A few days ago a story broke where someone hacked into a global warming research institute and stole all emails from the past 10 years, proving a conspiracy.
In the vast amount of emails stolen, some emails were also found with clear-cut lies, showing how some scientists conspired to deceive in scientific research about data that did not fit their agenda of proving global warming.
I am opening the subject for debate on the debate mailing list. It is a fascinating topic covering several subjects such as 'does the end justify the means?', 'irresponsible disclosure of personal data', 'is it justifiable to break the law?' and 'civil disobedience and the hackers' role in keeping society honest'.
Here are some possible questions to get the wheels rolling:
- Is the action taken by the hacker legal, ethical, and/or moral? Was the action justifiable?
- Do you believe the harm done as a result is justified for the good (disclosure) that came out of it?
- Can this be treated as civil disobedience?
For background, check out this story:
http://www.examiner.com/x-25061-Climate-Change-Examiner~y2009m11d20-ClimateGate--Climate-centers-server-hacked-revealing-documents-and-emails
Another source:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-files-62-mb-of-gold/
Join the debate mailing list, now! :)
http://whitestar.linuxbox.org/mailman/listinfo/debate
Please state your opinions openly, and let's discuss!
Gadi Evron,
ge@linuxbox.org.
Follow me on twitter! http://twitter.com/gadievron
7 comments:
I'm not going to join the mailing list to debate, so I'll just state here that the theft of the emails was completely justified. Going further, I wish that this theft had occurred earlier, and that our leaders would have enough shame to admit that the entire climate-change movement was a fraud.
In the last few years I have found myself getting more hard hearted towards the leftists tearing down Western Civilization. Truly I wish that these climatologists and the members of the Club of Rome that preceded them would come to harm.
I know that wishing these people harm is not Christian, but allowing them to run rampant harming the people of this earth is itself criminal.
Ronduck: What if you one day discover you are wrong and they were right?
Further, should breaking the law and hurting so many innocents be excused either way?
Ronduck: What if you one day discover you are wrong and they were right?
Such as if climate change is publicly proven to be real? Then I would still think the email theft was justified. Having these men lie about such an issue sets back public acceptance of scientific influence over public policy, causing more of the public to retreat into anti-intellectualism especially on the Right. Had this been a business working on a product then I would condemn the theft, but these men were working for a public institution that was arguing for a policy that would affect my life and the life of almost every man on the planet, as such I deserve to know if these men were lying.
Further, should breaking the law and hurting so many innocents be excused either way?
All the climate hackers did was steal emails related to the climate research going at the CRU, and the scientists involved were hardly innocent. If the hacker is caught however, I think that they should be given a pardon in this one case. In most cases of email theft I would support prosecution however.
You are factually wrong about what emails he stole. There were thousands. This is not to state my opinion. But rather, what else do we take for granted and base our opinions on, which is factually wrong?
The wiki article on Climategate states that there were over a thousand, but it doesn't say how many more than a thousand. There were also three thousand other documents stolen too. The size of the stolen emails and documents came to around 160mb.
Even if there was personal information in the emails, I still think the theft was justified. I used to believe in fairplay when dealing with the Left, but at this point I don't think the leftists destroying Western Civilization deserve any consideration for their privacy since they are trying to destroy all that we have accumulated over the past millenia.
Finally, whoever was running the email server should not have kept copies of delivered emails going back ten years. Email servers should be set to purge old emails every few months, since thieves can't steal what is no longer extant.
I see your point on mail servers. But I am unsure, as many companies keep backup tapes for years, some even for legal reasons. I should look into what the legal requirements in different places are.
As to the emails, I disagree, strongly.
Of the thousands of emails, only very few were shown to be problematic, and out of these, only very few were actually lies rather than science speak.
The question is of principle, if someone believes you're a criminal, or a liar, are they the ones to decide to break into your home and violate the privacy of thousands?
The question is of principle, if someone believes you're a criminal, or a liar, are they the ones to decide to break into your home and violate the privacy of thousands?
That's the clearest you've written your question. In normal private life I would agree with you that private property should be respected, and that such respect should extend to email.
But this is political, and over the last few years the right in America has simply played fair while it has been roundly defeated by leftists working for the destruction of the American economy, state and people. If this was merely about the details of a minor bill in Congress then theft would not be an acceptable tactic. But the whole climate-change scam is being used to transfer tens of billions of dollars, if not many times that to others who either can't or won't earn such money on their own with the intention of eliminating our ability to earn any money in the future. And even if we do follow the dictates of the eco-religion we will be able to prevent the earth from warming by one degree centigrade.
The entire global warming movement is a fraud orchestrated by various power and money hungry groups that want to see man drug backward into a new dark age whereby we are impoverished and go back to being serfs. These people would rather rule over peasants than live well as free men. I don't want to be reduced from a comfortable life of manual labor to dying at the age of 35 from a preventable disease on the ecomanors of the future. My standard of living is worth more than their privacy, especially considering that these people seek to take more from me than just my privacy.
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