“Be you never so high, the law is above you.”
Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Watts Up With That
2/23/2012
…Over tea and scones at the National Liberal Club while Dick was with the Minister, several of us discussed what we call Fakegate – the frauds recently perpetrated to the detriment of the blameless Heartland Institute. Among some there was a feeling, often expressed by the nicer but more woolly-headed and ineffectual sort of skeptic, that somehow scientists who commit frauds ought not to be prosecuted for them, for otherwise academic research would become impossible.
I hear this unsoundly-founded point so often that it is hard to keep an even temper. A fraud is a fraud is a fraud, whether perpetrated by a scientist or by anyone else. The mistreatment to which the Heartland Institute has been subjected by a fraudster and counterfeiter constitutes several serious, imprisonable offenses, known in US law as felonies. The perps, whoever they be, should be investigated, brought for trial, prosecuted, and fined or – better still – imprisoned. Punishment for specific, manifest scientific frauds in no way prejudices, compromises, or trammels the freedom and purity of academic research. It protects and enhances them…
…Fraud charges against the guilty news media and blogs would not be likely unless and until the Fakegate fraudster had first been brought to justice before a Federal court.
The dripping malevolence of the commentaries by the various news media and blogs on what the counterfeit document purported to reveal about the Heartland Institute’s supposed attitude to the teaching of science in schools would count very much against them in court. The intent to cause harm to the Heartland, and to cause collateral damage to Anthony Watts and others, is very clear. On the other hand, those who at least acted promptly by publishing Heartland’s announcement that the document was counterfeit will have mitigated their crime to some extent. Those blogs that continue to publish the counterfeit document rather than removing it, and one blog that pretended to “confirm” the document as genuine, will face long prison sentences.
Or will they? Much of the scientific criminality surrounding the “global warming” scam only happens because the fraudsters in white lab-coats reckon that they are untouchable. They have the protection of governments, who are themselves profiting mightily by the scam…
Read the complete article at WattsUpWithThat?
H/T Climate Realists and Climate Depot
Update: British Parliament heard devastating testimony overturning the global warming hoax.
…British Parliament heard devastating testimony overturning the global warming hoax from MIT’s Richard Lindzen who is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences…
Update 2: And speaking of fakes and frauds, Your latest Keystone XL conspiracy theory, from…
Update 3: From Melanie Phillips, ‘Fakegate’ — the new nadir of the climate change swindle
