Steve McIntyre in the library with the knife

Steve McIntyre, in his usual passive aggressive style been harassing the University of Western Australia to use "the coercive power of the state to force other people to give him, gratis, the fruits of their labor".  In this case, of course what McIntyre wants is the data used in LOG12, Lewandowsky, Oberauer and Gignac (2012) aka Recursive Fury which had been published by Frontiers in Psychology and recently retracted because of complaints which threatened legal action.  The recursive fury which had broken lose among those who felt themselves called out only recursed with the retraction, with new recurses.

However, our friends appear to have missed something.  Having been retracted, the paper is no long published in it's final form, but a work in progress, that has been made available as a pre-print.  It may be published in another publication,  perhaps with some more work, improved treatment of the data, even more data drawing on the recurse.  Thus, as a work in progress, not a published scientific paper, it is no longer subject to Freedom of Information requests.

UPDATE:  Eli got it wrong, it was another paper from Lew.  Steve still has the knife in the library. see the comments, and the UWA Vice Chancellor is still Faithful.

The University of Western Australia appears to have noticed tho, and sent a Dear Steve letter to dear Steve

Dear Mr McIntyre,

I refer to your series of emails to University officers including Professor Maybery and myself (which you have copied to other recipients including the Australian Research Council) in which you request access to Professor Lewandowsky’s data.

I am aware that you have made inflammatory statements on your weblog “Climate Audit” under the heading “Lewandowsky Ghost-wrote Conclusions of UWA Ethics Investigation into “Hoax”” including attacks on the character and professionalism of University staff. It is apparent that your antagonism towards Professor Lewandowsky’s research is so unbalanced that there is no useful purpose to be served in corresponding with you further. I regard your continued correspondence to be vexatious and there will be no further response to your requests for data.

Yours faithfully,
Professor Paul Johnson,
Vice-Chancellor

With no surprise to any, the letter has, well, not met with a great deal of understanding in some quarters.  Eli always enjoys April Fools jokes and has rebalanced his retirement portfolio to hold more popcorn futures.

UPDATE:  Paul Johnson is on a roll.  He writes to Barry Woods (found in the comments)
From: Paul Johnson
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 8:08 AM
To: Barry Woods
Cc: Murray Maybery ; Kimberley Heitman
Subject: request for access to data

Mr B. Woods

Dear Mr Woods,

I refer to your emails of the 11th and 25th March directed to Professor Maybery, which repeat a request you made by email dated the 5th September 2013 to Professor Lewandowsky (copied to numerous recipients) in which you request access to Professor Lewandowsky’s data for the purpose of submitting a comment to the Journal of Psychological Science.

It is not the University’s practice to accede to such requests.

Yours faithfully,
Professor Paul Johnson,
Vice-Chancellor