Wednesday, June 6, 2012

UNBELIEVABLE: BP Wins the Prize for Sleaze


BP has got to win the prize for sleaze. [Tepco wins it for genocide]

The Guardian Wrote the Story in Response to an Editorial Written by 2 Academics:

BP accused of attack on academic freedoms after scientists subpoenaed
Oceanographers say they fear erosion of scientific process after they were forced to turn over emails related to BP oil spill. The Guardian June 4, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jun/04/bp-accused-attack-scientific-freedom

[Excerpts] "A pair of scientists have accused BP of an attack on academic freedom after the oil company successfully subpoenaed thousands of confidential emails related to research on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

The accusation from oceanographers Richard Camilli and Christopher Reddy offered a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes legal manoeuvring by BP in the billion-dollar legal proceedings arising from the April 2010 blow-out of its well.

It also heightened fears among scientists of an assault on academic freedoms, following the legal campaign against a number of prominent climate scientists..."

MAJIA HERE: Read the entire Guardian article at the site linked above but then you must read the editorial written by the scientists whose private emails are being seized after they responded to the government and BP's requests for assistance:

Science out of context. The Boston Globe
BP’s demand for e-mail will erode the scientific deliberative process
By Christopher Reddy and Richard Camilli |      June 03, 2012
http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/06/02/reddy/Gt82ZS7yoi5sHTgDG5SLkN/story.html

NOTE: The authors, Christopher Reddy and Richard Camilli, are scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

[excerpted] "Late last week, we reluctantly handed over more than 3,000 confidential e-mails to BP, as part of a subpoena from the oil company demanding access to them because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster lawsuit brought by the US government. We are accused of no crimes, nor are we party to the lawsuit. 

We are two scientists at an academic research institution who responded to requests for help from BP and government officials at a time of crisis.
 
Because there are insufficient laws and legal precedent to shield independent scientific researchers, BP was able to use the federal courts to gain access to our private information. Although the presiding judge magistrate recognized the need to protect confidential e-mails to avoid deterring future research, she granted BP’s request.
 
It is the lack of legal protection that has us concerned...

...BP claimed that it needed to better understand our findings because billions of dollars in fines are potentially at stake. So we produced more than 50,000 pages of documents, raw data, reports, and algorithms used in our research — everything BP would need to analyze and confirm our findings. 

But BP still demanded access to our private communications. Our concern is not simply invasion of privacy, but the erosion of the scientific deliberative process.
 
Deliberation is an integral part of the scientific method that has existed for more than 2,000 years; e-mail is the 21st century medium by which these deliberations now often occur. During this process, researchers challenge each other and hone ideas. In reviewing our private documents, BP will probably find e-mail correspondence showing that during the course of our analysis, we hit dead-ends; that we remained skeptical and pushed one another to analyze data from various perspectives; that we discovered weaknesses in our methods (if only to find ways to make them stronger); or that we modified our course, especially when we received new information that provided additional insight and caused us to re-examine hypotheses and methods....

MAJIA HERE: This is reprehensible!  How dare the judge allow this travesty of justice to occur.

The methodology used by the scientists is documented in their 50,000 pages of documents, raw data, reports, and algorithms.

There is NO REASON to subpoena private emails.

I'm so angry I can barely think of what to say about this.




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