CBS 6 Exclusive: Confidential UAlbany documents part of Climategate leak
At least two confidential documents that SUNY lawyers refused to release earlier this year were leaked as part of thousands hacked from a top climate research center last month.
The documents were made available by independent researcher Douglas Keenan.
In August 2007, Keenan wrote a paper accusing UAlbany Professor Wei-Chyung Wang of fabrications in research. A university panel later cleared Wang of those allegations, but refused to release any more documentation of the case than a redacted committee report -- the confidential complete version of which stepped off a review by an Investigation Committee.
The university denied Keenan’s Freedom of Information Law requests for a full version of the initial committee report and the full investigation report, according to written and e-mail correspondence provided by Keenan.
SUNY lawyers stated those documents would have been released had misconduct been found, but since that was not the case, the release “would result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
“The University at Albany’s procedures impose an obligation of confidentiality on all participants in the misconduct process," wrote UAlbany spokeswoman Mary Fiess in a statement to CBS 6. “It is an obligation that the University takes seriously.”
Documents Leaked
As part of the mid-November data breach, at least two documents that would have otherwise not have been made public were leaked. The first is an unedited version of the Report of the Inquiry Committee. The second, a response to the allegations by Wang dated February 2008.
“The leaked files contain the defense against my allegation,” Keenan wrote in an e-mail to CBS 6.
Wang said he was aware the leak included data from his 2008 inquiry.
“Hacking into UEA server certainly is wrong and illegal,” Wang stated in an e-mail to CBS 6. He also reminded he was cleared by the school of all allegations.
The documents released were posted anonymously to a server in Russia. The climate research center at the University of East Anglia was unable to confirm whether the so-called breached data were legitimate, according to a statement released to Wired.
Skeptics said the thousands of e-mails released back up a claim that climate change scientists manipulated data.
The head of the university's Climatic Research Unit stepped down in the wake of the data breach. Michael Mann, another climate scientist said to have authored many of the leaked e-mails, is now under inquiry by Penn State University.
Mann told the Associated Press he welcomes the inquiry.
"They are just reviewing the facts and (looking) into whether there is any validity to the specious claims, in my view, that are being made," he told the AP Wednesday. "That's exactly what they should be doing, and I am fully in support of that."
In light of the recent documents’ release, the UAlbany stands behind Wang.
“The University concluded there was no evidence whatsoever that Professor Wei-Chyung Wang committed data fabrication or any research misconduct with respect to the allegation made by Douglas Keenan,” Fiess wrote in a statement to CBS 6.
