ClimateGate: Hackers post data, expose global warming fraudsters

Evidently, the UK's University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit has been hacked and the data leaked / posted on the Interwebs.

From Karl Denninger: "Global Warming" SCAM - Hack/Leak FLASH:

Apparently a "Global Climate Center" was hacked and the contents have been posted to the Internet. A ZIP file exceeding 60MB and containing a huge number of emails and other documents has been posted worldwide.

Original speculation as to whether the files posted were legitimate or some sort of spoof appears to now be confirmed as legitimate:

“It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

I have not had time to read all of the material yet (there are over a thousand files involved!) but what I have skimmed looks VERY damning. Contained within the documents are what appear to be admissions of intentional tampering with data as well as intentional falsification of results to "show" man-made global warming. [emphasis in original]...

And another link from Watts Up With That?: Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released

The Anchoress: There has always been weather

Hotair's Ed Morrissey: Do hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?:

Controversy has exploded onto the Internet after a major global-warming advocacy center in the UK had its e-mail system hacked and the data published on line. The director of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit confirmed that the e-mails are genuine — and Australian publication Investigate and the Australian Herald-Sun report that those e-mails expose a conspiracy to hide detrimental information from the public that argues against global warming [emphasis added] ...

And ShrinkWrapped: AGW [Anthropogenic Global Warming] Fraud?:

It will take time for the "skeptics" (who thankfully were never successfully silenced by the AGWers who likened skeptics to Holocaust deniers and wanted to make AGW denial a crime against humanity) to go through all the files but what has already shown up is damning.

When scientists refuse to release their raw data, they short circuit the workings of the scientific method which looks for independent confirmation of hypotheses in order to avoid unconscious bias and the even more egregious fraud. The AGW academia-governmental complex is an industry that has siphoned off many, many billions of dollars in grants; it has spawned an entire parasitic industry devoted to managing and minimizing our Carbon output; it has threatened to cripple the global economy and return us to pre-industrial subsistence while empowering non-accountable bureaucrats in their attempt to gain never before imagined power over every human on the planet. How fitting that this construct which has been seized upon by the radical environmentalist left may well turn out to have been constructed upon a fraud. ...

What? You didn't hear all about the exposing of the global warming fraud on the nightly news? In the front page of your local Leftstream media fishwrap masquerading as a newspaper? Well, don't hold your breath, because it doesn't fit the Leftist elites' narrative.

NYPD tracking cell phone users

From Gotham City, comes this NY Daily News article:

The NYPD is amassing a database of cell phone users, instructing cops to log serial numbers from suspects' phones in hopes of connecting them to past or future crimes.

In the era of disposable, anonymous cell phones, the file could be a treasure-trove for detectives investigating drug rings and other criminal enterprises, police sources say.

"It's used to help build cases," one source said of the new initiative.

"It doesn't replace the human element, like debriefing prisoners, but it's another tool to use that we didn't have in the past."

A recent internal memo says that when cops make an arrest, they should remove the suspect's cell phone battery to avoid leakage - then jot down the International Mobile Equipment Identity number.

The IMEI number is registered with the service provider whenever a call is made.

And that data could allow a detective to match, for example, a cell phone used by one suspect to a phone used by another. ...

Read it here. Seems to me the NYPD's stated rationale for removing the cell phone's battery ("to avoid leakage") is merely a pretext to access the IMEI information without a warrant.

The easy way to defeat this potentially unlawful search and data collection effort, of course, is to simply get a new cell phone if you or your phone has ever been in NYPD custody. With the proliferation of cheap anonymous prepaid cell phones, that's an easy thing to do. And drug dealers won't exactly be hard pressed to pony up for a new smartphone.

Police abuse access to official databases

From the Bay State:

Police from communities across the state have repeatedly tapped into the state's criminal records system to improperly access information on celebrities and "high-profile citizens," according to a scathing audit released yesterday that also branded the system as obsolete and flawed.

Law enforcement personnel looked up personal information on Patriots star Tom Brady 968 times - seeking anything from his driver's license photo and home address, to whether he had purchased a gun - and auditors discovered "repeated searches and queries" on dozens of other celebrities such as Matt Damon, James Taylor, Celtics star Paul Pierce, and Red Sox owner John Henry, said two state officials familiar with the audit.

The Criminal Offender Record Information system, with its massive databases of criminal records, driving histories, car ownership, and Social Security numbers, is intended to provide police and prosecutors with complete portraits of individuals who have been arrested or brought into the court system. Reports are available to other users such as landlords and some employers conducting background checks on prospective tenants and job seekers. Access is supposed to be restricted to authorized law enforcement users, who are specially trained.

But the yearlong review by state Auditor A. Joseph DeNucci depicts a system repeatedly accessed by users "without any apparent work-related justification."

Such unauthorized use could be considered fraud under federal law, and "disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal and/or criminal prosecution" could follow misuse of the system, DeNucci's audit said.

Curtis Wood, executive director of the Criminal History Systems Board, acknowledged that inappropriate searches have been made over the years, but said the number is small.

"Compared to the 13 million transactions in the system a month, the number is a small representation of our user community," he said. "I'm fairly comfortable in saying that 99 percent do not misuse the system."

Wood said the agency is able to determine where the queries originated and will take action where necessary. He said he believes that many of the searches were legitimate, with officers looking up individuals who happen to have the same names as celebrities.

DeNucci's audit condemned the decades-old system as antiquated, highly vulnerable to mistakes, and easily accessed by unauthorized users. With terminals in many locations that allowed anyone to look up information, the system permitted law enforcement officials access without fear of being identified and detected. [emphasis added] ...

Article here. If the system is "highly vulnerable to mistakes", I'll bet there are lots of outdated or inaccurate records in the system. Hard to imagine that the system processes 13 million transactions a month -- Massachusetts isn't that big of a state, although it is Big Government heavy to the point of obesity.

Another ammo serialization bill

From Georgia:

ALBANY, GA (WALB) - One of the bills the Senate will consider when they convene is an ammunition coding bill. It would require manufacturers to engrave a unique code on the bottom of each bullet, so it can be traced. A measure that could help in the prosecution of people using handguns to commit crimes.

A state senator from Decatur has proposed legislation that would require an ammunition coding and database system. It would require a unique serial number or marking on each bullet. Many gun rights enthusiasts say the bill is a violation of their second amendment rights.

Article here. Ammo serialization is both a way to implement a backup gun owner registration scheme, as each ammo purchase is linked to a specific purchaser (and gun owner), and a way to make the price of ammo prohibitively expensive.

The failure of ballistics databases

Short article on the failure of gun ballistics databases:

Seven years ago, New York started a database of "ballistic fingerprints" for all new handguns sold in the state. The bill's backers sold it as a crime-solving device, arguing that the state would now have a sample of a spent shell and bullet for every new gun sold. This, they said, would help police connect future evidence from crime scenes to specific guns.

Since then, the authorities have entered 200,000 newly purchased guns into the database and spent $1 million dollars a year on the system. Yet it hasn't led to a single solved crime. The only other state with such a database, Maryland, can attribute at least one conviction to the system since it was created in 2000-more than zero, but few enough that the state's own Police Forensics Division has suggested scrapping the program because of its demonstrated lack of benefits.

This hasn't come as a surprise to gun rights activists, who pointed to several potential problems when the databases were originally debated. Among them: The markings left by a gun are not guaranteed to be the same over the long term and can be deliberately changed with simple expedients such as filing inside the barrel; the vast majority of guns used in crimes are stolen or otherwise obtained in a black market, not used by their original legal owner; devoting so much record keeping to every gun sold guarantees wasted effort, since less than 1 percent of all guns sold will ever be used in a crime.

Article here. Apart from the almost complete failure of the existing databases in helping solve crimes, the other, more pernicious attribute of such databases is that they create a de facto gun registration scheme. And as history has shown us time and again, gun registration is often the first step towards gun confiscation. Indeed, registration is a necessary first step. And governments have murdered hundreds of millions of their own disarmed citizens within just the last century. Such atrocities are far more likely against an unarmed populace than an armed one.

Seven year old database hasn't solved a single crime

From the Washington Post, on New York State's seven year old ballistics database:

ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York's seven-year-old database of handgun "fingerprints" has yet to lead to a criminal prosecution, and questions linger about its effectiveness. Still, state police remain committed to the tool, saying that more time and a long-awaited link to a federal ballistics database could bring success.

Since March 2001, identifying information about more than 200,000 new revolvers and semiautomatic pistols sold in New York have been entered into the Combined Ballistic Identification System database maintained by state police. New York and Maryland are the only states that maintain statewide databases.

Article here. The article says that operating the database costs a million bucks a year. What an enormous waste of money.