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Comment by leothekim | Hacker News Reader

"Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) wants thousands of e-mails among scientists and NOAA’s staff of political appointees that he thinks will show that the researchers had something to hide when they refuted claims that global warming had “paused” or slowed over the past decade."

Apparently climate change science is not in the published research itself, but can only be found by going through someone's email. What bald-faced douchebaggery.

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This is really dirty politics. Even if Lamar can't find anything that actually supports his argument he can drop embarrassing or out-of-context emails to the press in an attempt to discredit scientists.

The existence of fifty peer-reviewed articles supporting intelligent design (http://www.discovery.org/id/peer-review/) suggests to me that peer-review is not always the be-all and end-all of a scientific investigation.

There have been numerous accusations that raw climate data is 'processed' using questionable assumptions. I can’t judge that but I would that thought it's better to get to the truth rather than dismissing such claims out of hand with a demeaning personalized epithet. This is especially so given that truly enormous sums of money are at stake.

Getting to the truth might well involve examining professional communications between people people supported by taxpayers' cash.

It's indeed an exercise in douchebaggery, but the fact is, Smith has the right to subpoena the emails. They're public property.

If you saw The Martian, you might remember the arguments among NASA managers about how much information on Watney's predicament should be revealed to the public. It was pointed out that their only legal option was to lay it all out there. That's pretty much how government agencies actually work, and it's not a bad thing.

The actual power being used here, the Congressional subpoena power, doesn't have anything to do with whether something is public property or not, so that isn't the basis they're claiming. It's a general quasi-judicial investigatory power, which can be used to compel any person to both appear physically, and turn over any documents in their possession that Congress, in their sole discretion, believes might be important to decisions made by Congress. That obviously has significant scope for abuse, which is why Congressional subpoenas tend to be controversial, especially if they're fishing expeditions.

Regardless of the legal details, they don't get to keep their .gov emails private if someone with the proper authority requests them. That's part of the deal when you sign on with Uncle Sam.

> Smith has the right to subpoena the emails. They're public property.

Not necessarily -- they might be, ianal, but it's not the case that all government e-mails are automatically part of the public record. I recall from back in my journalism days that government workers have some assurance of confidentiality w/r/t e-mail communications if that assurance is needed to effectively carry out their job.

I dislike the idea of government secrecy at all, but the scientists have a better case for keeping their emails secret than negotiators did to keep the TPP treaty details secret.

Agreed. But Smith is using a legal process in an attempt to subvert a scientific one. In my humble opinion, that's the crux of the douchebaggery.

> Smith has the right to subpoena the emails.

Government officials, exercising their office, do not have "rights" from their office, they have "powers". Its important to distinguish between those concepts.

Smith has the power to issue subpoenas, and Congress has the power to impose consequences if it believes that valid subpoenas from its officers have been denied (there are some options for judicial enforcement as well, but they are both less likely to be legally available and more practically difficult to apply if they are available against executive officers, so are mostly irrelevant.)

I generally agree. Climate science (among other research topics) are really politically charged. Those scientists will get death threats.

I don't believe the good congressman Smith is actually trying to get people killed. There is no indication he's making a good faith effort to understand their findings, he's looking to justify his beliefs. And that's ok, i guess. The good people of texas have a lot riding on oil being safe to burn. They should do everything they can to keep that oil flowing. But they shouldn't be endangering the researchers specifically.

The only acceptable risk to impose on the scientists, is the same risk we all face collectively. We collectively need to make decisions about climate change based on NOAA's findings. Don't shoot the messenger.

As a reminder, Lamar Smith was the creator of SOPA in the House. After that whole mess, they let this guy be in charge of the Science Committee in the House...

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