Climategate getting litigious

SUBHEAD: US DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” to climate research employees, requiring them to preserve all documents. 

By Anthony Watts on 14 December 2009 in Watts Up With That -  
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/14/doe-sends-a-litigation-hold-notice-regarding-cru-to-employees-asking-to-preserve-documents) 
 
 
Image above: Security entrance to Savannah River Site of the United States Department of Energy. From http://www.fluor.com/projects/Pages/ProjectInfoPage.aspx?PrjID=116  

[IB Publisher's Note: We believe climate change is a real and serious problem. Human overpopulation, resource demand and environmental pollution threat to not only ourselves but much of the life on the planet. It is interesting to watch the lawyers focus on "ass covering" on "Climategate" while the Copenhagen talks sink to bickering over who can pollute the most in the future.]
 
It appears bigger things are brewing related to Climatic Research Unit (hacked emails or) Climategate.

J.C. , a WattsUpWithThat.com commenter writes:

I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. I’ve been following the Climategate scandal since its inception. The first time many of my coworkers had heard of the situation was when I asked them about it.

Well, well, well. Look what was waiting in every single email Inbox on Monday morning:

December 14, 2009 DOE Litigation Hold Notice: DOE-SR has received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to “global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.” As a reminder, this Litigation Hold preservation obligation supersedes any existing statutory or regulatory document retention period or destructive schedule. The determination of what information may be potentially relevant is based upon content and substance and generally does not depend on the type of medium on which the information exists. The information requested may exist in various forms, including paper records, hand-written notes, telephone log entries, email, and other electronic communication (including voicemail), word processing documents (including drafts, spreadsheets, databases, and calendars), telephone logs, electronic address books, PDAs (like Palm Pilots and Blackberries), internet usage files, systems manuals, and network access information in their original format. All ESI should be preserved in its originally-created, or “native” format, along with related metadata. Relevant backup tapes and all indexes for those tapes should also be preserved. Further, information that is reasonably accessible must nonetheless be preserved, because such sources will, at the very least, need to be identified and, under compelling circumstances, may need to be produced. If you have any doubts as to whether specific information is responsive, err on the side of preserving that information. Any employee who has information covered by this Litigation Hold is requested to contact Madeline Screven, Paralegal, SRNS Office of General Council, 5-4634, for additional instructions. Michael L. Wamsted Associate General Council

Everyone on-site who has an email account received this letter. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 8000 people. How about that? And this is the first official mention of the entire subject that I have seen.

DOE-SR = Department of Energy Savannah River SRNS = Savannah River Nuclear Solutions SRR = Savannah River Remediation

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