigour in the BBC. I grew up watching Tomorrow's World and the Open University programmes and I'm saddened by its fall. Obviously that 'fact' will help campaigners for polluting companies make their case, an additional cause for regret.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
What does receiving broadcasts have to do with anything?
Suppose they published a newspaper, and charged everyone who reads any newspaper, even not their own. Would you say it's okay because they don't charge you if you don't read newspapers?
If the BBC released Angry Birds BBC, would you be okay with them charging money for that, even if you just want to play World of Warcraft? ("They don't pester you, as long as you don't use the computer to play video games.")
These AGW denial stories from elReg and their ilk are the main reason why my visits are becoming less frequent and I have ads blocked here.
Feeding the witch-hunt mentality against climate scientists and environmentalists is incredibly irresponsible.
The relevance of "receiving broadcasts" is that is the action which legally requires the purchase of a TV license -- regardless of who is broadcasting. This covers TV cards in computers, recording devices, etc.
Full details here: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/what-if-a-tv-licence-is-not-needed-top12/
Your analogy with newspapers is more-or-less correct. In many countries the money for the public broadcasters comes from general taxation. The British way means only those who watch TV pay, and keeps the BBC a bit more independent of the government.
Although it wuold create a 2 tier system I really think that allowing anyone to cache & store a page for future reference and possible later use as expert witness,
should be an excellent non-intrusive revenue stream for the Internet Archive.
It's such a useful project.
I wish I was able to pay to make sure that I can make a record of a page when I notice something interesting.
A blog I run for the wealth
In that case, it's a tax. BBC apologists are claiming that it's not a tax because if you don't watch TV you don't need to pay it. But that's the wrong criterion. It's not a tax if not watching the BBC means you don't have to pay it. If you have to pay it even if you don't watch the BBC, it's a tax, even if you can still avoid it by avoiding the whole medium.
What if the BBC said that playing video games requires the purchase of a video game license? And then used the money to create their own Angry Beeb game? Would you agree that people who play other games are being taxed to pay for Angry Beeb, or would you say that it's not a tax because you can avoid it by not playing video games at all?
I don't understand how namedropping Hexxeh is adding to this conversation.
He was an intern at Google in the US at the time I talked to him about getting the calls. In the US, inbound calls cost him minutes.
I cited him not as a name-drop, but as a concrete example, since everyone on /. tends to pull made-up anecdotes out of their rears. This anecdote is capable of being independently fact-checked, but in order for it to be so, it had to be someone you could contact, and who had a reputation for honesty.
I never commented on whether it was or was not a tax, I'm not sure why (if?) you're trying to argue with me.
It is a tax, in the general sense, but is specifically referred to as a license fee, in the same way the tax on beer or petrol is called a duty.
I've met more than a few Brits, I most certainly contest that statement. Not the paying for incoming calls part, but the not mental part. I think thanks a matter of perspective mate!
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
What does receiving broadcasts have to do with anything?
BBC has some FCC-like powers/rules as well, at least on paper. Just like broadcasters in the US don't own their frequencies, but "license" them from the FCC with conditions, the "power" to provide TV/radio rests with BBC.
If you make an Angry Birds game, do you need FCC permission? If you are clear on that point, why are you unclear on the BBC?
Learn to love Alaska
Again, where's the money? I see a claim that this group scoops in $7 million a year, That's less than the US branch of Greenpeace ($10 million a year). There are some huge climate change advocacy groups out there. There's no similarly huge anti-AGW advocacy group out there. Contrary to these assertions, I see plenty of money for scientists and activists who shill for climate change and peanuts for their opponents.
Look under the table.
C'mon, khallow, you're smarter than this. Think it through:
1. Assuming that what you see in money terms is what's actually going on, where's this money coming from? What's to be gained monetarily by shilling for climate change? Who would want to fund this, and for what gain?
2. Assuming that what you see in money terms is not the whole picture, who's to gain by not being public about funding? What vested interests are there that might be harmed by any policy changes designed to halt or slow AGW? How much money do these vested interests have?
3. Think too about regulatory capture -- there's less need for advocacy if you've already bought yourself congressional representation. Who's more likely to hold sway in the legislature: Greenpeace, or the hydrocarbon industry?
Seriously, khallow, I think better of you than this particular line of argument -- what you see is not what you get, in many cases.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
From Nature :
“All of the articles have been submitted to journals, and we have received substantial journal peer reviews. None of the reviews have indicated any mistakes in the papers; they have instead been primarily suggestions for additions, further citations of the literature. One review had no complaints about the content of the paper, but suggested delaying the publication until the long background paper, describing our methods in detail, was actually published.”
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?