cc: "Osborn Timothy Dr \(ENV\)" date: Tue Jul 28 09:19:16 2009 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: FOIA requests for 'confidentiality' agreements to: "Palmer Dave Mr \(LIB\)" , "Colam-French Jonathan Mr \(ISD\)" , "Mcgarvie Michael Mr \(ACAD\)" , "Ogden Annie Ms \(MAC\)" Dear All, Here are a few other thoughts. From looking at Climate Audit every few days, these people are not doing what I would call academic research. Also from looking they will not stop with the data, but will continue to ask for the original unadjusted data (which we don't have) and then move onto the software used to produce the gridded datasets (the ones we do release). CRU is considered by the climate community as a data centre, but we don't have any resources to undertake this work. Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get - and has to be well hidden. I've discussed this with the main funder (US Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data. We are currently trying to do some more work with other datasets, which will get released (as gridded datasets) through the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC). This will involve more than just station temperature data. Perhaps we should consider setting up something like this agreement below [1]http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/surface/met-nerc_agreement.html I just want these orchestrated requests to stop. I also don't want to give away years of hard effort within CRU. Many of the agreements were made in the late 1980s and early 1990s and I don't have copies to hand. I also don't want to waste my time looking for them. Even if I were to find them all, it is likely that the people we dealt with are no longer in the same positions. These requests over the last 2.5 years have wasted much time for me, others in CRU and for Dave and Michael. Some of you may not know, but the dataset has been sent by someone at the Met Office to McIntyre. The Met Office are trying to find out who did this. I've ascertained it most likely came from there, as I'm the only one who knows where the files are here. See you all later. Phil At 17:49 27/07/2009, Palmer Dave Mr \(LIB\) wrote: Folks, A brief summary of where we are currently. I have 42 requests with virtually the same wording as below: "Pursuant to the Environmental Information Regulations, I hereby make an EIR/FOI request for the following information in respect to any confidentiality agreements affecting CRUTEM station data involving station data in [insert country names] 1. the date of such agreement; 2. the parties to the agreement; 3. a copy of that part of the agreement that prevents further transmission of the data to non-academics 4. a copy of the entire agreement I am requesting this information as part of my academic research." I have a further 3 requests asking for the actual data that was sent to Georgia Tech plus one asking for station data from some islands in the Pacific These will be handled under EIR. I have another 5 requests that include more than just the 'standard' request above. I have been in touch with the ICO today twice and also have consulted my HEI colleagues and the essentials are as follows: 1. We will have to acknowledge and administer these requests individually regardless of the response or approach taken. Lots of work to be done listing requests I fear. 2. We can 'aggregate' the requests for the purposes of assessing the time/work in locating & retrieving the requested information but the aggregation only goes to our ability to claim a section 12 appropriate limit exemption. Options for handling the requests 1. Business as usual - treat each request individually and respond accordingly. Could be very time-consuming although I suspect that the answer will be the same for many of them; namely that we do not have the requested data. This will set them off as we claimed with Mr. McIntyre that agreements prevented us from disclosing information - I doubt that they will see the nuances that only some of the information was covered by such agreements & we cannot release the lot without breaching one of them. 2. Vexatious request (section 14) - the test is difficult but we clearly can show that there has been a coordinated effort here but we have to show at least one (and probably more) of the following a. is the request obsessive b. is it harassing the authority or causing distress to staff c. would compliance impose a significant burden on the authority d. is the request designed to cause disruption or annoyance e. does the request lack serious purpose or value f. is the request vexatious in context, part of a wider pattern of behaviour that makes it vexatious I think (a), (c), (d) & (f) might apply although individually, the requests are legitimate and are not meant solely to disrupt us. 'They' are aware of this option as comment no. 115 on the climateaudt.org website notes: "Isn't there a risk that the appearance of a concerted campaign can be used as evidence that the requests are "vexatious" which is one of the UK FOI's exceptions? Especially as the wording is all but identical? I think it's possible they may try this line of defence. However, the inquiries are not really vexatious. We're just trying to find out which countries these supposed confidentiality agreements apply to. Then we could FOI the rest. OTOH, if Phil Jones really doesn't have any records of such agreements One thing is for sure. David Palmer is not going to appreciate this pile of FOI requests and he will be motivated to resolve the impasse in a way that doesn't reflect poorly on himself and his office. I expect he'll kick it upstairs. Further, if the press get interested, I doubt that the institutions are going to put up with Jones' precious behaviour much longer." I think we can all guess the reaction if we hit everyone with a section 14 ruling, regardless of the validity of it's application.this would surely go to the ICO eventually. 3. Information available (section 21) - the approach here would be to respond to Mr. Montford's request (FOI_09-53) knowing full well that everything we send electronically will be on the 'whatdotheyknow' website (and we can hope he digitises the 'agreements' and puts them up) - we then cite section 21 for everyone else and point them at his website. The alternative would be to post the agreements on the CRU website and point them there. 4. Hybrid approach - Hit everyone with a section 14 BUT tell them that we are responding to a request for ALL agreements and will be posting whatever is found and sent. General points - 1.We are going to have to monitor the press as a number of the requesters are very 'legit' academics in their own right and would not be dismissed as the 'usual suspects' 2. Regardless of how we approach this we can expect further interaction with these folks - my take would be to publish as much as we possibly can and eliminate the hassle of constantly responding to FOIA/EIR requests (although it does keep me employed!); the larger issue is how to manage our relationship with these folks so that we can avoid this request bombardment in future. 3. Interaction with Mr. McIntyre - he has appealed our decision not to send the Ga. Tech data & we will have to respond in some fashion to this The initial stage is 'informal' led by moi and I wonder how 'informal' and open I should be with Mr. McIntyre in terms of communication and working with him to achieve a satisfactory result Thats it for now - see you tomorrow! Cheers, Dave ____________________________ David Palmer Information Policy & Compliance Manager University of East Anglia Norwich, England NR4 7TJ Information Services Tel: +44 (0)1603 593523 Fax: +44 (0)1603 591010 Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------