Bishop Hill What's up with Norfolk Police?
Jun 22, 2011 Climate: CRU FOI A few weeks back I got some general ledger details from UEA and we discovered, among other things, that UEA had made a big payment to Norfolk Police Authority. The police authority is the body that oversees the constabulary, which I thought was rather odd.
I therefore put in an FOI asking them for a copy of the invoice plus any related correspondence. The immediate response was slightly strange in that I was passed straight on to Norfolk Constabulary's FOI department. At the time I assumed that Norfolk Police Authority and the Constabulary itself must share financial ledgers. I thought nothing else of it.
However, today the response has come back.
In the context of a request under the Freedom of Information Act being for information not
documents, as you have detailed above, you are already in possession of the invoice information between Norfolk Police Authority and the University of East Anglia. Please see below an explanatory statement regarding this payment. No contract exists in relation to this work.
Whilst conducting their investigation into the access to and downloading of data from the
computers at the University of East Anglia, the Major Investigation Team engaged the services of a company with the ability to forensically examine the computer system. The University made their own decision to engage that company to review the security of their system and carry out work on their behalf. The company completed the work and invoiced Norfolk Constabulary for all of the work undertaken, and UEA reimbursed Norfolk Constabulary for the work that had been completed at their request.
So, they are not letting me see the actual invoice and they are not saying anything at all about the related correspondence.
The story about this representing a recharge for computer forensics is strange too. We have seen in the UEA disclosure some costs for computer forensics, although only £5k or so.
Does this make anyone else a bit uncomfortable?
Reader Comments (122)
Pat
Terms Of Reference, point 3
Its a matter of who owns the report and how FOI can be used. The Police cannot disclose it or the part in question because technically the Police do not have possession and is therefore not theirs to disclose. EAU cannot provide it because the is no evidence that the University has ever obtained a copy or for that matter ever commissioned the work. Interesting.
thanx for the link, fran Codwire -
hope bish can find out more (tho i have noted u r understandably "overwhelmed")
was looking into some qinetiq stuff when i noted your link, fran:
Prof Stephen Cox at UEA
He then joined British Telecoms's research laboratories to work on speech recognition, and spent two years at the speech research unit of the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (now Qinetiq) at Malvern, where he researched into adaptation of speech recognition algorithms to new speakers...
He joined the School of Computing Sciences at UEA as a lecturer in 1991 and was appointed professor in 2003....
http://www.uea.ac.uk/cmp/sjcox
QinetiQ and Cranfield University help to produce NOVA turbine
The British Guardian Newspaper, reported on an innovative wind turbine design on 23 February 2010 which could revolutionise the offshore wind energy industry. The Novel Offshore Vertical Axis (NOVA) is being developed by a consortium led by a project team put together by Wind Power Ltd. The Consortium is managed by OTM Consulting and includes QinetiQ and Cranfield University – both aerospace/defence specialists. The design was one of four that received funding from the Energy Technologies Institute in January 2010.
http://www.dynamixx-e2d.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=571:qinetiq-and-cranfield-university-help-to-produce-nova-turbine&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=67
Re: jorgekafkazar
It is more likely that the police engaged company 'X' and when UEA wanted their own analysis they had to use the same company because they were the ones in possession of the server and because there were time constraints for the inquiries.
AFAIK when the police gather evidence against somebody they have the right to have the evidence independently analysed. The key word here is "independently" which means by labs other than the ones used by the police. I am aware that the police are not gathering evidence specifically against the UEA, but the possibility exists (and to my mind is quite high) that the culprit is part of the UEA and this alone should have meant they could not use the same forensics company as the police.
Jun 22, 2011 at 11:39 PM | KnR
"tell about the internal world of the CRU". ................ "even to this day keep Jones and Co awake at night." ..................... "details that CRU and friends may very much hope never get seen in public".
CRU has ackowleged, before a committee in the HoC, that the e-mails are genuine.
We know about the internal world of the CRU from the various reviews of the e-mails.
I am sure that Jones and Co. enjoy a good restful sleep every night because, in their world, they have been exonerated by the Establishment, several times.
There will be no more details. the bulletproof Establishment will see to that.
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Jun 23, 2011 at 12:35 AM | kim
"That hero is a huge story unto its heroic self, but that story won't be proclaimed until this madness has passed."
Exactly, but you may as well let sleeping dogs lie, because, if by "madness" you mean AGW or even CAGW, this will be a very long time in passing. Particularly in the UK because the insane solutions intended to bring and end to "climate disruption" are embodied in the law of the land (CCA 2008).
The energy being invested in trying to bring more discredit to the CRU and the Establishment minders is a complete waste of time because these people do not care what the public thinks about them.
.................................................
What is clear is that whoever leaked a selection of files, made a selection, which means they have more dirt to dish. A trump card that the great and the good do not want them to feel threatened enough to play.
That’s handy get an expert to clean up the network so there's no incriminating evidence on your system, then get Norfolk police to pay for that work. Very cleave, 'Sorry your honour but it was not us who emplyed this engineer to clean up any lose ends it was the police.'
Or was this supposed expert employed and over viewed by Norfolk Plod? Very strange indeed and I take it this expert turned nothing up as there has been no charge's?
Jun 22, 2011 at 9:36 PM | hro001
"some days I do wonder whether or not there is a manual out there in AGW-advocacy-land on how to obscure and obstruct. Might even have been written by Acton ;-)"
Not quite obscure and obstruct, but, as you know one thing can lead to another ....
See this:
http://tinyurl.com/64qso54
I am sure there is another "guide" by this mob which was aimed at global warming "communications", but I can not find it at the moment. Does anybody have a link?
Jason, your logic is not sound. The 'selection' may have simply been all relevant documents, so all emails about who's going for a pizza tomorrow, etc. were removed. It does not follow that there is more dirt.
Re Shevva
I think that's unlikely. The official line is fairly normal (and not just for Norfolk). Someone gets hacked, police get called in to investigate hack and victim hires security consultants to review and hopefully improve security to stop it happening again. Those should be seperate actions though. Remedial security might be based on a report of how the hack occured or it might be done independently in line with best practices. Having the same contractor working for both the police and UEA just looks bad and allows conspiracy theories to be floated.
The only 'clean up' of evidence I'm aware of was also done by the Team. The more obvious 'hack' was the attempt to place the file on RC and lock out the usually admins. Unfortunately Gavin decided to fix the server rather than leaving it so it could be forensically examined, and probably destroyed any evidence supporting the hack claim.
Brownedoff
I am not so sure your right , the leak was selection of e-mails ,indeed the threads of some of them are still left flapping . So its not the actual missing contents from this leak that may be the subject of Jones nightmare but the possible missing contents as his no chance of remember all that was written.
These guys played very fast and lose when the times where good , when you drop your guard in that way you may well leave much more behind you than think, a notion Jones would be fully aware off.
Atomic Hairdryer
'Unfortunately Gavin decided to fix the server rather than leaving it so it could be forensically examined, and probably destroyed any evidence supporting the hack claim.'
And what awful useful idea that was too , now you have to believe him becasue there is no evidenced ,just like with CRU, that any hack did ever happened, or so he like to think.
"It is more likely that the police engaged company 'X' and when UEA wanted their own analysis they had to use the same company because they were the ones in possession of the server and because there were time constraints for the inquiries."--TerryS
More likely? Certainly possible. I'm just pointing out that the statement:
"...Whilst conducting their investigation...Major Investigation Team engaged the services of a company with the ability to forensically examine the computer system. The University made their own decision to engage that company to review the security of their system and carry out work on their behalf"
is not necessarily a description of events in chronological order, nor is it stated to be such.
Jun 24, 2011 at 12:03 AM | KnR
There will be nothing else released. This is because, either:
(a) the Liberator is satisfied with what has happened i.e. everbody and his dog is now having a go at any output from the AGW Team (including the IPCC) which has even the merest whiff of dodgyness, therefore further release of "details", and the attendant risk of an appearance in court, is unnecessary,
or,
(b) the UK Establishment has already got its hands on the rest of the "details" and these have been/will be disappeared for ever. It is also likely that, in the intervening 18 months or so, a certain amount of "essential and lawful housekeeping" will have been performed on the CRU computers and accessories.
Not sure what the point of all this is everyone seems to be going round in circles
Are you saying NC is corrupt or just poor at investigating
KnR, are you trying to imitate my accent? Are you a comedian, sir? ;-)
With the new revelations over the weekend about Neil Wallis' involvement in unusual payments to the police on behalf of his clients, and given that Neil Wallis was employed by UEA when this unusual payment happened - I think there are some real questions that need to be asked here.
This posting may revive big time with the latest news. You may have found a gem here.
More information is now coming to light. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/news-of-the-world-sean-hoare . In the NotW scandal, it seems that the police are accused of selling location services. If a reporter wanted to know the location of Hugh Grant, for example, it is alleged that people inside of Scotland Yard would provide that information to the reporter using ping locating technology. Its a very slippery slope once the Police get to the point where they think its OK to sell services. The 'forensic services' described in this post could be another example. Is it proper for a potential object of an investigation to procure 'services' from the police? Could this payments also have a corrupting influence on the Police? And finally, did Neil Wallis understand the corrupting influence and was using the procurement of services to achieve a particular end with the police (which would appear to be a particular specialty of his)? UEA has some explaining to do and I doubt they will be able to simply remain silent in the coming days and weeks.
It is entertaining to speculate that UEA CRU may contact Wallis to get his recommendation for someone to handle covertly the PR for a probable upcoming investigation of Wallis' post-climategate PR work done for the UEA CRU.
Irony is so much fun.
John
Response from Norfolk Constabulary,
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/uea_payments#incoming-195195
@ Niklas, finally a complete response to the FOIA. I don't know why they just didn't provide this in the first place. On the surface, this seems like an adequate explanation of the payment. Note that the QinetiQ invoice amount matches the amount that the Norfolk Constabulary billed UEA. It seems to be just a normal transaction.
I've been reviewing the credit card statements, and it appears that our spending patterns have changed significantly this month.