Science Legal Defense Fund. It's not an allegation of "potentially the first step in a legal action" or "a first step by McIntyre to threatening or pursuing legal action" - as some here have said they would interpret McIntyre's email. Can people stop trying to reframe what Dr Karoly said and focus on what he actually did say? Is there anything to support the actual allegation? That's an incorrect statement. And an indication that you, like most climate science deniers who try to harass the scientists, do not understand the limitations of FIO. Chris, it's not an incorrect statement actually, because I'm an active researcher (not in climate science) and this is my position on the sharing of code and data. As to labeling me a "climate science denier"... simply because I don't agree with Karoly's obviously erroneous claims about being legally threatened doesn't suddenly make me a climate denier. What part of climate science am I supposedly denying? Only the data supporting the results of public policy research, and the detailed description of the algorithm (e.g. in the form of a patent that a person skilled in the art can implement) to reproduce the rsults must be disclosed. That's your position, it's not one I agree with nor one that most US funding agencies agree with. But in any case, Karoly's data and method fits into this narrow definition, which is the reason I worded my original comment the way I did, to suggest the same idea. In any