Hypocrisy with a side of bias: NYT linked to hacked Palin's emails, refuse to publish CRU emails proving global warming is a lie
Palin's hacked emails - no problem. ClimateGate leaked emails - not newsworthy, these were never intended for the public eye.
Just yesterday I wrote a post regarding the New York Times' refusal to publish the leaked CRU emails: New York Times (!) Refuses To Pubish "Illegally Obtained" Emails Proving Global Warming Is A Fraud.
Yet, they had no problem with the hacked Sarah Palin emails from last year. Let me just make 2 points regarding the emails of Palins and those of the CRU:
The CRU emails were public emails and subject to freedom of information requests even though the alarmists were refusing to do so against the laws of the U.K. Thus, whether they were hacked or, as many now suspect, leaked by a whistleblower within the taxpayer-funded organization is irrelevent since they were public domain anyway. The emails dealt with public policy decisions affecting virtually every taxpayer in the U.K. and the U.S.
Sarah Palin's emails were hacked from her personal Yahoo! account and not subject to freedom of information. Thus, the fact that they were illegally hacked was relevant here.
So it is laughable that the NYT is refusing to publish public-domain emails because of the manner in which they were obtained, which the NYT doesn't really know at this point. From my prior post, from the Volokh Conspiracy via Instapundit: NYT Policy on Illegally Acquired Documents
The NYT’s environmental blog, Dot Earth, covered the disclosure of e-mails and other files from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, noted that the files are available on various other website, but did not reproduce any files on its site. As Andrew Revkin explained in the post:
The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.
Am I wrong in thinking that this is a change in policy for the NYT? Hasn’t the Grey Lady published illegally obtained documents on national security and other matters in the past?
With that as a backdrop, from NewsBusters: A Tale of Two Leaks: NYT Bashed Palin, But Won't Touch ClimateGate.
Revkin is correct that the emails were never intended for the public eye, contained private communications, and were released by hackers who violated the law in obtaining them. But apparently this standard for publication of such documents does not apply to information about Sarah Palin.
The Times's Caucus Blog reported on September 17 of last year:
Computer hackers broke into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, and posted some of her messages and a long list of contacts on the Internet.
The Web site Wikileaks posted screen shots of Ms. Palin’s inbox displaying her username, gov.palin@yahoo.com, and messages that were reportedly obtained by a group of hackers on Tuesday night.
The e-mails include an exchange between Ms. Palin and Alaska’s lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, as well as an associate, Amy McCorkell, who Ms. Palin appointed to a state drug and alcohol advisory board last year. Wired Magazine reported on its Internet privacy blog, Threat Level, that it obtained confirmation from Ms. McCorkell that she did, in fact, send the message to Governor Palin.
On Wednesday, the McCain campaign acknowledged the breach in a statement from campaign manager, Rick Davis: “This is a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”
Governor Palin has faced criticism for reportedly using her private address to conduct government business.
When hackers posted screenshots of the then-Vice Presidential nominee on Wikileaks, the Times rushed to publish the information. It even included a link directly to a page displaying the screenshots, disclosing private communications and making available her personal email address and contact list. This is "private information" in every sense of the term.
Guy Benson at National Review extrapolates that at the Times, "it's unacceptable to direct readers to hacked private emails that fundamentally disrupt a lefty meme-of-the-decade, but it's totally cool to direct readers to hacked private emails of the lefty bete noire-of-the-year."
Revkin's statement displays a profound double standard in the Times's reporting on leaked information. It managed, in the last sentence of the Caucus Blog post, to turn Palin's email leak into an attack.
Yet in the case of the ClimateGate emails, which were obtained in a near-identical manner and contain similarly sensitive and personal communications, the Times suddenly finds ethical misgivings in publishing the information. The paper's reservations appear to be a veiled attempt to shield the left's global warming narrative from criticism.
There you have it, liberal media bias at work. The Old Grey Lady also suffers from dimentia as well as Palin Derangement Syndrome.
Previously:
Lord Monckton comments on the CRU Emails that prove global warming is a fraud: “They Are Criminals”
Leaked CRU computer program proves global warming scientific fraud
New York Times (!) Refuses To Pubish "Illegally Obtained" Emails Proving Global Warming Is A Fraud
Video: Climate Historian Dr. Tim Ball on the CRU email scandal
Searchable database of hacked CRU emails proving global warming fraud by scientists
CRU emails prove global warming fraud: GW scientists do "science"
CRU emails prove global warming fraud: GW scientists collude to manipulate data
GW scientists colluded to circumvent FOI requests of data
GW scientists discuss how to destroy journals that publish skeptics
GW scientists can't find actual global warming
GW scientists colluding to delete data
'Hockey stick' authors hiding/manipulating data
CRU emails prove global warming fraud: GW scientists fantasize about physical violence against skeptics
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