Only if they have broken a law. I'm not saying they have or haven't, I'm just concerned with inference that someone should be jailed for having a stupid opinion.
Fraud is a crime and it does carry a jail sentence.
They have tried to whitewash ClimateGate as just opinion and disgruntled talk, but looking at the actual data and the computer programs they used to “adjust” the data before publishing it, there is no question it was intentional fraud.
This was brought up in comments at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023598/after-climategate-pachaurigate-and-glaciergate-amazongate/comment-page-1/
atJames – interesting post from Booker’s column:
Loophole in UK FoIA law will allow CRU to avoid prosecution
There will be no prosecutions under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, regardless of the final outcome of the investigation. Although withholding or destroying information is a criminal offence under the terms of the Act, apparently no prosecutions can be brought for offences committed more than six months prior. As anyone who has made a UK FoI request knows, it can take six months to exhaust the internal review process before the ICO even becomes involved. The ICO can then take another six months before starting his investigation.
It’s clear now that civil servants are able to withhold and destroy information without any consequences and it’s interesting to ponder how such a dramatic flaw can have found its way into the terms of the Act. Of course we in the UK are used to poorly drafted laws finding their way onto the statute books, but we might also consider the thought that the civil servants involved have knowingly inserted this crucial error, in order to ensure that when push came to shove they could keep things quiet without any concerns that they might find themselves in the dock.
I’m sure the collective of CRU is breathing a sigh of relief knowing this, however there may be other unforeseen repercussions coming from the investigation, and UEA may have other rules for professional conduct that may apply.
Kate
on January 25, 2010
at 07:39 PM
Indeed. But stupidity is not all there is to this fraud. In fact, I have no trouble imagining that absolutely everyone in this had an admirable IQ.
First, how are you going to argue that credentialed scientists writing in peer reviewed journals are stupid?
Second, the fraud is self-serving. That peer pressure is not like kids egging one of their own to jump into the water. Scientists lose careers -- not merely jobs but whole careers when they lose the support of their peers. The whole academic system works on peer review. Science is also overwhelmingly financed by government grants, likewise dependent on peer review.
Thirdly, there are billions out of the taxpayer pockets hinging on this, because it is not just grants to advance knowledge, this is industrial policy. These theories do real damage. If, for the sake on an argument, someone put fools in charge of the climate science and then linked climate science to industrial policy, then that is criminal too.
It reminds me of a story overheard on the radio. A gangster shoots the pilot of a private plane dead cold near Miami airport as the plane was still in the air. He is brought in for murder. His defense is imaginative: "I just bought me a new gun and wanted to go shoot at planes to see if it works. I am not a very smart man, your honor."
Its not so much the laws they're breaking; its more the laws they're making. Binding treaties, local, national and international laws are being made based on their fraudulent "opinions". There should be consequences or at least some kind of check on this type of thing.