Congress has just sent a letter that begins “Dear Dr. Shukla,”
Among other things, it requests documents not be destroyed. Those interested may find the full letter at
Shukla.pdf.
Enjoy!
226 thoughts on “Congress to Shukla”
Comments are closed.
Congress has just sent a letter that begins “Dear Dr. Shukla,”
Among other things, it requests documents not be destroyed. Those interested may find the full letter at
Shukla.pdf.
Enjoy!
Comments are closed.
For those who haven’t been following this (I hadn’t), some background:
Climate Audit — shuklas gold
WUWT — 4 million nsf grant while shuklas organization is being dissolved
WUWT — backfile on the rico 20…
I’m still reading about it, but I inexplicably find that I can bear news of shuklas’ misfortune with surprising fortitude and good cheer somehow.
And once again irony increases. It’s kind of like the time I found a praying mantis eating a lizard. Bug eater eaten by bug. I’m reasonably sure the RICO 20 didn’t expect their letter would get at least one of them investigated.
Am I the only person who just doesn’t care that much about this story? At its worst, it looks like nobody really broken any laws. Some people might have violated some policies, but even that’s not clear. Mostly, it just looks like some people taking advantage of government grants to pocket quite a bit of money.
Which is bad, don’t get me wrong. It just doesn’t seem like the story so many people are acting like it is. The only thing about the story that strikes me as truly important is something the letter lucia links to focuses on (and most other people seem to largely ignore) – the IGES engaged in political activity while being almost completely funded by the federal government.
That troubles me a lot more than whether or not people have found a way to get some grift out of the system. They’ve always done that, and they always will. There will always be a struggle to prevent it. But people openly engaging in political activity on the taxpayer’s dime? That’s a different story.
Leaves falling all around
Time for a Shukla Haiku
So read it and weep
Andrew
Brandon
Those same people used the government funds to undertake efforts to get the government to throw RICO at others with whom they disagree. This makes the story interesting to me.
Well… yes. I’m not sure why you think people are largely ignoring this aspect.
“the IGES engaged in political activity while being almost completely funded by the federal government”
Well, they posted the letter on the IGES site, which looks like a breach of something, so they took it down. But otherwise it’s just scientists writing a letter. I can’t see that significant government funding was involved.
“it’s just scientists writing a letter”
I don’t put much stock in what scientists write anymore, either.
Andrew
The ‘optics’ are as bad as the blatant milking of the system. My guess is that there have been multiple failures to comply with legal technicalities, but these may not be enough to sink the Shuklas, since apparently both funding agencies and George Mason new (or should have known) where the money was going.
.
It is the unseemly money grabbing by a well known climate change scientist which is politically damaging. Setting up an independent taxpayer funded “non-profit” corporation and giving yourself and your wife a huge salary from public funds is simply obscene. It’s sort of like the expense-account funded junkets to climate science symposiums which are held in exotic (and preposterously expensive) locations, but much more blatant.
.
George Mason has already started the process of damage control (dissolving the non-profit corporation and folding its operations into GM), but no matter what they do, this looks very bad… ether very sloppy control by funding agencies and George Mason, or eye-wink acceptance of a very dubious financial arrangement with a favored individual. Taxpayers need only hear the story, and they will draw appropriate conclusions.
Nick,
(1) IGES was almost completely funded by the government funded. (2) IGES undertook to efforts to get the government to throw RICO at those with whom their owners/employees etc disagree. Those efforts involved posting a letter on their official web page.
This means “Those same people used the government funds to undertake efforts to get the government to throw RICO at others with whom they disagree. ”
Its true we don’t know how much of the money they used to play partisan politics. I should have expanded to “…used [at least some unknown portion] the government funds to undertake … ”
Of course scientists are free to write letters and even post them publicly. Of course it remains to be seen precisely what happened here. But I think it’s interesting.
I also think some members of Congress are justified into investigating to figure out a number of things including:
1) What proportion of the government funds granted to IGES perform research were diverted to purely partisan activities?
2) Did double dipping occur and if it did, how is it that such double dipping can occur? If it can do so legally, then legislators may wish to adjust laws so that it cannot in the future.
.
Both are important issues because Congress ought to care whether tax payer funds intended for research are used for research or whether they are used for other activities. Also they ought to care whether the existing constraints on expenditures and things like “double dipping” work as intended. Otherwise, money can be diverted from the intended function (here research) to something else.
.
It really doesn’t matter much which intended function was diverted. Congress would be equally justified in investigating suspected mis-allocation of moneys to buy reams of paper for the military if such was suspected. That said: that this story centers around climate change and did involve partisan efforts on the part of IGES to jail people with whom IGES disagreed for their speech and beliefs does tend to make the story interesting.
Nick Stokes,
“But otherwise it’s just scientists writing a letter. I can’t see that significant government funding was involved.”
.
Either you are trying to be funny, or you are being ridiculous. Most everyone understands what was going on with the obscene salary, and most everyone understands that the public doesn’t fund climate scientists to lobby the government for policies they like… even though too many of them regularly do. The suggestion of criminal prosecutions under RICO laws was just too over-the-top to be ignored. All that has followed (and all that will follow) is a direct result of the foolish decision to write and sign a letter urging prosecution of those they disagree with.
.
I am reminded of a comment made by some numb skull who advocated immediate and forced draconian reductions in fossil fuel use, but was perfectly happy with Al Gore flying around in his private jet to visit his multiple mansions. Same kind of tone-deaf comment as yours Nick.
lucia:
Er, it wasn’t those same people. It was one of those people. His name was first though, so I guess he might have been the organizer behind it? I’m not sure.
Because I haven’t seen any real discussion of it. For instance, I haven’t seen anyone even say whether or not it’s forbidden. I think it is, but I’m not sure.
It could also be that IGES had nothing to do with the letter. Their statement says the letter was inadvertently posted to their site. That might be true. Shukla might have just needed a place to host the letter so he could provide a link to people and thought, “Hey, I have a website, I’ll post it there” without considering the ramifications. Then, once people realized IGES can’t be involved with things like that, they took the letter down.
I read about RICO here. Seems to me it wasn’t meant for this sort of thing. I’m not familiar with the use of RICO against tobacco companies (1999-2006) that the letter refers to; probably need to look into that.
Brandon,
Yes. But given who he is relative to IGES and what decision making authority he has and/etc that means IGES had something to do with it.
If Joe Bast puts something on Heartlands web site, Heartland has something to do with it. This isn’t like a stray college intern posting something because it’s convenient. It’s someone who has the right to make major decisions about company resources using them to post a letter advocating something.
Sure.
I get that Shukla may not have been devoting much in the way of resources.
It may have been a simple thoughtless screwup. But the screw up did involve using IGES resources and causing IGES to have some involvement. It’s true, that “some” may turn out to be small or miniscule. But it is not “none”.
That said: even if the amount of resources devoted to the partisan goal turns out to be small, as a consequence, the salary drawn by Shukla and his wife has come to light. Even if no rules were breached, I’m pretty sure that is not the intention of the funding agencies — and if it’s their intention, I’m pretty sure it was never Congresses intention for the agencies to permit this.
So I think it’s definitely worthwhile for Congress to investigate how that much money can go to two people. If it can happen with no violation of the rules then the rules need to be adjusted so they better reflect what Congress actually intends. Investigations are often warranted when there is no rule breaking. In fact, they are sometimes advisable to observe whether or not programmatic rules actually do what we want them to do.
Brandon,
There were 5 signatories to the RICO letter from Shukla’s organization (COLA), not just Shukla. All are compensated (at least in part) by the “non-profit” corporation’s public funding.
SteveF,
“All are compensated (at least in part) by the “non-profit†corporation’s public funding.”
Yes. But how does that create an obligation of silence? What rules do you have in mind?
Mark B,
“Seems to me it wasn’t meant for this sort of thing. I’m not familiar with the use of RICO against tobacco companies (1999-2006) “
RICO sanctions the behaviour of Organizations. And that is what their letter was about. It’s unlikely that action against individuals could come under RICO (especially individual opinions), and I can’t see that this letter made any such proposal.
Sheldon Whitehouse has been using the analogy of the (successful) civil action that was taken against tobacco companies under RICO.
lucia:
Sure. It obviously had something to do with the letter as soon as the letter got posted to its website. That’s true by definition. I meant IGES might not have had anything to do with the letter beyond the obvious, “Had it uploaded to their server.”
As in, IGES might not have had anything to do with the brainstorming, drafting, writing or dissemination of the letter (beyond being a place people could see it via a link).
Yup. I think it’s good people are looking at the story. I think it’s something Congress should look into. I just don’t find it very interesting myself. I’ve seen so many stories about financial improprieties off climate blogs, reading one on climate blogs seems… eh. I was just curious if anyone else felt the same way.
SteveF:
Oh? Shows how much I’ve looked into this issue. I’ve read over a dozen posts/articles on this topic now, but I haven’t done any research of my own or followed the comment threads. I’m not sure why none of the pieces I’ve read managed to mention anyone other than Shukla and his family though.
Nick
No one said being compensated by IGES creates an obligation of silence. Brandon’s characterization made it appear the letter on in IGES sites might have merely been posted by one person in some manner that somehow might barely involve IGES.
In reality, it was signed by a number of IGES employees, hosted at their site, and placed there by a very prominent company employee with decision making ability. That is: IGES’s involvement looks more than incidental. Of course it remains to be seen exactly how this happened, but it looks a lot like IGES being involved in partisan politics.
Yes. RICO has been stretched past its original intention which, at the time it was passed, was “organized crime”. Using it for other things is well established. Some support these uses; others don’t.
Does someone have a link to the original letter? Surely someone copied it and put it online!
Breibart reproduced the content of the letter:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/19/climate-alarmists-obama-use-rico-laws-jail-skeptics/
Nick Stokes:
I’m pretty sure SteveF didn’t say anything to suggest it did. If we quote his whole comment:
We see he was correcting my factual mistake where I said only one person who signed the letter calling for action under the RICO law was involved with the current controversy. I don’t see any particular reason to assume there was more to his comment than that.
Would you care to explain why you assume there was some deeper meaning Nick?
Lucia,
Judith Curry has it here.
lucia, you can find it via the original link with the wayback machine here.
Brandon,
Well, he said earlier that
“the public doesn’t fund climate scientists to lobby the government for policies they like”
The drift is that because scientists get government funding, there are some things they just mustn’t say. And somehow, especially if it is through IGES. So I wondered what the rules are supposed to be.
Brandon,
SteveMc wrote
Earlier in the post he discusses the GMU professors.
No, it’s very likely. A RICO indictment is serious business. (See also here.)
The most famous case of an individual prosecuted under RICO was Michael Milken. Drexel Burnham Lambert, the firm for whom he worked, was also forced to cop a plea.
Thanks for the link Lucia.
Nick,
Thanks for your response.
I might have been ambiguous about which letter I was referring to. From the link:
I might not be reading the whole letter carefully enough, but it seems the request is for a RICO investigation of ‘corporations and other organizations’ which are not specifically named.
Brandon,
Judy also noted the other IGES affiliates:
The IGES letter doesn’t name anyone. But it advocates following Senators Whitehouses plan
Whitehouses had recently written a proposal and that proposal does name an individual: Willie Soon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html
Nick and Brandon: Thanks for the links to the letters.
Mark,
“I might have been ambiguous about which letter I was referring to”
I was referring to the same letter. There has been much venting about how they are supposed to be wanting to prosecute skeptics or some such. But in fact they are supporting a call for action similar to that against tobacco companies. No individual scientists, smoking supporters etc were targeted in that case. That doesn’t come under RICO.
Nick
Nick, I know you are not American. But RICO was always structured to put individuals in jail. Specifically, it was written so that Mafia bosses could be jailed for specific actions undertaken by their organizations even if the actual hits, drug deals etc were done by lower-level criminal in the organizations. The entire point was to be able to put individual in jail.
Organizations cannot be put in jail. Also, the purpose of RICO was never to do something like fine an organization for it’s bad behavior. (Imagine fining the mafia!)
DeWitt,
“The most famous case of an individual prosecuted under RICO was Michael Milken.”
He was prosecuted for his corporate activity. Making lots of illegal money. Not for holding deviant opinions.
Thanks Nick.
I guess I’m glad Big Oil never got around to sending me a paycheck for my comments after all. :>
It doesn’t make me feel any better, actually, even if what you’re saying is correct and this isn’t a call for RICO against individuals but organizations instead. I find it disturbing that educated, intelligent scientists buy into an idea that I suspect would be readily dismissed as a conspiracy theory if the parties involved were switched. I don’t think this leads anywhere anybody sane wants to go.
Lucia,
“But RICO was always structured to put individuals in jail. Specifically, it was written so that Mafia bosses could be jailed… “
It is structured to hold individuals responsible for their corporate activity. But in the case Whitehouse is invoking, the sole defendant was Philip Morris. And the judgment said, in part:
“In that opinion, the Court held that, because the RICO statute allows only forward-looking remedies to prevent and restrain violations of the Act, and does not allow backward-looking remedies, disgorgement (i.e., forfeiture of ill-gotten gains from past conduct) is not a permissible remedy.”
It’s true Milken’s, Mafia’s etc can be jailed. But no-one is suggesting here that that part of the Act would be appropriate.
Mark,
“I don’t think this leads anywhere anybody sane wants to go.”
I don’t think action under RICO is appropriate either. And I don’t think it would go anywhere. But I don’t think people should be not allowed to speak of it.
Nick,
Yes. I saw you made this point here:
I’m not sure I disagree with you. But then, I’m still catching up and I’m not entirely sure this is the whole issue yet. It may well be, but I’m not there yet.
Nick,
I know there are cases where the defendant is an organization. But you have been suggesting that it’s unlikely to be an individual. When written, the target was individuals and it still generally is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
Nick,
I think Lucia already nailed this.
.
But I’m open to counter arguments. 🙂
Lucia
“The IGES letter doesn’t name anyone.”
It doesn’t even name IGES.
Nick
The point is: He was prosecuted as an individual. The is the most common use of RICO. Are there exceptions? yes. Because under US law, corporations can be treated as individuals. But RICO is most specifically tailored to make individuals responsible for illegal corporate behavior.
Not sure what your point is. No one has suggested jailing those who signed the letter or Sen. Whitehouse for speaking of RICO. People are:
(a) Criticizing Whitehouse and IGES for wanting the government to use RICO as an instrument to carry out a partisan agenda and
(b) Calling for investigations to determine if the government funded entity IGES was using government funds to conduct a partisan campaign which happened to call for unnamed others whose characteristics were to hold views on climate change IGES disagrees with to be prosecuted under RICO.
Criticizing others for their views as in (a) is fine. Prosecuting them under RICO is not. Criticizing people for calling for their opponents to be prosecuted for their political views is not ok.
Private government funded groups using government funds meant for research to pursue partisan agenda’s is also not ok.
Lucia,
I said
“It’s unlikely that action against individuals could come under RICO (especially individual opinions)”
Of course, individuals can be sanctioned for their responsibility for the actions of Organizations. I’m saying that they are unlikely to be sanctioned under RICO for their actions as individuals (eg skeptics), as opposed to actions through organizations. And this is not implied in the “RICO letter”.
Laptop just died so this will be brief. lucia, I hadn’t read Judith’s post, but Steve’s post is part of the reason I believed Shukla was the only one. Notice, he calls the professors long time associates of Shukla, not members of IGES. And he explicitly talks about how Shukla and Kinter got paid, not mentioning anyone else.
It’s hard to read that as telling the reader they were part of and paid by IGES. I suspect Steve may not have realized theyy were at the time.
Individuals beside Willie Soon have been named. Representative Grijalva, D AZ, sent letters to the presidents of the universities employing (or had employed, as Lindzen is retired) David Legates, John Christy, Judith Curry, Robert Balling, Roger Pielke Jr., Steven Hayward and Richard Lindzen demanding all financial information about them. No rational person would label Judith Curry and Roger Pielke Jr. with the D word, and the rest are highly questionable. But apparently anyone who breathes a word that any aspect of the alarmist climate doctrine might not be absolutely true is at risk.
Nick
Thanks for clarifying. The problem is, you have the concern backwards.
Obviously, you don’t need RICO to a sanction an individual for illegal actions done by that individual.
The concern is individuals could be sanctioned as individuals for the actions they did not themselves undertake but which were undertaken by an organizations in which they were involved. That’s what RICO was designed to do. It was designed to put the “Capo” (or others authority in the organization) in jail for illegal actions carried out by his lieutenants.
FWIW: if the actions are not illegal, it doesn’t matter who did them nor whether they were done inside an organization or outside. RICO doesn’t transform legal actions into illegal actions by virtue of the legal actions being done through an organization.
Brandon
Steve tends to have a specific focus in an individual post. That post was not actually about the letter and who signed it. It was a discussion of just how much money was going to IGES and those involved in it, and what paths it took.
That his individual posts are on individual topics should not be taken to mean that he is ignoring all other topics. He writes many posts and he often waits to collect together issues that surround a specific topic.
Think of it like chapters in a book. Often writers will organize chapter 1 discusses topic 1 and Chapter 2 discusses topic 2 and so on. Suppose you read chapter 11 and don’t see anything about topic 1. That doesn’t mean topic 1 was ignored.
But as it happened, Steve did mention the other signatories existence. But he didn’t go on and on about that because that post wasn’t “about the letter”. It was “about the money”.
“I don’t think people should be not allowed to speak of it.”
Someone decided they should not be allowed to speak it, because someone removed it.
Andrew
Nick,
No. He was prosecuted for his individual activity. The corporation that employed him was later charged under the theory that they are responsible for the activities of their employees. They copped a plea to a lesser offense, as I noted above.
The prosecution wouldn’t be for holding opinions, it would be for actively expressing those opinions in public because they were paid to do so, not because they actually believed those opinions to be correct. Hence the requests for information about funding.
Lucia,
“No one has suggested jailing those who signed the letter”
No. But SteveF seems to argue that they mustn’t do that because they have received government funding through IGES.
“happened to call for unnamed others whose characteristics were to hold views on climate change IGES disagrees with to be prosecuted under RICO”
There’s no call for people to be prosecuted because of their views. There is a call for organizations to be restrained from doing something (not sure what). The Philip Morris case is the cited precedent.
“It was designed to put the “Capo—
I don’t think skeptics would come under that heading.
DeWitt
“Representative Grijalva, D AZ, sent letters to the presidents of the universities employing (or had employed, as Lindzen is retired) David Legates, John Christy, Judith Curry, Robert Balling, Roger Pielke Jr., Steven Hayward and Richard Lindzen demanding all financial information about them.”
Indeed. Very similar to the letter noted in this post.
Hence my comment way up thread about irony increasing. The biter bit, or hoist by their own petard.
Nick
Why do you think SteveF seemed to argue that? He said they were foolish to sign it because it lead to investigations that revealed the vast amount of funding and so on. That’s not the same as suggesting the mustn’t do it.
Oh?
Could that be having expressed views about climate change that IGES doesn’t like?
It is a precedent for using RICO with a corporation itself as a defendant. But that expanded RICO. It didn’t limit it. When one calls for RICO and is not specific about the precise charge or who is to be charged, that’s potentially pretty strong. If those calling for RICO want less criticism, they can be more specific and tell us precisely who they think should be charged under RICO and for what.
Which ones? The Koch brothers could be seen as “Capo”.
Nick,
Do you base your statement
On this?
Lucia,
“Why do you think SteveF seemed to argue that?”
SteveF said:
” the public doesn’t fund climate scientists to lobby the government for policies they like”
“All are compensated (at least in part) by the “non-profit†corporation’s public funding.”
What the scientists actually did was sign a letter supporting a RICO action. And it sure sounds like he’s saying they shouldn’t do that because they have received government funding.
“When one calls for RICO and is not specific about the precise charge”
They were pretty specific:
“One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.”
and
“The methods of these organizations are quite similar to those used earlier by the tobacco industry. A RICO investigation (1999 to 2006) played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking.”
Mark,
I wasn’t aware of that from Klinger (on the GMU site), but yes, it seems quite explicit. He also says:
“A RICO suit like the one we propose would be very narrowly focussed on whether companies were engaged in fraud in order to continue selling a product which threatens to do harm.”
He explicitly denies that they are proposing that anyone should be proceeded against because of their views.
Thanks Nick.
For my part, I think it’s a poor choice of words to say ‘No one is trying to throw anyone in jail’ when what is meant is ‘We aren’t trying to throw anyone in jail’. Perhaps I’m picking an idiomatic nit, but the list of people who appear to support throwing people in jail appears to me to be neither trivial in number nor lacking the names of prominent figures involved in the science and/or the debate.
I have not verified the claims in the link I provided. I will spend some time exploring this, I invite you to do so as well.
Mark,
“I have not verified the claims in the link I provided.”
I think you should. Read carefully what is called for. Almost always, it is for actually being responsible for some government or corporate activity with actual results deemed harmful. The first one quoted there is Suzuki, calling for government politicians to be “thrown into the slammer”. Then there are proposals that various company executives should be put on trial.
I think those calls are ill-founded. But I don’t see any-one threatened with punishment for merely having skeptical views. There may be those who say they are bad people. That happens a lot on the internet. Some even think it of me 🙁
Thanks Nick.
.
I know, right? I’ve heard the same darn thing about yours truly. Can you believe it. 😉
.
But were we talking about punishment for merely having skeptical views? I was under the impression we were talking about punishment and whether anybody would go to jail.
.
I’ll go ahead and agree that by and large, I have seen no evidence to support the idea that anybody worth talking about advocates sending people to jail merely for having skeptical views. I didn’t realize this was at issue. Thanks for clarifying.
.
[Edit: In looking back over the thread, I find abundant evidence that this was indeed what you were talking about. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I was on a different page.]
Nick
I’m not seeing specificity. (a) who would they be charging? Sorry, but “corporations” is not specific. what are the charges? Alluding to tobacco companies having been charged with issues surrounding dangers of doesn’t tells us anything about the supposed charges are.
But if you can tell tell what specific thing you find in there, perhaps I’ll believe that’s “specific”.
Oh? Your assembling sentences from for different comments making different points. Not seeing how you believe he’s trying to say what you claim. But SteveF is here. He can tell us.
Mark Bofill
As far as I can tell, we haven’t been. Nick appears to be trying to rebutt arguments no one has made.
Lucia,
.
Yeah. Nick is such a tease, to use a metaphor in dubious taste. He all but convinces you he’s committed to a position where you can nail him and then he slips away with a smile.
.
hmm. Pretty creepy. I ought to work on refining my metaphors.
Lucia,
“But were we talking about punishment for merely having skeptical views?
…
As far as I can tell, we haven’t been. Nick appears to be trying to rebutt arguments no one has made.”
Really?
“Those same people used the government funds to undertake efforts to get the government to throw RICO at others with whom they disagree.”
“did involve partisan efforts on the part of IGES to jail people with whom IGES disagreed for their speech and beliefs”
“which happened to call for unnamed others whose characteristics were to hold views on climate change IGES disagrees with to be prosecuted under RICO”
Nick,
.
1) Are you now suggesting that holding skeptical beliefs is the same thing as holding skeptical beliefs and speaking out about them?
2)What about holding skeptical beliefs, speaking out about them, and (edit: in speaking out) misleading the public?
3)Is the important distinction whether or not the skeptic is selling something?
.
Where do you see the line drawn.
(none of these are meant to be rhetorical questions).
Mark,
No-one is likely to attract any difficulty for views they don’t speak about. So yes, I refer to spoken views. And even if wrong views mislead the public, people are still free to express them. As in blogs.
As to other criteria, you’d have to ask a RICO lawyer. I think Klinger is saying that people are using false statements to justify continuing activities that are actually harmful, and they want to stop that.
Nick,
No, I’m interested in your position. What qualifies or disqualifies someone for RICO action? If you have no opinion, fine, but then I don’t understand your basis for arguing the point with Lucia. You’d seem to be saying in this case ‘no, it doesn’t mean that, but I can’t actually tell you what it means.’
Is it Schadenfreude or is it Karma?
Mark, I’m not arguing about what might succeed under RICO – I’m arguing about what the scientists actually called for.
Actually I propose a new term “Karmenfreude”.
Definition: Taking pleasure in another’s self-imposed and deserved misfortune.
Okay. Let me try another approach to illustrate the problem I have with that.
.
Say I tell you two things that appear to contradict each other Nick. Suppose I say ‘Alarmists should be shut up because what they’re saying is both untrue and harmful to the economy.’, and then I go on to say ‘Alarmists are welcome to believe what they want and blog about it unmolested.’
.
If you complained about my first message, it would hardly be reasonable for me to rebut your complaint by pointing you to my second message, in my view.
.
Does this make sense. Am I making a false analogy in your view?
Or “Shukenfreude”?
Nick,
Please don’t misunderstand me. There’s a distinction that matters that might not be clear. I understand that you tell me you are arguing about what was called for, rather than your personal opinion about what is correct. Going back to my analogy, what was called for appears to be nonsensical. If there is a way to make sense of it and you know it, it’s pertinent. If there’s no way to make sense of it that you know, then (edit: perhaps) we agree that what was called for is nonsensical.
I linked to the trial and appellate opinions in that case here. The trial court opinion is very lengthy, but if you skip to the judge’s analysis where he applies RICO it’s not so forbidding.
Others: RICO was designed, not so much to punish racketeering activity itself, as to go after financial assets. The underlying crimes (mail fraud, wire fraud, extortion, etc.) were already crimes, and it was already a crime to aid and abet or conspire to commit those crimes.
The major criminal innovation of RICO was to make it a crime to invest the proceeds of racketeering activity in a legitimate business; that way, when mobsters invested their ill-gotten gains, they could lose their investments.
I’ve read that, very late in the Congressional debate over RICO, someone said, “Why don’t we also add a civil lawsuit, like the one that’s available for the antitrust laws?” They passed it. (This ruling describes it as an “afterthought.”) The unintended effects were huge.
The main problem is that the federal mail fraud statute is read very broadly (per this case). A federal prosecutor might be expected to exercise some discretion in deciding how far to carry the criminal statute….but a plaintiff in a civil suit (including a government plaintiff) will take it as far as the money or the cause or the political optics will allow. (RICO allows for triple damages, requires a losing defendant to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees, and can require disgorgement of investments, so it can be very expensive/profitable.)
Mark B
“Does this make sense.”
No. They aren’t arguing about statements being harmful to the economy. They are arguing about harm from actually emitting stuff that changes the atmosphere. And they aren’t even arguing for punishment – I quoted above from the tobacco judgment saying that is off the table anyway. They just want it to stop.
They’re just saying – do no harm. You can say what you like.
Thanks Joseph. That looks like a hefty download and I’m about to turn back into a pumpkin for the evening, but I will download and have a look tomorrow.
Nite all.
Thanks Nick. I don’t follow, but maybe if I hush and think it through for awhile I will.
I do appreciate your responses.
My view (as I expressed it in the CA thread) is that this is a huge issue…or at least it will be if anyone acts on it, and especially if any court allows it. People in political controversies are always accusing the other side of lying and (in the common-language sense of the word) fraud. Argue political issues for long and you will be accused of misrepresenting science, history, and law in order to deceive people. You can’t be honestly mistaken (unless you’re just plain stupid), because the other side is so obviously right, that only fools and knaves would hold the views you do. So you’re a fraudster. Whoever you are, whatever your views.
Turn those accusations into trials, and the problem would be a nightmarishly expanded version of Mann’s suit against Steyn….a scary way to shut people up, if their views aren’t fashionable.
In the tobacco decisions as I read them — and I did not do a very deep read, as the trial court opinion is quite lengthy — the defendants are accused of having done research and then covered it up to deceive their customers. I’ve heard plenty of conspiracy theorizing about energy companies and skeptical bloggers, but I’ve never yet heard a claim that fossil fuel interests are doing research that comes to “warmist” conclusions and then covering it up to deceive people into buying their products. Warmist views, even extreme ones, haven’t been covered up at all, and the science is “out there” for whoever wants to read it.
The Supreme Court once held that the “scheme to defraud” had to be a scheme to take money or property, and not “good government.” Congress added a definition to overrule that case…at least so that “the intangible benefit of honest services” could be the target of a scheme to defraud. (McNally, the case I mentioned, was an insurance kickback scheme…the state buys insurance from a certain company in exchange for kickbacks…so the state was deprived of honest services if not of money.) However, taking that a step further…to start settling political controversies by suing or prosecuting the people who express them, goes way, way beyond that language.
In the appellate tobacco case, the defendants cited the Noerr-Pennington doctrine (which comes from antitrust cases but logically applies here), which is based on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. In the antitrust context the idea is simple: You can’t take “anticompetitive” actions, but you can advocate for laws that have “anticompetitive” effects, because you (even if you are a corporation) have a right to political speech.
The tobacco companies lost that argument because the evidence was plain and clear that they did not believe what they were saying–their internal documents showed they thought nicotine was addictive; their public statements were the opposite. (Or at least that is what the trial court found.)
I haven’t seen evidence of any similar thing in the CAGW controversy…beyond the standard political argument I mention at the top of this comment: “You guys are obviously wrong so you must be lying.” And that, I hope, will never be enough to support federal prosecutions or lawsuits.
In the tobacco case, the “fraud” was in speech…in saying that tobacco was not addictive (when in fact they believed it was). The court did not enjoin them from selling the bad stuff that was addictive…that was never on the table.
What the court did do (it starts on page 1627 of the trial court opinion) is order various kinds of injunctive relief, many of them related to speech. The tobacco companies were forbidden to engage in marketing campaigns “that convey implicit health claims.” They were ordered to make “corrective statements” about the health effects of their products. They ordered them to maintain, and disclose to the public, all the industry documents disclosed in the lawsuit. (The court declined to force them to fund antismoking campaigns, as the Government wished them to do.) The only monetary remedy was costs…though I do not know how large those were.
So no, if this plan succeeds, you can’t say what you want. You get punished for saying what you want, and are forced to recant in public, like a medieval heretic.
The letter from the “RICO 20” does not limit what kind of remedies it recommends…it calls broadly for a “RICO investigation” and doesn’t specify further how the “fossil fuel industry and their supporters” are to be “stopped.” But in the end it doesn’t matter…if RICO applies here (as I believe it does not for the reasons I note above), then the federal Government has the full range of options, civil and criminal, to shut these opinions down.
Lucia,
“But SteveF is here. He can tell us.”
.
No, actually I was not, I was sleeping. I am in Budapest right now (7 time zones from Chicago).
.
WRT advocacy and public funding: There are no restrictions on individual climate scientists practicing advocacy. There are clear restrictions on publicly funded organizations (including Shukla’s organization) lobbying the government. For certain in this specific case there was involvement of the organization, and so clear violation of that restriction. The restriction exists because of the obvious conflict of interest such lobbying produces.
.
But the focus on the details of one instance is misguided. The bigger picture is that there are lots of publicly funded climate scientists (consider the Real Climate crew, Kenneth Trenberth, and many others) who have, and who continue to devote a lot of time to advocacy for public action on GHG emissions. I think the consistent, long term, continuing and strident advocacy (including, shamefully, calls for jailing corporate executives, prosecution for ‘crimes against humanity’, RICO actions) by publicly funded scientists is a real concern, in that scientists involved in research on ‘problems’ of public interest have an obvious conflict of interest: claim a bigger problem, do more advocacy, get more funding to study and, surprise, discover the problem is ‘even worse than we thought’. Round and round it goes.
.
I would not personally be opposed to placing restrictions on public advocacy by publicly funded individuals and organizations of all types, not just climate scientists. The pigs grunt too loudly for my taste when they are feeding from the public trough. (IMO, the pigs also produce huge quantities of….. um, poor quality, speculative rants that are passed off as science, but I digress.)
.
I don’t expect any such restrictions will be enacted, though I think it would be in the best public’s interest if they were.
Brandon, the local king of seeking (and failing) to tear down those with whom he disagrees by way of micro-parsing their writing is now obtusely dodging and weaving around this RICO letter.
Whoever pointed out that irony increases could have very easily had Brandon in mind….
Joseph W,
” “You guys are obviously wrong so you must be lying.†And that, I hope, will never be enough to support federal prosecutions or lawsuits.”
.
Elect another couple of presidents like Mr. Obama, and it will not be ‘never’. There are those who believe their political objectives are more important than personal liberty, economic freedom, and rule of law; they will stop at nothing. An Orwellian world, where only ‘allowed opinions’ can be voiced is (IMO) a real threat. You need look no further than the restrictions on speech at many universities to see the danger.
Nick Stokes,
1) You clearly don’t understand RICO, and what it does.
2) Organizations are made of individuals. Individuals make decisions and act, organizations do not. RICO targets individuals within an organization for their illegal actions.
Do you think the RICO20 letter falls in the ‘extremely stoooopid’ category?
“So no, if this plan succeeds, you can’t say what you want. You get punished for saying what you want, and are forced to recant in public, like a medieval heretic.”
There is a lot you have to do to fall under this particular part of RICO. The judgment (1600+pp) said, p1588
“To establish a conspiracy violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), the United States must prove each of the following elements:
1. The existence of an enterprise;
2. That the enterprise was engaged in, or its activities affected, interstate or foreign commerce; and
3. That each defendant knowingly agreed to the commission of a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1962(c).3”
This isn’t going to rope in the average sceptic. It says you have to be doing something as well as lying. In this case, a big part of it seems to be lying to induce people to smoke, despite being aware of its addictiveness and danger. It id harm.
I’m not arguing for a RICO action – I doubt there really is a case for it. I’m just arguing for accuracy in describing what they are pushing for.
Just to round that off, Sec (c) provides:
The racketeering acts were mail fraud. They say
You don’t fall into this just using robust language in an internet debate.
Nick the letter from Shukla et al supported Senator Whitehouse’s efforts to use RICO.
You are quite write that in the Shukla letter there was no direct attack on individual skeptics but…
Senator wheelhouse explicitly advocated using RICO on individuals in his written effort.
[“Sheldon Whitehouse is sitting U.S. Senator. He’s now publicly encouraging legal persecution of people who conduct scientific research and/or those that have opinions about it he disagrees with. He wrote this opinion in the Washington Post]
Hence by supporting Senator Whitehouse they were effectively supporting his use of RICO against Climate Skeptics.
But I know you know that and you deliberately omitted to mention it.
Clever tactics.
“it’s just scientists writing a letterâ€
Does not seem to equate with
‘You have signed the death warrant for science. – Peter Webster”
Does it?
lucia:
And the fact four other signatories received money from IGES is rather relevant to that topic, hence why I said I suspect he wasn’t aware of that fact. If he was aware four other signatories were members of IGES and received compensation from it, as SteveF says, it seems like the sort of thing he should and would have mentioned as they’re directly relevant to the topic he was discussing.
Well, yes. But I’m not sure why that’s relevant. I mean, unless you read my statement saying none of the pieces I read referred to anyone other than Shukla and his family in a completely literal manner? I thought it was clear that statement was meant to be taken in the context of the topic SteveF and I were discussing (because at the very least, the authors of the articles/posts would mention each other), but maybe not.
All I was meaning to say is none of the pieces I read told me any signatory other than Shukla was a member (employee/whatever) of IGES. Because of that, I got the impression the only one getting paid by it was Shukla. I had no idea four more of them were.
hunter:
I think someone is a bit delusional. I can’t imagine how anything I’ve written here could be perceived as “dodging and weaving around this RICO letter.” The most I’ve done regarding the letter is suggest its connection to IGES is limited to Shukla boneheadly using an IGES server to share it.
I struggle to imagine what hunter has in mind.
“Senator wheelhouse explicitly advocated using RICO on individuals in his written effort.”
I don’t believe that is true.
Brandon,
Struggle no more. Thanks for demonstrating how obtuse you are.
IGES… controlled by Shukla’s family. And you imply in your special way that is not significant.
IGES is a fine bit of nepotism to for Shukla to his family live the life of climate hype parasites by diverting public money to yet more efforts to “educate” the public about the climate apocalypse.
You are so Asperger’s syndrome, but there needs to be a way to add the extra “s” you so richly deserve.
By the way, a fun factoid you remind me of is that
Frogs vomit by pushing their stomachs out of their mouths and using their forearms to empty the contents.
Cheers
Brandon:
That’s not clear.
Double-dipping can be a form of fraud.
Creating fake positions and paying compensation for that can be fraud, especially if you aren’t paying them using your own funds.
In this case, you’ve potentially defrauded the US government, so it’s wouldn’t be a victimless crime.
If other people knowingly participated in an effort to defraud the US government, then that’s conspiracy to defraud (923. 18 U.S.C. § 371). So it’s possible Shukla’s wife and son were involved in a conspiracy to defraud, assuming they performed no legitimate function in their organization.
Nepotism is not illegal, except in very specific circumstances. As I understand it, in fact, anti-nepotism regulations in companies sometimes run afoul of discrimination law. If you fire the wife to hire the husband for example.
hunter, just wow.
Nick
Yes. Really. You are rebutting claims no one made. But evidently, that springs from your misunderstanding of what IGES is asking the government to do. Possibly because you are too naive to understand the way these calls for government agency investigations work.
None of the statements you quoted say the people would be jailed for their speech or beliefs. It says IGES is encouraging the government those who disagree with IGES. You many not get the difference, but it isn’t “being jailed for your beliefs”.
Similar situation: The IRS was targeting conservative groups for audits.Technically, no one was “audited for their beliefs or views”. The claim was they were audited because something in their applications or submissions looked “iffy”. Similar liberal groups were not audited.
With respect to IGES encouraging RICO charges: targets would be jailed for some other than beliefs, but which otherwise might be overlooked. Or they might just be pursued, charged and get off. But there are lots and lots and lots and lots of technical violations of all sorts of things out there. And calling for the government to focus on your political opponents is a partisan issue.
Nick,
.
So, I can be skeptical of AGW. I can ‘lie’ about AGW by denying it. However, if somebody can make a case against me that I’m ‘lying’ about AGW to induce people to burn fossil fuels, that’s crossing the line. You do not advocate this, you are saying you believe this is what the letter means.
.
Is this a fair (albeit somewhat simplified) statement of what you’re saying?
Lucia,
Yes, I agree with you. That’s the way it really works in practice.
Mark/Nick
I note Nick has now added “average” to skeptic. Previously the debate previously was whether “individuals” would be pursued. I should think people remain “individuals” even if they aren’t “average”. (I’m also not sure where the break would be. Are the Koch’s “average” skeptics ? Is Mark Morano an “average” skeptic? Individuals who work for Heartland? )
I think in reality, the letter has a certain artful vagueness. They don’t say who is to be targeted. Nick can claim all he likes that it’s somehow not individuals, but the letter doesn’t say “not individuals” nor “only corporations”. There is nothing about it that says no individuals. The characteristic that is specific: those who disagree with IGES and other signatories views on climate change.
Nick: “I think Klinger is saying that people are using false statements to justify continuing activities that are actually harmful, and they want to stop that.”
If that were a criterion for prosecution, Washington would be empty. [Perhaps not a bad thing.]
HaroldW,
Indeed. False statements and wanting to stop them goes back to before Cain and Abel and has been a perpetually unsolvable problem through the ages. I think Nick Stokes just Racehorsed himself off the turnip truck.
Andrew
Lucia,
Indeed. It becomes a slippery slope. Individual skeptics are safe. No, the average skeptic is safe. I guess we are to take comfort in the fact that we are not big enough fish to bother with. Somehow this doesn’t comfort me.
Yes. This is part of why I thought the other link I provided about activists and scientists calling for legal action against skeptics was relevant. When the application of a law is ‘fuzzy’, it becomes a tool for any enterprising politico to use for whatever purpose he can stretch it to cover. I fear this and think that in general situations like this are best avoided.
I haven’t read all of the comments, so I apologize if what I say repeats what others have said.
……
Some here have no understanding of the drastic effects of just being sued for a RICO violation. It is a very complicated law that can impose very large financial penalties. Just being sued, no matter how innocent you can be, is a horrible experience because of the expense and the way that a lawsuit impacts your ability to plan for your future. (By way of example, Arthur Anderson was put out of business for allegedly illegally shredding documents even though the Supreme Court later unanimously ruled that its conviction for obstruction of justice was fatally flawed.)
…..
I would suggest that those minimizing the effects of a RICO lawsuit (either civil or criminal) try to apply for a mortgage loan while the lawsuit is pending. I believe there are very few lenders who want to lend money to a person under the threat of a RICO verdict.
……
From a broader perspective, the request for a RICO filing shows the malevolence and obtuseness of the signers. Many misleading studies and statements are made by warmists. (For instance, Lewandowski’s work.) The warmists don’t even consider their own potential liability and just ignorantly assume that only skeptics are at risk. (I would also add that I believe James Hansen is at risk for the energy poverty deaths that have occurred in the UK because his advocacy against fossil fuels increases fuel prices.) Additionally, there are so many flaws in warmist work, that the proper goal should be to increase potentially critical reviews of their work and not reduce it. That there is a good amount of support for this letter in the warmist community shows the bad faith and ignorance of the warmists.
JD
…..
PS For those interested, I wrote a very brief summary of RICO at Climate Audit in the comment section. http://climateaudit.org/2015/09/28/shuklas-gold/
Joseph W: After posting my comment I scrolled some more and saw yours. Thanks for your very useful summary.
JD
IGES personnel, COLA personnel, GMU personnel and signers of the RICO20 letter are expected not to destroy, hide or interfere with discovery of potential evidence to possibly be provided to the congressional committee.
Damned if they don’t comply with congressional committee request. But, that will be their first temptation. (N’est ce pas?) It is the first litmus test and my anticipation of IGES and COLA is they will likely fail the test. As for whether GMU and the signers of RICO20 letter will fail the test I have no idea.
John
Carrick:
I think it is, but I was talking about how things look, so I get that can be subjective. I don’t disagree with the ideas you express, but I don’t see anything to suggest they’re at play here. Nobody has made a case for anything illegal (that I’ve seen). Maybe there is a case, but if so, I haven’t seen any hint of it.
What I’ve seen a case for is shady practices, grift and perhaps violations of various institutional policies. That’s all bad, and I am all for investigating/condemning it. I just don’t see anything which makes me think “criminal.”
(Technically, “criminal” and breaking the law aren’t the same thing, but I’m hoping we can look past that conflation as posting from my phone makes being nuanced a bit painful.)
hunter, I’m only going to respond to one part of your comment because you have to be a special sort of something to think:
Anyone else would understand suggesting IGES may not have been involved in the drafting, writing or dissemination of the letter (save as being the owner of the server where it was uploaded) does nothing to suggest IGES’s role in anything else is unimportant, especially not the enrichment of the Shukla family which I have specifically labeled a financial impropriety and grift.
As for the rest of your comment, I’m just going to quote it in full because I feel it merits highlighting. Because seriously, you have issues:
Mark Bofill,
” I guess we are to take comfort in the fact that we are not big enough fish to bother with. Somehow this doesn’t comfort me.”
.
Nor me. The issue is the entire idea that it is OK to target your political opponents using the threat of government prosecution. It does not matter if the case ultimately fails (see what happened to Arthur Anderson for example); the process is the punishment, and the threat of process is the deterrent used to silence those who oppose (see Mann V Steyn).
.
It is no coincidence that the IRS was targeting groups opposed to Mr. Obama’s political objectives for “special review” of their non-profit status, while leaving comparable left wing groups alone. I am reminded of a newspaper editorial by a former president of Brazil (who I happen to have spent an evening with some years ago). The title was (translating from Portuguese) “Flour from the same sack?”. The subject was the difference between simple corruption (the Hillary/Bill Clinton type, which is for personal financial gain) and corruption of the function of government itself, where the mechanics of governing are contorted to ensure continued growth in the power of the ruling party (along with “normal” Clintonesque/Shuklaesque financial corruption, of course). That is what was happening in Brazil at the time, and that is what IMO has been happening with Mr Obama’s regime. It is a corruption more profound than simple graft/theft: it is a betrayal of the principles upon which the moral authority to govern stands. It is ends-justifies-means, writ large. I look forward to the day Mr Obama is no longer able to corrupt the political process.
RICO was used to convict the former mayor of Providence in 2002 of running a criminal enterprise — city government. He was found not guilty of numerous specific charges, but jurors thought that the evidence (video tapes) of underlings taking bribes and the fact that the mayor could not be reasonably unaware of corrupt activity was enough to convict. He served five years in federal prison.
SteveF,
.
.
474 days, 8 hours, 24 minutes and 30 seconds. But who’s counting. 😉 I hope it’s not a countdown til Bernie, that’s all I can say.
.
I sometimes wonder if we kid ourselves in thinking our government was ever anything but … hmm, I was about to say corrupt, but that’s not exactly the right word. Malleable?
.
I’m no historian, but I vaguely recall from a history class that the people who drafted the Constitution really had no legal authority to do so, at least when they got started. The 3/5’th compromise seems like a snapshot of a country driven by the expedience of the moment rather than principle. Industrialists too successful in the Gilded Age? Screw the free market, let’s have Sherman antitrust and related. Let’s elect a trust buster. Foreign citizens rounded up and put in camps during times of war, this has happened.
.
So maybe it was always like this. I hope not. Even if it was, I don’t think we ought to continue this way. You can only rely on popular good judgement when most citizens have good judgement, I think. I’m not sure that’s true today. Again, maybe I’m wrong and our citizenry never had good judgement in the first place. Maybe we muddled through by sheer luck.
.
I don’t know.
Lucia,
“None of the statements you quoted say the people would be jailed for their speech or beliefs.”
Well, I’ll quote you again
“did involve partisan efforts on the part of IGES to jail people with whom IGES disagreed for their speech and beliefsâ€
But OK, let’s deal with “jail people”. The letter is quite clear about what kind of action it proposes:
” A RICO investigation (1999 to 2006) played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking.”
Or, to quote Whitehouse, who they cite:
“Thankfully, the government had a playbook, too: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups,”
That is a civil suit, as emphasised by Klinger. No-one is going to be jailed. In fact, as per that judgment, even financial restitution (or “disgorgement”) is off the table. The suit is to restrain future actions.
And it won’t rope in the average sceptic. Or even exceptional ones. As per that judgment, the case requires not only an “enterprise”, but one “engaged in, or its activities affected, interstate or foreign commerce”. And most important, the defendant has to have engaged in “racketeering”.
Nick you can limit your scope to what you think is proposed in that letter all you like. It doesn’t justify your assurance that “nobody is going to be jailed.” This letter is but one element of a larger picture where plenty of activists and scientists would be glad of ‘climate Nuremberg. ” Further, regardless of what you think the letter says, you are being naive about how this would actually go down.
You seem to keep forgetting: RICO has provisions to jail people.
Beyond that: if the group only wants a civil lawsuit, they could try to file one themselves. They don’t need to get the Feds involved.
Are you under the impression this is to rope in no skeptics at all. That’s ridiculous.
Yes. But RICO can jail individuals participating in the enterprise. So I have no idea why you keep going on about the “enterprise” etc. We all know an an organization has to exist. The issue is whether individuals would be targeted: They can be under RICO. Also whether they could be jailed: They can be under RICO.
I’m not entirely sure what your point is about the defendant having to be engaged in “racketeering”. That’s a pretty broad term as defined in RICO. It can include a pattern using US mail to mail out forms!
Nick,
Be careful of thinking that the term ‘enterprise’ is a strong limiting one. Would it surprise you to hear that RICO can be used against pro-life activists?
here:
An aside, this should help clarify the role of RICO. It basically seems to me to be a political weapon for people with an agenda.
This web page describes what the courts hold as “enterprise”
That’s practically nothing. A group that forms to plan a surprise party and then disbands is an “enterprise”. Presumably it doesn’t get involved in any of the activities that can be interpreted to be “racketering”. But “enterprise” doesn’t mean much other than “planned and carried out some activity as a group”.
Lucia,
“RICO has provisions to jail people”
Yes, So does the Patriot Act. Sarbanes-Oxley. The Mann Act. And they can even jail climate skeptics. But not for being skeptics. You have to have done something. And someone has to make a case.
The scientists and Whitehouse are proposing a case. It’s what they feel may be provable under the Act. I think they are probably wrong in that. But they cite a specific precedent. And it doesn’t involve criminal prosecution.
Nick. Puhleez.
We already went round on this. We agreed that we aren’t talking about people just being skeptics, but expressing their skeptical views. You said:
of the use of RICO against tobacco companies.
If all skeptics have to do is ‘lie to induce people to use fossil fuels’, it seems to me that’s a very low bar. Fossil fuels are cheap, they’re already in use, our infrastructure supports them, they are the status quo. The only earthly reason anybody wouldn’t use them is if they’re afraid of climate change. Arguing against the validity of climate change is inducing people to use fossil fuels. QED.
Nick–
No one disputes this. Moreover, you are getting repetitive. Rather responding to this ‘point’ you keep repeating, I’ll refer you back to my response to one of the previous times you made it. See lucia (Comment #139551) .
No they aren’t. No one can describe the “case” they are proposing. You certainly haven’t.
Mentioning that RICO was used against a tobacco company is not proposing a “case”.
What they are proposing is the government pursue some unstated entity whose characteristics is “climate skeptic” under RICO. They make absolutely no statement to bound the range of actions they think the government could pursue. RICO is primarily an instrument for criminal prosecution; it also permits civil action. Mentioning the fact that RICO may be used civilly in no way takes away from the fact that RICO has strong criminal use.
Beyond that: if they wanted to limit action to civil they could jolly well do that themselves. They don’t need to suggest any government involvement whatsoever. You’re reading in the notion that the suggestion is limited to civil merely because they mention a civil option is… well.. kind toward those whose politics you agree with. But there is nothing in that letter to suggest the use of RICO by the government should be limited to civil action.
“A group that forms to plan a surprise party and then disbands is an “enterpriseâ€.”
“engaged in, or its activities affected, interstate or foreign commerce�
The surprise party would be a conspiracy. The judgment says:
” In accordance with Turkette, the Court of Appeals for this Circuit has consistently held that an association-in-fact “enterprise is established by (1) a common purpose among the participants, (2) organization, and (3) continuity,†“
RICO originally was invented in 1970 to fight organized crime, the Mafia, especially the capo di capa. Before the big bosses got away because they had the dirty work done by the lower echelon. RICO made it possible to prosecute the dons, even when they did not execute the actual crime, but because of the fact that they belong to the “enterprise”. So, despite what Stokes claims, the ultimate goal under RICO is to prosecute and convict the individual. RICO just allows a sweeping prosecution. So in theory, when people work for sceptic organisations such as GWPF, they could be prosecuted under RICO law, that is if Mr.Moneymaker Shukla gets his way.
Nick,
The group organizing it fits the definition of “enterprise”. If you want to view the plan as a “conspiracy”, I can’t stop you.
Lucia,
“They make absolutely no statement to bound the range of actions they think the government could pursue. “
They don’t have to. The government will act as it sees fit, and won’t be bound (or driven) by the scientists. The scientists just propose the case that they see.
“Beyond that: if they wanted to limit action to civil they could jolly well do that themselves. They don’t need to suggest any government involvement whatsoever. “
Yes, they could. But that is impossibly costly, and the action is for the public benefit, not their own. It is usual in these circumstances to propose government action. In any case, they probably wouldn’t have standing to sue.
[edit, sorry, rhetorical question struck]
In the U.S., anybody can sue anybody for any reason they want to in civil court, far as I know. It’s hard to sue the government sometimes, but other than that, I don’t think this is so. Anybody who knows more about this than me want to clarify the truth of this?
[Edit: Oh, I see. Nevermind. :)]
Nick
They don’t have to do anything including writing a letter encouraging the government to find some way to use RICO to pursue their political opponents. They did the latter.
So what if it’s “impossibly costly”? As far as I can tell, the action is to achieve the partisan goal of the group advocating it. If they think a civil action worth the cost they can undertake it. There is no reason to either (a) encourage the government to spend tax payer money to achieve their political goals or (b) use a statute with strong criminal penalties against their people with whom they have political differences.
It is not usual to propose the US government use RICO for partisan goals. Let’s hope it never becomes so.
If anyone was harmed, they could easily find those people with standing and use them as plaintiffs. This is pretty common in the US. (See current UBER class action etc.). Those people would have standing.
If no one was harmed they will have difficulty finding anyone with standing. But by the same token the US government should waste taxpayer moneys for this.
Of course, the letter writers might prefer the US government to waste tax payer money to achieve their partisan goals. That’s common enough. But their desire to have taxpayers pay to achieve their political goals merits quite a bit of criticism.
Mark
To get past summary judgement you need standing. I can’t sue neighbor A for some injury neighbor B. That said: I can pay neighbor B’s legal costs and encourage him to pursue the issue. If I really thought A was harming lots of people and was correct, I could hunt around for people with standing. I’d only need one of them, they I fund their suit. That possibility is open to Shukla and his signatories.
Even the the Fed needs standing to sue. So the ‘lack of standing’ can cut against the notion that the Feds could file a civil suit.
Lucia,
Yeah. ~blush~ semantics error. Anybody can sue, but without standing they go nowhere.
Thanks.
None of that is “a lot.”
A RICO “enterprise” includes “any individual, partnership, corporation…or other legal entity….and any union or group of individuals associated in fact though not a legal entity.” See the definition here.
The requirement that the act “affect” interstate commerce adds nothing at all. Since the crimes of mail or wire fraud involve using the mails or wires (which are “means of interstate commerce”), that element is always met.
For a “conspiracy” under RICO you need an agreement to commit the mail or wire fraud…but if you accept the idea that uttering things against CAGW on the internet is “wire fraud,” then being paid to do so by a dirty, evil fossil fuel company may well get you to the “conspiracy.”
But note that the letter does not limit itself to conspiracy anyway…and neither did the tobacco decision. (It found violations of 1962(c) as well as 1962(d)…(d) is the conspiracy provision.)
The real point is this: to get somewhere under RICO as the letter writers wish, you have to accept that the act of promoting “doubt” (which is the subject of the authorities cited in the letter, such as Brulle’s article on funding of skeptics and books like Merchants of Doubt and Doubt Is Their Product) can be held to constitute mail or wire fraud. Without an underlying racketeering act — and those two are the most common, and the ones used in the tobacco case — there is no RICO Case.
Once the Government reaches that conclusion — which is what the letter implies — it is entirely up to the Government to decide whether to use criminal prosecutions or civil suits to punish the ones who dare speak. In fact, the Government could skip the RICO issue and just prosecute for mail or wire fraud directly.
I doubt that the letter writers understood these details — the letter doesn’t suggest that they did any legal analysis or consulted with anyone who did. But whether they understand it or not, what they are proposing is a very serious government encroachment on the freedom of speech.
I don’t like the idea of someone facing criminal prosecution for saying something deemed unpopular. Passing too many laws to the point where all are guilty of a crime, and then using prosecutorial discretion to go after those who say or act against the interests of the republic.
Would Shukla’s double dipping have been noticed if he hadn’t signed this letter?
Nitpick: To get past dismissal for lack of jurisdiction you need standing…much earlier than summary judgment.
Article III of the Constitution limits the federal courts to deciding “cases and controversies,” and the Supreme Court takes that very seriously. As far as they’re concerned, if you don’t have standing, then your case is not really a “case or controversy” — so that the federal courts lack the power to decide the case.
Yes, they could. But that is impossibly costly, and the action is for the public benefit, not their own.
The action seems to have also adversely affected Shukla’s public benefit, that’s for sure. I hope they don’t have to sell the hybrid Lexus SUV.
Regarding your remarkable statement above Nick, have you ever heard of a class action lawsuit (they’re part of the public, right)? Seems this would be one for the ages; no government request needed.
Joseph W.
Thanks. I knew it would get dismissed w/o standing. Obviously I didn’t know what for!
Terry – that wouldn’t work. If every individual member lacks standing, you can’t get standing by means of a class action.
(And I think Nick is right that none of the members would have standing under Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife.)
Joseph, I know; but that seems to be what Nick is arguing.
And even though his “public benefit” is different from a class of people harmed, we seem to hear about the latter during speeches, press releases, articles, and papers weekly. Storms are already worse, droughts are worse, climate change is here. Obama has conflated asthma recently, the University of Utah just came out with a study that climate change negatively affects birth weight, we’re supposed to have a million or so climate change refugees already, and doubtless many millions more imminently due to SLR – wait until the Joaquin reporting comes out because there was some coastal flooding. During a hurricane near miss.
Since the RICO peeps (and Nick) are arguing
1. “we meant civil, not criminal” and we continually hear that
2. “climate change is here now”
It should be a piece of cake for them to find a large group who, absent this coordinated misinformation which delayed policy actions, which then would have created a more stable climate, have a case and controversy. Right?
😉
I think, in foresight and hopefully later in hindsight that choosing Obama to be President was a wonderful choice. It followed the American pattern of promoting the rights of male minorities to be recognized before female equalities for positions. Mind you I would have been equally happy with Hilary being elected as a woman for promoting women’s rights as well as both being 6 years ago the two best candidates in style, language and hope for the future.
I do not support Obama on Health Care or Climate Change.
He promised to get the USA out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo and made great strides in this direction. His very elevation to President gave the USA carte blanch to claim that it does give every American Individual a chance at greatness [if they have greatness within them].
He has made a lot of errors but the good thing is in making errors it makes it easier for those coming after to see the way ahead.
Similarly Nick, with his arguments here, which I thank him for, helps everyone see more clearly the concepts and ideals more clearly.
It takes Australians , I guess, with our outside objectivity, to put these views forwards so clearly.
Nick stresses that the Shukla’s inadvertently got 20 co signatories to sign a letter that got accidentally posted in the IGES website which had no connection to said signatories and had been decommissioned 2 months earlier.
They have no designs or desires to send Skeptics to jail, heavens no, And Professor Shukla has done the right thing in immediately taking down the site and deleting all references to the letter.
Nick himself would never want to prosecute skeptics for being skeptics, Mark, and has stated that clearly here many times? if you read between the lines.
Angech,
I recognize that you’re being sarcastic, or ironic, or something. 🙂 Still,
I wouldn’t presume to suggest such a thing. Besides which, I’ve really got no reason to think so. I don’t know Nick at all, other than occasionally communicating with him on blogs. On such occasions, Nick has always (in my experience) demonstrated civility and basic courtesy, and as a result I extend certain default courtesies in return. Because of this, I won’t speculate without basis that he is motivated by some nefarious intent.
“But whether they understand it or not, what they are proposing is a very serious government encroachment on the freedom of speech.”
They are proposing a suit similar to the RICO tobacco suit. Freedom of speech isn’t threatened by their proposing it. If (as I suspect) the law won’t support that, well, they are barking up the wrong tree. It happens. If the law and DoJ does support it, and if that is a problem, then it is a problem with the law, not with the scientists.
Mark,
Seems to me defending a buch of activists who are asking the government to prosecute their political opponents is the antithisis of civility. Civility has a lot to do with things like defending the rights of people… even the ones you don’t agree with. IMO, anyone who offers a defense of those persuing political persecution of those who disagree with them is the exact opposite of civil. A velvet glove does not make a fist of steel a welcoming hand. A civil person would state the obvious: the RICO20 letter is despicable. Nick will never do that.
“who are asking the government to prosecute their political opponents”
I’m simply pointing out that they aren’t asking the government to prosecute their political opponents. They are civilly proposing a civil suit against certain corporations, which would have the effect of restraining them from what they are doing. I actually don’t at all support prosecution of people for political or any other views.
I honestly do not believe that there is a lot of point in trying to dissect the exact legal framework of a putative RICO investigation. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that, if actually instigated, it has sufficient breadth of scope in its terms of reference to chill the blood. The success of a witch hunt was rarely judged by how many actual witches were found. It was judged by how many were found to be guilty; the successful witchfinder-generals found many guilty witches and they were powerful and feared.
When the hunt is on, any old lady in the woods beneficially practicing herbal medicine knows enough to shut up shop and start praying very publicly.
Nick,
“I’m simply pointing out that they aren’t asking the government to prosecute their political opponents.”
.
You are delusional. The letter specificaly asks for RICO prosecution of “corporations and other organizations” that question the danger of ‘climate change’. If you had actually read and understood the comments above by US trained lawyers, you would already know that the definition of “organization” under RICO is extremely broad; the courts have held that any group of people, whether formally organized or not, who communicate with each other and who share a common objective or objectives, is an ‘organization’ which could be subject to RICO prosecution. It is probably lost on you that the RICO20 signatories are clearly within the definition of an ‘organization’ under RICO, but in light of your defense of this odious group, that does not surprise.
.
The RICO20 signatories believe that nobody who opposes their climate agenda could honestly disagree with the accuracy of warming projections, nor disagree there is justification for urgent public action to reduce fossile fuel use; therefore, anyone who opposes them is lying, corrupt, and trying to deceive the public, and so should be prosecuted. I can appreciate that activist climate scientists are frustrated, but that does not justify trying to prosecute those who are opposed to their policy agenda.
.
PaulK,
The dissection is secondary to the problem: there will always be those naieve and stupid enough to believe they are absolutely right, and so for them any means toward their desired ends is justified. What is shocking is that there are some who claim the action of the RICO20 is nothing to worry about. We already have a class of publicly funded political activists… they are called leftist politicians…. we don’t need even more leftist politicians who claim to be ‘only scientists writing a letter.’
Not one word on Sou, Stoat or ATTP.
Any other virtuous sites worth a mention?
“The letter specificaly asks for RICO prosecution of “corporations and other organizations†that question the danger of ‘climate change’.”
As often, I find it a battle to get simple facts set right. The letter did not specifically ask for prosecution. It said:
“One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.”
Investigation and prosecution are not the same. What Whitehouse proposed was a civil suit like that of the suit against the tobacco companies. That is not a prosecution, and did not lead to one.
There may be a risk that the investigation could broaden into criminal matters. That would be up to the DoJ and subject to law. It is not a requirement that the scientists should refrain from their precedented proposal just because the act provides other processes for other misdeeds.
May I then not logically propose a RICO investigation of all climate scientists who are or have been involved with the IPCC? Seems to me about the same thing. You are splitting hairs Nick, as usual. A RICO investigation IS the punishment. A RICO investigation will intimidate its targets. That is the whole point. I think you are smart enough to recogize the letter is advocating a political witch hunt, nothing less. I will waste no more time on you Nick, you sold your soul a long time ago.
SteveF
Nick is at least communicating.
He seems disingenuous in his arguing as if what we say is being taken in but translated into the opposite meaning.
Now we both know he is smarter than the arguments he is putting up and that he knows it.
So when you feel you are unable to get your point across you do know that he really is getting it.
This is where my understanding breaks down a little,
He knows that RICO is being invoked both to intimidate skeptic views and to silence them [see J Curry on this]
Also that the people proposing this would like to see skeptics punished for having views that disagree with theirs.
But he pretends that they have a conscience and moral viewpoint that is “higher” than this.
Hypocrisy from our viewpoint but not from his and theirs.
Sometimes when we engage we find that our [his] views are hurtful to others.
Sometimes this opens and engages the synapses.
What a wonderful person he would be to have on the skeptic side if he has a “Damascus” moment from engaging with you and suddenly sees what effects his arguments are having.
I know. Freedom of speech would be threatened by “it,” not by their act of “proposing it.”
Nick
RICO is not used for “investigation”.
No one said they are required to refrain from making their outrageous proposal. We are merely criticizing them for their outrageous proposition. That’s the way free speech works.
Word usage tip for Nick:
https://www.translegal.com/legal-english-dictionary/civil-prosecution
The word ‘prosecution’ does get used this way.
“Because of this, I won’t speculate without basis that he is motivated by some nefarious intent.”
But just note that Nick himself thinks some skeptics/skeptic organizations have nefarious intent. Or he wouldn’t be here racehorsing for an investigation.
Andrew
Andrew_KY,
It is ends justify means, as always with those on the green left.
Hmm.. RICO does have “investigation” provisions.
I suspect my viewpoint is a minority one, and I cringe in typing this because in a way in responding I am inviting yet another OT discussion about interactions with people instead of the topic, which I don’t really want. But I’d rather clarify this than leave it potentially misunderstood.
In my view, once we (or anybody really) starts talking about the motives of the person making an argument, it’s a form of ad-hom. Maybe Nick wants to have every last skeptic crucified (doubtful). It is conceivable to me that he instead discusses these things because it’s fun to do so (which is why I do it). Maybe angels whisper in his ear at night and tell him to. It shouldn’t matter. [Edit: what matters is, is his argument valid? Why or why not.]
Also, if one doesn’t extend a certain amount of courtesy and something analogous to reasonable safe conduct to people who disagree, in my experience it tends to discourage people with different points of view from trying to communicate. Makes life boring.
Anyways. Speaking of boring, I’ll shut up about this now.
Nick,
I agree with you here, as I do with Joseph in his response
There is a problem with the law in my view, or perhaps with the precedents and the way RICO has been interpreted / applied. I think it’s this – it shouldn’t matter why a person makes an argument. Not on blogs and not in a courtroom.
Lucia,
“We are merely criticizing them for their outrageous proposition. That’s the way free speech works.”
There is more than criticism. This comes back to the topic of the post. They are being hauled before a Congressional Committee, clearly as a consequence of their free speech. That is far more chilling to free speech than having a few scientists write a letter.
What is good for the goose……. is good for the gander.
Nick
All 20 letter writers are not being hauled before anyone.
IGES is being investigated to determine whether they have been mis-using government funds to support partisan activities. The decision by members of congress did not come about because anyone here asked for that investigation. And it is not an attempt to stifle their speech.
They are generally allowed to say whatever they want. But they can’t just use government funds allocated for research for partisan activities. To the extent that evidence suggests they may have, Congress has a right to decide on it’s own to investigate.
Beyond that: Unlike RICO investigations, Congressional investigations do not necessarily imply that anything criminal has occurred. They aren’t limited to criminal matters. They are justified even if the only issue is that rules as they exist cause the Feds to subsidize activities Congress didn’t intend them to subsidize. So “hauled before a Congressional Committee” is rather milder than investigated under RICO.
So? That’s doesn’t address our criticism of the letter writers. People are criticizing them letter writers for encouraging investigations under RICO. Investigations under RICO are significantly more chilling of free speech than Congressional investigations.
“They are being hauled before a Congressional Committee”
Uh oh. The wrong side is being investigated.
Let the racehorse out.
Andrew
SteveF,
I think you forgot to add the issue of “energy poverty deaths” due to increases in fuel costs and propose that an investigation of appropriate organizations under RICO.
Can government agencies be threatened with RICO? Yes indeed-ee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
So could one ‘propose’ to ‘investigate’ NASA? NOAA/NCDC? Yep. Provided you have standing. Presumably we could find someone who will allege their elderly parent died from either heat or cold due to lack of electricity for A/C or fuel for heat. STANDING ACHIEVED!! (Or at least a claim of standing.) Or perhaps someone will have died during a brown out?
What might one propose NASA or NOAA/NCDC be ‘investigated’ for? If we accept it as ok to investigate “skeptics” based on the ‘evidence’ in the letter by the RICO20, it looks like we could investigate them for whatever it is anyone suspects. Perhaps for adjusting the temperature series. Perhaps permitting employees excessive use of government property for personal/political advocacy. Perhaps one “suspect” Gavin uses his machine at NASA for ‘too much blogging/tweeting on a company computer’ . If so, perhaps that needs to be “investigated”. Freeze all his stuff!!
Heck, we could probably figure out how to rope in the EPA for causing financial harm to those who make their living from fossil fuels– either by delaying pipelines or delaying fracking and so on. The objectivity of those in the agency could be “investigated”.
Clearly investigating NASA, NOAA/NCDC, EPA or its employees under RICO would be a ridiculous overreach. As is the proposal in the RICO20 letter. But if the latter investigation isn’t ridiculous, the former isn’t either.
“IGES is being investigated to determine whether they have been mis-using government funds to support partisan activities.”
The amount of money required to write a letter is tiny. Do you think Congress is really motivated here by the needs to conserve research funds? Or are they using Congressional powers to go after “people with whom they disagree”?
Yes, this site is late to the party, and did not prompt the Congressional investigation. The letter to Shukla quotes the Daily caller article, which in turn says it is based on Climate Audit.
“Investigations under RICO are significantly more chilling of free speech than Congressional investigations.”
HUAC?
But the difference is that the Congressional investigation is actually happening. The RICO civil suit was never more than a pipe-dream. And the notion that sceptics might be jailed under RICO is totally in the minds of sceptics, and is a complete fantasy. It was never proposed.
Nick,
“They are being hauled before a Congressional Committee, clearly as a consequence of their free speech. That is far more chilling to free speech than having a few scientists write a letter.”
.
Seems you have a hard time getting facts straight. They may (by no means certain) be “hauled before a Congressional Committee”, not because of their foolish letter, but because of apparent financial misconduct by Shukla and his non-profit corporation. And ‘they’ in this case are Shukla and those involved in the non-profit, not the rest of the signatories. That the obnoxious RICO20 letter attracted the attention of Roger Piekle jr and Steve McIntyre, who looked into the finances of Shukla’s non-profit, does have a ring of rough justice, but this is irrelevant. Congress has every reason to evaluate if Shukla’s doubling-dipping and employing family members from public funds is allowed by current funding rules, if only to ensure the rules are written to prohibit such conduct.
.
I’ll be generous and give Shukal some free advice in case he actually is “hauled before a Congressional Committee”: if you are not guilty of defrauding the taxpayers, then don’t lie to the committee. If you are guilty, then take the 5th.
Lucia,
Those are good additional subjects… feel free to add/edit. 😉
Nick,
Even if you’re right that these specific guys in this specific letter are not calling for anyone to be jailed, you are wrong to suggest this is a complete fantasy. I’ve already pointed to evidence that shows many people, some of them well respected scientists have called for this. RICO provides for criminal prosecution. Regardless of what limits you think can be demonstrated on what these guys called for, it is absolutely not a complete fantasy that exists solely in the minds of skeptics. No matter how many times you insist on this, it’s just not correct.
Nick,
Rule #1: Don’t get involved in highly dubious use of public funds.
Rule#2: If you ignore Rule #1, then don’t draw attention to yourself with outrageous open letters to the President and Attorney General.
Mark,
Exactly.
“Congress has every reason to evaluate if Shukla’s doubling-dipping and employing family members from public funds is allowed by current funding rules”
Congress does not have every reason to evaluate that. These matters are routinely monitored by the NSF etc. There is no reason to believe that those systems can’t deal with malfeasance in this episode, if any.
The only reason why “Dear Dr Shukla” is being investigated by Congress is that he put his name to this letter.
Nick:
We’re talking about something over $60,000,000 here. It’s perfectly within Congresses oversight responsibilities to review both Shukla and the NSF in this case.
I’m pretty sure the appearance of double-dipping and fake charges has something to do with it too.
SteveF,
“then don’t draw attention to yourself”
That sounds like the essence of chilling free speech. Something like Lucia’s invocation of selective tax audits above. What’s the problem if you’ve done nothing wrong?
Nick,
Look, it’s not [edit: solely] a matter of how much money was involved. There are rules that govern what keep individuals and organizations separate. We can argue about the justice and ‘rightness’ of those rules, but it seems to me that’s besides the point.
Say I work as a contractor for NASA. Say I take a tiny amount of their resources and post something I want to say on a partisan topic on their website. Obviously, the issue isn’t the amount of money involved, that’s besides the point. I don’t claim this is an illustrative analogy of every detail of Shukla’s specific case, but it ought to at least be demonstrative of the fact that there’s a lot more to the issue than how much money was involved in the transgression. Some stuff is supposed to be kept separate, I think for more reasons than are immediately obvious.
Carrick,
“We’re talking about something over $60,000,000 here.”
It doesn’t cost $60,000,000 to write an open letter. Or even employ a relative. IGES and GMU have been functioning as normal research entities, subject to normal supervision. There is no suggestion that someone has siphoned off $60,000,000.
Was there a Dear NSF letter?
Nick,
.
Well, say that’s so for a moment. A group of scientists sign a letter penned by a guy who’s misusing funds, intended to prompt the government to use a partisan sword like RICO to go after certain unnamed corporations and organizations. They started the war. Is your complaint that their adversaries resort to partisan tactics to retaliate?
.
Germany invades Poland. If somebody had defended Poland, that’d make them the bad guys? War stinks, but sometimes there aren’t good alternatives.
Nick, I’m referring to the total amount of fund received by IGES from NSF. It’s over $63.5 million US. That’s a lot of money from an organization that has hitherto slipped under congressional scrutiny and review. It is within the rights (and indeed responsibilities) of Congress for any reason of their choosing to provide oversight to how their authorized fundings is being spent.
Of course all of this happened because of the entirely stupid and ill-advised RICO letter that Shukla was a co-signer of. But one would have to be incredibly naive to think you could step on other people in this way, and not expect repercussions.
Nick,
I am not sure what part of this you are not getting. Any well known scientist (heck, any well known person!) who signs an open letter like the RICO20 letter is trying to use the letter to either whip up public support for what the letter proposes, intimidate potential targets, or both. (My guess is the latter, but I can’t read minds).
.
A private letter sent to Mr. Obama or the DOJ would 1) likely have been ignored (I’m 99% sure that even Mr. Obama isn’t that dumb), but if not ignored, 2) would be just as likely to bring on to a RICO investigation if one was warranted (I’m 100% sure one isn’t). Certainly the vast combined intellect of those 20 signatories is enough to understand a private letter would be ignored….. and would not whip up the green rabble, nor intimidate skeptics. The open letter was a blatant political attack, targeting people with whom the authors disagree politically. Open letters to politicians are always political acts. Really, how can you not see this? (not a rhetorical question)
.
These are not the first climate scientists to make public calls for prosecution of ‘skeptics’, nor will they be the last. But at least you might try to recognize what is going on here….. it’s politics… just like much of the rest of climate science.
.
I agree the Congressional investigation is in part political retaliation (the committee could have investigated the apparent misuse of funds informally if they wanted). But the RICO20 were looking for a political response… and now they have one. Climate scientists would be wise to just do science and stay out of politics….. but history says they never will. As I noted years ago, I think climate science is a grotesque mixture of science and politics, and it is very poor at both activities.
” It is within the rights (and indeed responsibilities) of Congress for any reason of their chosen to provide oversight to how their authorized fundings is being spent.”
Well, it’s within the responsibility of the IRS to ensure tax compliance. But putting the signatory of an open letter through a tax audit might still be seen as dubious. And when Congress decides it needs to do the tax audit itself…
“But one would have to be incredibly naive to think you could step on other people in this way, and not expect repercussions.”
Repercussions? Again, sounds like chilling free speech. The scientists didn’t write a “preserve all your documents” letter. They suggested that the DoJ investigate some aspect of corporate behaviour. Repercussions?
SteveF,
“But the RICO20 were looking for a political response… and now they have one.”
The people Nixon subjected to tax audits were engaged in politics. Some were even calling for investigation of the President. Didn’t make it right.
Carrick,
” But one would have to be incredibly naive to think you could step on other people in this way, and not expect repercussions.”
.
The signatories were not being naive, they were consciously targeting political opponents to intimidate them. Most people understand this; any naivete is with those who imagine the RICO20 letter was a perfectly OK request by a group of citizens.
Shooting at people always sucks. I don’t sympathize with the guy who came to shoot people and ended up shot himself because his would-be victim retaliated.
Nick,
Good grief! It is clear you think political intimidation is OK, but only for people with whom you agree.
And get your facts straight: “And when Congress decides it needs to do the tax audit itself…” There is no tax audit, there is an investigation of improper use of public funds.
Mark,
“Germany invades Poland.”
Dr Shukla does not have the Wehrmacht at his disposal. The scientists proposed that the government do something. Lots of Americans do that. Sometimes what they propose isn’t reasonable. Usually, then, the government doesn’t do it. It doesn’t have to.
Nick Stokes (Comment #139625),
Read Rule #1 harder.
Nick, it was an analogy. I think ‘asking the government’ to use RICO to force corporations and organizations one disagrees with is not reasonable, its reprehensible in kind if not degree to warmongering for an invasion. I don’t care it’s been done or that Americans do it. Americans do lots of things. Maybe they eat too many Big Macs. Perhaps a congressional investigation can be analogous ly viewed as fighting in self defense. I didn’t think I needed to spell this out.
Nick,
For what it is worth: I would vigorously oppose the targeting of groups of climate scientists under RICO if someone were to seriously propose it. I think many climate scientists are terribly mistaken. I think the field to date has caused more harm than good. I think much of the money spent on climate science is wasted. I think many climate scientists are too political and not very good at either politics or science. I just don’t think they should be targeted with racketeering laws for being wrong, and I will vigorously criticize whoever seriously proposes it, and will say the proposal is outrageous and improper.
SteveF, I wholeheartedly agree.
Nick, since you find the analogy to be unclear let’s dispense with it. It was just a shortcut. If we agree that sic’ing the Congressional Committee is a partisan act of retaliation, using the government to silence one’s opponent to the detriment of free speech, then I’d think we ought to be able to agree that sic’ing the federal government on ‘corporations and organizations’ via RICO is the same. (Correct me if I’m wrong here, because if you disagree with this, fine; the analogy doesn’t apply)
So all I’m saying is you can’t have it both ways. If you think the retaliation is ‘bad/wrong’, if you think it involves misusing the government to attack somebody, you have a point. But it makes a difference who initiated the misuse of governmental power to attack somebody. It makes a difference if somebody is initiating an attack or defending themselves from an attack.
SteveF:
I agree they were trying to intimidate people into remaining silent.
The naivety comes in from the idea that they were going to accomplish anything positive with the campaign:
In the end, predictably, the RICO letter writers created enemies that they didn’t have before, and the letter campaign was completely ineffective.
They also drew attention to themselves that wasn’t there before.
The argument from Nick seems to be that because people only noticed potential malfeasance on the part of Shukla as a result of Shukla’s political activity, that Shukla should be excused from any potential wrongdoing that he had previously committed and inadvertently drew other people’s attention to.
SteveF:
It’s worse than mistaken in some cases, for some of them, it’s an indifference to the truth.
I think so too. It reminds me of the early funding increase for AIDs research. The good researchers would be there already, and it hasn’t really benefited their funding level that much.
Unfortunately, it attracts a lot of others who are just looking to ride the gravy train. As long as they make the right “political noise” when they publish, nobody seems to care whether there is any substantive content to their work.
Mark,
“But it makes a difference who initiated the misuse of governmental power to attack somebody.”
The only actual misuse has been by the Congressional Committee. Scientists wrote a letter to the President. A very American thing to do. They didn’t propose misusing government power. They proposed the government do something. It is for the government, and the legal system, to ensure that its powers are used properly. And there was no misuse in response to the scientists letter.
Carrick,
Well, they knew what they were trying to do, they were just too dumb to appreciate that when you threaten people with RICO (or tax audits, any any other club-like use of government power) they are going to react REALLY negatively. Lots of new enemies of climate science will come out of this. And yes, if climate scientists were interested in actually convincing the public on the merits of the argument, they wouldn’t be resorting to RICO threats against those who argue the other side. Outrageous behavior by climate scientists, like this stupid letter, discredits the field in the eyes of the public, and makes enacting their desired public policies less likely not more. I do not understand how they can be so dumb.
nick,
I don’t know if your really a “babe in the woods” or what. Don’t know if Shukla is one. the US government is like a buzz saw. Don’t monkey with it if you don’t understand what harm it can do, both to yourself and others, that’s all I can tell you.
Nick,
Do you mind if I ask you to clarify your position on this? I was under the impression earlier that you disapproved of the proposed RICO action. I believe I assumed that you felt it’d be wrong for the government to act on this, but I see that I don’t really clearly understand what your position is.
I ask in the hopes of saving time, so I don’t waste your time on arguments that rest on invalid assumptions.
[Edit: Nah nevermind. I’m deleting this comment.]
oops too late. 🙂 Clarify if you’d like. I think I get it now.
Nick,
“It is for the government, and the legal system, to ensure that its powers are used properly.”
.
I think I finally see the crux of the disagreement. You think government and courts are to be trusted. Many (most?) Americans think the exact opposite: that you can’t trust the government or the courts to do what is right. We have a constitutional right to bear arms…. exactly because the writers of the constitution did NOT trust government. Really, we don’t trust government very much. Maybe you never read this:
They didn’t add a lot of qualifiers about how to ‘alter or abolish it’, but this was written by a bunch of people in armed revolt against merry old England, and at the time were, well, using guns and bayonets to do the altering. Perhaps you find this quaint, backward, or even dangerous, and the idea of an armed population protecting itself FROM the government weird. But if so, you just don’t understand politics here. The reason my reaction to the RICO20 letter is so strongly negative is because I really don’t trust Mr Obama or his political lackeys to not pursue an inappropriate RICO action, nor do I trust the federal courts to protect personal liberties. Ronald Regan understood this: https://www.google.com.tr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QtwIwAGoVChMInJ3kqtWpyAIVh2QsCh3ZaQYS&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxhYJS80MgYA&usg=AFQjCNHklGy0iOd6oShv6cboAPlUD63OoQ He was half joking, of course, but only half.
SteveF,
Yep. I very nearly wrote a lengthy variant of the same argument. I think you’ve nailed it. [Edit: If I may say, you expressed it better than I was going to.]
Nick,
Mark said ” the US government is like a buzz saw. Don’t monkey with it if you don’t understand what harm it can do, both to yourself and others, that’s all I can tell you.” Consider that in light of my last comment.
Stokes: “The scientists proposed that the government do something. Lots of Americans do that. Sometimes what they propose isn’t reasonable. Usually, then, the government doesn’t do it.”
…….
Your point is simply wrong. Science needs to be open to vigorous dissent and new ideas. “Scientists” who should have that viewpoint are proposing to clamp down on dissent and new and different ideas. Hansenite scientists have a history of being intolerant and bullying. RICO is a vicious club intended to silence those who disagree with Hansenite science and policies. Evidence of this clear by the common and grossly uninformed use of the word beginning with the letter that follows “c”.
Also, I would add that RICO has elements of Star Chamber law in that Sec. 1967 states: “In any proceeding ancillary to or in any civil action instituted by the United States under this chapter the proceedings may be open or closed to the public at the discretion of the court after consideration of the rights of affected persons.” http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/rico-act.html
JD
Steve F states:
“Outrageous behavior by climate scientists, like this stupid letter, discredits the field in the eyes of the public, and makes enacting their desired public policies less likely not more. I do not understand how they can be so dumb.”
Think of other ideological extremists. Extremist fanatics seem to have little if any ability to self-examine their motives or actions.
Nick is competing rather successfully with Brandon for most obtuse cynical poster.
SteveF,
Going back to:
“Read Rule #1 harder.
Rule #1: Don’t get involved in highly dubious use of public funds.
Rule#2: If you ignore Rule #1, then don’t draw attention to yourself with outrageous open letters to the President and Attorney General.”
this is just like saying:
#1 make sure your tax statements are squeaky clean
#2 if you ignore #1, don’t criticise the government.
And of course there is no proof of dubious use. It seems to have been all in the open.
You say the crux is that people don’t trust the government. But the scientists are entitled to trust the government, or at least to assume it is not a RICO organisation. And to ask, as they did, for a re-run of the tobacco case. You may think that would get the government jailing skeptics, but it is not a failing of the scientists that they don’t adopt that eccentric view.
Mark,
“I was under the impression earlier that you disapproved of the proposed RICO action.”
I don’t think a clear case for it has been made. I think the tobacco case was a reasonable use of government power, though the legal system makes a mess of it (as the judge commented).
Yes, governments don’t always get it right. But when you say “Don’t monkey with it if you don’t understand what harm it can do”, that’s saying don’t ever ask the government to do anything. But people still do. It’s hard to avoid. And the scientists were in no way unusual in trying to nudge it.
Nick, you’re wearing me out. How often do you think a bunch of scientists petition the President to use RICO to go after people. Does it even matter.
What I’m saying is, when you initiate a political assault (and I get that you don’t get that this is, which is why I say ‘babe in the woods’) you best be prepared for the battle.
Writing that letter to Obama wasn’t like changing an address at the post office.
Nick:
Super big “nope. ”
Allegations of wrong doing were raised by American media.
Congress has a right to investigate allegations of misconduct, and in general a duty of oversight of the Administrative branch of the US government.
I realize, as do most, that you are completely one-sided on these issues. But you should at least make some attempt at accuracy.
SteveF:
Yep they knew what they were trying to do. They were just naive in thinking that they were somehow constitutionally protected from the consequences of their actions (maybe they’ve been listening to Nick and Sou too much).
Although, yes. don’t ever ask the government to do anything . There is a segment of the US populous who’d agree substantially with this. To an extent I agree with them.
you say you’re from the government and you’re here to help? Run Forrest, ruuuunnn!!!!
SteveF:
Well I obviously agree with you on this—but I’m amazed that nobody on Nick’s camp was willing to decry this when it happened.
Perhaps, the entire movement blew this one. I haven’t gone back to see how they initially responded to it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were met with cheers, when it should have been met with jeers.
Alrighty, back on my laptop where I can respond properly.
Nick,
People like me think of government as the tool of last resort. Government is necessary. Yet it tends to make a mess out of most anything it touches. Keep it small, only go to it (as a nation) when there’s really no other way and something absolutely has to be taken care of, and even then think twice.
Carrick,
“Allegations of wrong doing were raised by American media.”
well, the Daily Caller, echoing Steve McIntyre. And with no substantive evidence.
“Congress has a right to investigate allegations of misconduct”
well, yes. I didn’t hear too much of that when Grijalva was sending out his (minority) letters. But here there is no evidence that there was anything not known to NSF and GMU. Why not ask them?
You say the scientists were trying to intimidate. They don’t have the power to issue “preserve your documents” letters. They don’t have powers at all. Congress does, and that is what they did. As retaliation for free speech. MarkB says it’s not everyday free speech. I don’t think the Amendment makes that requirement.
I think it was retaliation. Not so much for free speech, but for mongering a partisan RICO action. Them’s politics, and they be ugly.
Others may well disagree.
~shrug~
[Edit: Yah, the scientists don’t have power. But Obama and the DOJ sure do, and that’s who they were ‘nudging’.]
[Edit2:
Precisely. That was an example of the same thing; partisan political battles.]
Nick, to stay focused here, you’ve claimed the US Congress was wrong to investigate this.
Unless you mean by wrong “hurts my movement”, you’re mistaken.
The US Congress 1) have a legal right to investigate allegations of wrong doing in regards to expenditures of federal funds and 2) they have a constitutional duty for oversight of the Administration, the NSF and any organization that has received funding from the NSF. They don’t have an obligation to ask the Administration nor a state-run organization to perform the investigation for them.
If the dollars were not federal funded dollars, I would agree with you it would be outside of their purview.
But, as it happens, we’re discussing credible allegations in the media of wrongdoing by the president of an organization that has received about $63.5 million US from the NSF. So this lies entirely inside of the scope of US congressional authority.
Paraphrasing Sou, if they’ve done nothing wrong, what are they afraid of?
I know I ought to let this go, but I’ve been thinking about it too long and it’s got inertia in my small and simple mind.
.
There is something seriously wrong with somebody who approves of the use of RICO against the tobacco companies turning around and complaining about free speech rights being trampled, Nick. You can’t have this both ways.
.
We don’t have constitutional rights except when a piece of legislation originally intended to prosecute Mafia gets misused and twisted by bad precedents to trump them.
Further, the Committee investigation doesn’t trample anybody’s right to free speech. To say that the Committee in launching an investigation because of what Shukla said exercising his free speech rights is trampling those rights is not unlike saying that using a suspect’s confession is trampling his free speech rights. It’s not so. But sometimes there are repercussions for saying things.
.
RICO, on the other hand explicitly tramples these rights. It says if applied successfully thou shalt cease and desist from saying this.
“There is something seriously wrong with somebody who approves of the use of RICO against the tobacco companies turning around and complaining about free speech rights being trampled, Nick. You can’t have this both ways.”
The case against the tobacco companies was in no way about free speech. It was, in the quaint US usage, about racketeering. Specifically, the companies were selling people a product that they new to be harmful and addictive, and that they hid knowledge of its harm. That is no more about free speech than is, say, the current sanctions brewing against Volkswagen.
“But sometimes there are repercussions for saying things.”
This does not sound like an impassioned defence of free speech. Especially when the repercussions include being summoned for Congressional investigation.
The letter was possibly the start of a bigger campaign to attack skeptical views building on the momentum of the Climate summit due in December?
Dana Nutticelli had reference to this letter in a Guardian article shortly after it was published.
Very quiet there now.
If it had been well received it would have been a spring for Obama and DOJ to actually raise the issue of investigations a la McCarthy.
Having shot themselves in the foot by IGES being dodgy instead of the squeaky clean it was supposed to be the effort seems temporarily disrailed but this is only temporary.
More power to the Congress letter as its prompt issuance has put a big hurdle for Nick and Co to jump.
I find it hypocritical of myself and others to want Dodgy Climate science investigated when Nick wants the same thing for what he sees as dodgy Climate science denial investigated.
I just want good scientific facts and debate.
Nick,
.
.
Fair enough.
.
.
Free speech doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for what I say; doesn’t work that way in my world. Actually, it doesn’t work that way in the real world. It’d be neat if guys like Dinesh D’Souza could make films about guys like Obama with impunity. It’d be great if the rules were the same for me as for the Clintons. I’d sort of like to be able to form a Tea Party group without being harrassed by the IRS. It’s got nothing to do with my passion for free speech or justice in general when I recognize that it aint so, never been so, and will never be so.
But hey, if you want to crusade to reduce the power of the government to interfere with my free speech, I’d find that a slightly more worthwhile goal than campaigning to reduce fossil fuel use!
Since it is late in the day and Brandon is not showing up to dissemble by way of parsing, I guess it safe to declare Nick today’s winner for most obtuse and least sincere poster.
Meh. The only thing that happened here is someone wrote a letter requesting something a bit ridiculous. It would be interesting if someone actually acted on it or there was legitimate interest by people who could actually do it, such as the Justice Dept. Not likely.
But I’m all for it, I can’t think of a better way to convince people of how extreme some of the “scientists” in “academia” really are. The more they tarnish their cloak or respectability, the better.
This just strikes me as yet another attempt by frustrated activists to “turn the volume up to 11” because that should really, really work this time, for sure.
Everyone takes great joy in highlighting the bozos on the opposing side (see, they are all like that!) while somehow putting up with their own crazy uncles. Business as usual.
Tom,
Except the RICO 20 have an advocate easily as loony on this topic than they are in a position of great power, surrounded by sycophants competing to say “yes” .
hunter,
I don’t think declarations of most obtuse of the day are useful. They also don’t contribute much. Perhaps you can reduce those.
For what it’s worth just around 1:12:30 Naomi Oreskes suggest “RICO style prosecution”. You can listen for yourself; that’s the word she uses.
Another argument with Nick over the proper role and scope of government, about which there is obviously very little agreement. All arguments with people of the left seem always to end at the same point: “government is a necessary evil” versus “government is a force for good”. It’s probably not worth the effort to argue about this.
Carrick,
“but I’m amazed that nobody on Nick’s camp was willing to decry this when it happened”
.
There was no decrying because they agree that writing an open letter asking the president and attorney general to prosecute your (and his!) political opponents is a good thing, and perfectly proper.
lucia, part of the reason I stopped participating much at Judith’s place is a few of the most active commenters there would respond to just about any comment of mine to make remarks about me, referencing past things rather than whatever the comment they were responding to said. It got really tedious. Supposedly she moderates better now, but I can’t find the interest to comment there anymore.
It’s actually kind of creepy people do things like that. That went on at Judith’s place for a couple years, and hunter is doing this on multiple sites. I can’t fathom the mentality that leads to acting like that.
SteveF, whether they agreed or not, it’s an extremely boneheaded campaign. Even for them.
Brandon,
People are often tempted to bring up past gripes. It’s not productive and derails threads. So it’s best avoided. I thought it best to comment.
I suspect the problem is taken care of here, but I might intervene sooner if it recurs.
Slightly OT for this thread:
For anyone who thinks SteveF is exaggerating when he says that climate change is being used as an excuse to vastly expand the powers of the government, there’s this: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
How she can ignore that the greatest polluters are almost uniformly the socialist and communist economies, see China for example, and advocate more government control is beyond me. If capitalism is broken, it was government intervention that broke it. Calls for democracy seem to be always from those who really don’t care about individuals, NPR’s Democracy Now, e.g. It was the liberals on the Supreme Court who voted for the Kelo decision, a classic case of government trampling individual rights.
lucia,
Yes ma’am. Will do.
DeWitt,
One can say many negative things about Oreskes and be correct. But at least she is not hiding her agenda. It is her ability to pitch her pile of offal into allegedly highly discerning well educated forums and not have it laughed off the stage that is troubling.
hunter, was it Klein?
I had to suffer through a dinner this summer with friends who had read and been impressed by her book, all academicians (retired).
jferguson,
Academics are convinced they could do a better job of everything because they’re smarter. Or they think they are anyway. It started with Plato and his idiotic Philosopher Kings proposal. So anyone that feeds their egos like Klein is lauded by them.
hunter,
It’s Klein, not Oreskes. Oreskes co-authored Merchants of Doubt. Yet another of the ‘blame Big Oil for muddying the waters’ books.
My bad- Oreskes and Klein are interchangeable schills- nearly indistinguishable in their anti-science, intellectually dishonest, afactual approaches
Nick you declare that Dear Dr Shukla is being hauled before a Congressional Committee. Yet they are not being arrested. There is no hauling.
Nick, if they were merely writing a letter to the President and Attorney General suggesting they investigate the practices of a corporation, then why did they put the letter on a website? Why not just mail the letter?
“The reason my reaction to the RICO20 letter is so strongly negative is because I really don’t trust Mr Obama or his political lackeys to not pursue an inappropriate RICO action, nor do I trust the federal courts to protect personal liberties.” Indeed. Nick, you don’t get points just because this time you are losing. Some idiots spouted off for one side of a political conflict. Some of them turned out to be dirty, and so the other side is taking the opportunity to destroy them. That’s what happens to figures in American politics who make themselves vulnerable.
If the Democrats in Congress had the power and were doing this, or a RICO investigation, all the usual suspects would be praising them and encouraging them. Most of them are currently praising a lawsuit against some people who used their free speech, even though every major news organization, even liberal, has filed on behalf of Steyn, Simberg et al that the case is an honest-to-goodness free speech issue, not a libel issue. No problem, they’ll (you, actually) find some sophistry to explain why it’s different.
Please don’t expect sympathy just because you’re losing.
More entertaining rhetoric equating ‘climate denial’ with ‘conspiracy to commit murder’, here at Salon.
But nobody’s talking about putting ‘deniers’ in jail. Just remember that.
Nick wrote (some time back) regarding why the average sceptic cant be touched by RICO
Well I disagree. As soon as you make money off your sceptical views you could be targeted and that would include a great many sceptics who derive even a small amount of income from advertising from their blogs.
I think Lucia might avoid that but Anthony would not.
TTTM,
I think Anthony would avoid a conviction — and rightfully so. But if someone with an ax to grind pursued a case (however ridiculous) he might need to present a defense. That would be ridiculously expensive and unfair to Anthony. But the fact that Heartland did fund a small program for him might put him in danger of needing to defend… something.
lucia,
You don’t have to be convicted to be ruined by a RICO indictment. Your assets are frozen as soon as you’re indicted. Good luck defending yourself.
Carrick said “but I’m amazed that nobody on Nick’s camp was willing to decry this when it happened.
.
For the same reason that many in Nick’s camp believe that the U.S. Judicial system should adjudicate whether Mann’s work is scientific fraud or not.
.
What baffles me is that they all apparently, by their active defense, or silence – think this would be a good thing for science.
DeWitt,
Yes, RICO is a bludgeon that was designed for prosecuting mobsters, not punishing your political opponents. It’s miss-use is IMO a real threat to civil liberties. One of the things which Congress fails consistently to do is to consider the potential for unintended consequences when they pass a law. The use of laws in ways which were never the intent of the legislature (Mr Obama’s clean air act miss-use and “navigable waterways” miss-use are only the most obvious examples) is now so common that Congress needs to intervene. Congress also needs to write irrevocable sunset clauses and clear restrictions on scope into all laws. Unfortunately, I doubt they will do either.