Scientists’ private emails subpoenaed in Deepwater Horizon case

Chronicle of Higher Education : As British Petroleum prepares to defend itself in a lawsuit regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company has demanded that two researchers turn over their personal email messages concerning the disaster. In 2010 Christopher Reddy and Richard Camilli at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) were called in by the Coast Guard to determine how much oil was leaking into the gulf after the oil rig exploded and sank. Although the presiding judge magistrate in the US District Court in New Orleans upheld BP’s request, Reddy and Camilli were reluctant to hand over the emails for fear that their use of the scientific process of deliberation—which involves questioning and modifying their perspectives—would be used to detract from their findings. Susan Avery, president and director of WHOI, compared the situation with Climategate, when emails of researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit were hacked into and used to try to discredit their work.