Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Wikileaks and Climategate

There is a fascinating strand of Wikileaks where Julian Assange, the founder, claims the credit for the release of emails from CRU on 17th November 2009. People familiar with the Climategate chronology are not impressed. For example, Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit contrasts the real time line with that given by Assange.  




Ross McKitrick says this of the video:
"They evidently like leaks that embarrass their political opponents, but in this case they found themselves tagged with a leak that had damaged the side they like; and since it seems to be more about political warfare against governments they dislike than some impartial ideal of transparency and freedom of information, they were stuck scrambling to make up a story about how it really served some nobler purpose. Of course they should simply have said that they weren’t the source of the leak, that it was in full circulation long before anyone looked to them for a copy and they didn’t know much about the details of what followed. But that would have been too humble, especially in front of a room full of simpering hero-worshippers. So they pretended to be insiders and proceeded to deliver a few minutes of sheer drivel."

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