Hadley - off on a technicality

The British Information Commissioner's Office confirms that the University of East Anglia broke the British Freedom of Information Act, but a six month statue of limitations means they get off.

A British university whose scientists are accused of manipulating climate data broke the law by refusing to show the raw data for review, a British agency said.

The University of East Anglia violated Britain's Freedom of Information Act by refusing to fulfill requests for data supporting claims by university scientists that human-made emissions were causing global warming, Britain's Information Commissioner's Office said.

But while the public research university in Norwich, England, may have broken the law, it will not be prosecuted because a six-month time limit for prosecutions elapsed, The Times of London reported the independent regulatory office under the justice ministry as saying.

Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine, the Times said.

There won't be a prosecution, but it does put paid to folks who claimed that nobody hid data.