The Crooks Behind Climategate

People are starting to ask the right questions about the whole Climategate mess, that is, who stole the e-mails in the first place and why is there all of a sudden a concerted effort to go after climate scientists.  Brian Angliss at Scrogues has more...

Update: The UK Daily Mail has a story about the possibility that the Russian state security services (FSB) may have been behind the CRU hack.
According to the National Post, criminals impersonated network technicians and tried to break into the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and gain access to the network servers. This follows many break ins and burglaries at the University of Victoria where papers were rifled through and where a dead computer was stolen.

Brad Johnson at The Wonk Room is following this story, as is Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog.

It’s too early to say whether these attacks on CCCM and the UofVictoria are related to the illegal release personal emails from the Climate Research Unit, but the timing is certainly curious. In my experience, two incidents can be coincidence, but if another one or two pop up, it’s likely that we have a coordinated campaign against climate science.

Over at Angry Bear, Noni is also asking what the bigger picture is here:

The Climate Change memos have opened up some interesting questions. Like, who are the thieves, and when will we see them in court? And if the thieves are shown to be employees of Big Oil or Big Coal, are the Bigs profiting from this crime? The proceeds of crime can be seized by the government -- I will be interested to see how the amount of extra profit might be measured, and how a fungible asset is seized.

A criminal conviction might not be necessary, either. Wiki tells us: "In civil forfeiture cases, the US Government sues the item of property, not the person; the owner is effectively a third party claimant. Once the government establishes probable cause that the property is subject to forfeiture, the owner must prove on a "preponderance of the evidence" that it is not. The owner need not be judged guilty of any crime."

If the data thieves don't end up in court, then does this mean e-mail archives in general are fair game for worldwide publication?

We've been told that there is no real privacy on the Internet -- what if it's true? "If you could read anyone's complete email archives, completely safe from legal punishment, which archives would those be?" The question is bound to bring a dreamy expression to the thoughtful person's face. It's even rather Biblical: Luke 12:3 "Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops." Hackers, start your engines.

Definitely food for thought.  When considering what's going on here, you have to take into account the decades of energy companies and business interests who have tried to bury climate change science by any means necessary.  We're just seeing a far more aggressive stage of the war that's been fought for a very long time now.