Kafka, eat your heart out

This post blends in well with the previous one.

Eli Rabett has put his two little front teeth in the Charles Monnett story and is not letting go:

PEER on IG Pursuit of Dead Polar Bear

Who is this Eric May? Who made the original complaint? Inquiring auditors want to know (BTW, Monnett has the right to see the original complaint once the investigation is concluded).

and

David Brown, DOI IG Special Agent in Charge of Untruth, or the Trial of Charles M

At the end of the last interview of the Department of Interior's IG Office with Charles Monnett, David Brown, the Special Agent in Charge pin dances with Monnett's lawyer, Jeff Ruch from PEER:

Jeff Ruch: All right. The second thing, I guess, I was unclear of is, you said you were going to -- it was going to become obvious what the charges were with respect to the University of Alberta contract. I still don't know what the criminal --

David Brown: I think I said what it was -- it would be obvious what this is about.

Jeff Ruch: Oh.

David Brown: I never said anything about charges.

Jeff Ruch: So, what is the criminal offense? Why would there have been a criminal referral?

David Brown: Why would there have been a criminal referral concerning the contract issues?

Jeff Ruch: Yes. As your notice stated. Why would you have done that if there was no crime?

David Brown: Well, that's -- you know, that's your opinion as to --

Jeff Ruch: And I ask -- I'm not expressing an opinion. I'm asking what is the criminal offense that would have justified referral?

David Brown: Well, potentially there's lots of criminal offenses when you're dealing with contract issues. There's false statements. There are potential bribery issues. There's false claim issues. So, you know, depending how the fact patterns are is what the -- what a potential crime could be.

Jeff Ruch: And what was the referral based on in this case?

David Brown: I think I -- you asked me that in the beginning, if I was going to provide you with that information and I said no.

Jeff Ruch: Well, actually, you said the opposite. You said it was going to become obvious from the questions, and it didn't become obvious from the questions.

David Brown: That isn't -- that wasn't my understanding of your question. My understanding of your question was, you know, what's this about, what are the issues involving the contract about. I think we -- it's perfectly clear through the questioning from Rich Larrabee as to what our concerns were with that contract. What -- my communications with the US Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice is not -- I'm not going to divulge that.

The plot thickens. Eli will tell. Thank you, Eli.

Comments

[Kevin McKinney]

It's also worth reporting that this shameful episode has led to another instance of blatant hate-mongering and harrassment/intimidation.

PEER's press release notes that Dr. Monnett's family has been subject

". . .to harassment, especially from climate-change skeptics who have, for example, posted his wife’s work email address on the web and invited readers to flood her inbox at her workplace which lead to a number of hateful and threatening messages."

I've personally verified that Marc Morano's Climate Depot site did indeed post just such a message, complete with the specified email:

“Contact Monnett's wife [name redacted] with questions/comments about the Polar Bear paper:”

If there were any doubt about how contemptible and vile some of these people can be, this should remove it.

[Chris Reynolds]

Kevin McKinney,

Given that these people deliberately distort and lie to stop acceptance of a credible and serious threat, they're all vile and contemptible.

Kevin O'Neill, (hope I can catch you here)

Just caught your question about strato-cooling over Arctic at Stoat (10/9/11). I belatedly replied to your question at my blog, see here. I am still considering what it means, but wanted you to see my response such as it is.

[Neven]

I really don't know why I put an image of The Castle up there. Should be The Process, of course. Finally I know something about, and I still screw it up. :-)

[MikeAinOz]

Neven, it's not just the ice, I find the business with Monnett quite surreal. Thank you for blogging it, and all the other great stuff as well :-)

[Rob Dekker]

I dug a bit deeper into this Monnett saga, and found something really troublesome :

On March 9, 2009, president Obama issued the following memorandum to the heads of executive departments, regarding 'scientific integrity' :

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Memorandum-for-the-Heads-of-Executive-Departments-and-Agencies-3-9-09/

Specifically the following two clauses are interesting :

---
(e) Each agency should have in place procedures to identify and address instances in which the scientific process or the integrity of scientific and technological information may be compromised; and

(f) Each agency should adopt such additional procedures, including any appropriate whistleblower protections, as are necessary to ensure the integrity of scientific and technological information and processes on which the agency relies in its decisionmaking or otherwise uses or prepares.

----

There two clauses now seem to be used by Salazar at the DOI to allow (or even encourage) interrogation of scientific finding published by a federal scientist, while meanwhile protecting the person who filed the 'scientific' complaint (another employee of the DOI) as a 'whistleblower'.

Does anyone know how these two clauses got into the Presidential memorandum, and why there was not a clause added that allows federal scientists to publish scientific findings without running the risk of being put through the meatgrinder by special agents from the inspector general's office, threatened to be referred to the Justice Department under certain conditions, loose their job if IG can't find any scientific issues but believes there may be something else, be spit upon in public media, including threads via their spouses' email address ?

Seems to me the presidential memorandum failed to mention that federal scientists that publish findings (which may not match with the political opinion at the time) in a peer-reviewed journal should be protected as a whisleblower, at least as long as their findings are not contradicted by a multitude of other findings in peer-reviewed publications.

[logicman]

Not entirely unrelated to the Charles Monnet affair is my article on the use of the scientific method in the sphere of law.
I have linked to this article and to Eli Rabbet. Today's article is something of a follow-on to my Monnet article - Is This a Fishing Expedition?
http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/fishing_expedition-81308

http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/laws_nature_and_natural_justice-82954

Criminal law is society's way of giving two egotistical actors the opportunity to decide the fate of a captive audience.

Cynic ? Moi ? ;-)