LHC Safety and the Law

He wasn't giving sworn testimony at the time, but rather making claims (which, ideally would be supported by the evidentiary record and/or case law) and arguing various things. He seemed to want to move on beyond the narrow issue of case reinstatement, which is where the "Patriot Act" came in. The judges also seemed fully aware that he was not admitted to the bar and I assume this means he can't face professional sanction for any statement at odds with reality.
 
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Suitable for Fisking, here is the labor of a week
Unofficial transcript of hearing of 08-17389 which is the appeal of the ruling by Judge Gillmor which dismissed the case of Luis Sancho and Walter Wagner versus US Dept. of Energy, National Science Foundation, etc. concluding that "The Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate this action. Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 14) is GRANTED."
Held 9:00 AM Hawaiian Standard Time at Suite 601 at 1132 Bishop Street, Honolulu, Hawaii.

J1: Betty Binns Fletcher
J2: Harry Pregerson
J3: Richard R. Clifton
WW: Walter Wagner
LS: Luis Sancho
JA: John Arbab

00:00 WW: Your Honor, I'm Walter Wagner. I'm one of the plaintiffs (for?) Luis Sancho, sitting there. We want to spend our time, five minutes each, maybe a little less. We flipped a coin, I go first.

Critic said:
Is Wagner telling the truth when he predicts five minutes each? Was there a literal coin flip? Wouldn't a strategy planning conference or in the 19 months since this appeal was filed be better than a coin flip?

00:09 J2: Okay.

00:13 WW: Welcome to Honolulu. It's my home community here, though I did fly in from Utah, Doctor Sancho flew in from Barcelona, Mister Arbab flew in from Washington D.C. and I understand you folks flew in from San Francisco, so it's a nice place to meet for discussing the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

Critic said:
In what sense is Honolulu Wagner's home community? Why does he pronounce Hawaii like a mainlander? What is the nature of Sancho's Doctorate, since this is not explained on paragraph one of his affidavit and is not properly before the Court? Also, how is Sancho's flight in from Barcelona consistent with his being a "resident" of the United States and that this was specifically called out as a reason why he we supposed to have standing?

00:36 WW: I'm going to recapitulate where we are with the situation of the Large Hadron Collider. As this Court might be aware, in the fall of 2008 there was an unlikely accident that occurred. It basically destroyed the machine -- or large portions of the machine -- and it was shutdown for repair for about a year and a half. And retrofit re-modification so that they won't have that happen again. It is now currently operating at half energy. It has not yet entered into the regime of engaging in dangerous collisions of the kind we have sought to enjoin. That is anticipated to occur this coming winter if no action is taken.

Critic said:
Wouldn't "expensive failure of electromagnets and related circuits during pre-operation testing" be a far more accurate statement than "unlikely accident" that "basically destroyed the machine" ? And if it basically destroyed the machine, why didn't it take $5 billion or more to fix it? All parts of this machine are large as seen in the popular press coverage, but was the percentage damaged large or small? How is it determined that "half energy" operation will not engage in "dangerous collisions" when you sued RHIC for operating at even lower energies? Do you have any model of disaster at all, or are you just making up claims to keep yourself in the court and in the press?

01:22 J1: Try to explain to us exactly what role the United States plays in all this. I understand it has something like a ten percent interest, is that right?

01:36 WW: Yes, Your Honor. The United States has funded approximately ten percent of the construction costs and it continues to fund the operational costs of some of the experimentation that is anticipated to be taken there.

Critic said:
The August Strauss Declaration names the CMS and ATLAS detectors in paragraph 11 but emphasizes that title and control of the LHC is CERN's.

01:51 J1: And could we enjoin anything more than further monetary contributions? We don't .. The United States doesn't have any role in the operations, is that right?

02:05 WW: It does have a role in the operation. The experimentation cannot proceed -- or the operation is essentially moot -- if the United States' involvement in the experimentation is not there. There are four experimental chambers, which the United States operates two of them. So that is the machine and the experimental chambers and they are integrated with each other. One can't operate without the others. So the United States operates two of those experimental chambers and continues funding on that. In addition, the equipment that the United States has already funded -- paid for -- that is sitting there, the United States has an obligation to maintain that should there be repairs, and so forth, of that equipment for the machine itself.

Critic said:
In addition to the two other perfectly-good detectors, operating LHC teaches us many things just about operating large accelerators. Indeed, without the schedule of experiments for ATLAS and CMS, might not the LHC be freer to run at full power sooner? Explain in detail how leaving the detectors unmonitored causes the LHC to be unable to run because that makes no sense.

03:00 WW: (aside to LS) Sure. In a minute.

03:03 WW: Anyway, does that answer your question, Your Honor?

03:06 J1: Well it's quite unclear to me exactly .. If we said "United States, get out of this, you can't participate any further," would the proceedings go ahead with the other participants?

03:22: WW: We don't know what they would do. They might continue, but they would not be able to continue in the manner in which they are doing. The United States additionally has jurisdiction, Your Honor, under the Patriot Act, and under the United States Code Section 831 over nuclear substances, where the United States can intervene in actions in foreign countries, that involve threats to US Citizens, involving nuclear materials. And this essentially what this is, they are ..

Critic said:
According to both Strauss declarations, US scientists are Federally funded at $0.01 Billion/month. Many governments could fund that. Several private companies could. The USA PATRIOT Act is a laundry list but what isn't provided is a statue citation. Presumably USC Title 18 Section 831 is meant, but that law defined nuclear substances to be other than proton-proton or even lead-lead collisions and therefore does not apply. Neither were cited in the original court case and neither was briefed on appeal and therefore it is too late to bring them now to the appeal of dismissal. Wagner is trying to re-try the case here when the maximum outcome is a reversal of the dismissal.

03:49: J3: So you're asking us to authorize an invasion of a ..

03:52: WW: Absolutely not.

03:54: J3: I have real trouble understanding exactly how the Patriot Act applies to this.

03:59: WW: Well the Patriot Act confers jurisdiction over anything that's going on, anywhere in the world, essentially, that involves ..

Critic said:
Outrageous.

04:06: J3: Jurisdiction in Federal Court?

04:10: WW: Does the Federal Court have jurisdiction over the US Military? I believe it does. And the US Military they have armies all over the globe under the Patriot Act.

04:19: J3: Who had the power to tell the military what to do? Is this a general, broad proposition?

04:26: (Confused)

04:27: J3: I understand that you don't practice law, but you went to law school. Doesn't that sound like a pretty unlikely broad proposition? We are a court of limited jurisdiction. What is the source of our authority that you want us to use?

04:39: WW: The source of the authority for this court to use is the NEPA, Your Honor, as is detailed in the briefing, The National Environmental Protection Act. This is essentially the same source of authority that would give this court jurisdiction over British Petroleum when they sought to obtain a drilling permit from the Marine Management Service, arguing that they should be exempted from NEPA because of the unlikely scenario of having environmental disaster and that argument has ..

Critic said:
Has Wagner abandoned the USA PATRIOT Act and "Section 831" already? It's the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service. And BP apparently didn't argue any such thing at all. "BP received approval for its Deepwater Horizon operations under a NEPA categorical exclusion, which allows MMS to greenlight oil and gas exploration and development activities without companies needing to submit an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, as typically required under NEPA." http://www.law360.com/articles/175351 So Wagner's conjectures about BP are wholly unsupported and contradicted by facts.

05:10: J2: That's the reason. They brought that up as a reason for being excused from the obligations of NEPA, but ..

05:20: WW: Yes, that's essentially the same argument …

05:22: J2: .. we certainly have control over the Gulf.

05:26: WW: Yes, we do. And ..

05:30: J2: We don't have control over Switzerland.

05:31: WW: We do over money that flows into Switzerland, and that the control we're asking .. Essentially, that's all we're asking is that the US stop its funding. We're not asking that the US go in and invade Switzerland.

Critic said:
Has Wagner abandoned the USA PATRIOT Act and "Section 831"? It sure looks like it was a random statement and not part of a major strategy.

05:42: J1: Yes, that's .. Has there been any NEPA review?

05:48: WW: There has been no NEPA review. And that's what we're asking: that this Court uphold the law and force NEPA and allow it. I'd like to let Doctor Sancho use his five minutes if I may.

Critic said:
But Wagner did nothing to address the District Court's Analysis of why NEPA does not apply. Further, Wagner doesn't explore that LHC environmental analysis has been done -- just not under US Law, since it is outside of the US. Of course since that's a real analysis by real experts with real concerns, they are mostly about the lethal beam energies and how not to kill people while building and operating the LHC.

06:02: J2: Alright.

06:05: LS: I was intending to convey a longer statement, but there's not much time here. On your question on jurisdiction, I can disagree jurisdiction according to NEPA I and can give comparison with the British Petroleum which I feel is clear. If there is a stream of black holes or stranglets in this machine, there is no way to stop that, there is no safety measure taken by this company. That's why the company is denying the risk.

06:36: LS: I want to stress four points. The truth, the explosive truth about this machine, is that is it both a research machine and experimental weapon, in the sense that this machines are used to create nuclear explosives and exotic particles that come out of that.

Critic said:
Sancho doesn't have any connection with the truth. Don't you have to be able to point a weapon? Where is the door on the LHC which allows one to remove the created nuclear explosives? There is none, since it all operates at high vacuum conditions. Sheesh!

06:56: LS: A question with us new nuclear explosives in this machine is that the two nuclear substances we fear, black holes and strangelets, they also feed in bombs that fuel in the mass of the Earth. They provoke supernova explosions and big bangs. So if there is a stream of those substances, and there's a lot of theoretical work backing it by Mister Einstein, who is the founder of the theory of black holes, and quark strange condensates -- this firm denies and it's bringing a series of theories who are not proved like Mister Hawking who denied Mister Einstein. It is standard science which is the science which should be uphold in Court.

Critic said:
How do black holes provoke supernovae and big bangs? Textbook citation please, since this is allegedly "standard science." Professor Einstein didn't solve his own equations in the spherically symmetric case, Schwarzschild did but "Einstein himself vigorously denied their reality, believing, as did most of his contemporaries, that black holes were a mere mathematical curiosity. He died in 1955, before the term "black hole" was coined or understood and observational evidence for black holes began to mount." and likewise even unstrange quarks were not hypothesized until 1964. So it seems Sancho is no historian of science and neither does he have a grip on what is the practice of science. Being an outsider to the methods of science, he is not qualified to give opinion on what is "standard science" and all of this amounts to his personal ignorance being paraded as if it were expertise.

07:40: LS: It's right. Any stream of those substances will provoke the destruction of the Earth, because those substances will fall to the center of the Earth and feed on the matter of this planet. That's why, unlike British Petroleum that is trying to cut this thing, there is no way to cut this thing. That's why there, for me, a series of NEPA obligations which they didn't follow the company and by (unintelligible) There needs to be a new law which ask for a panel of independent scientists to evaluate the risk of this machine -- they were not also follow because there is actual risk there is only possibility of denial. Denial of the risk, denial of the standard Einstein theory of black holes, and of course denial of any standing authority to the company.

Critic said:
In the much-quoted Scientific American letter, the possibility of Einstein's "standard science" black holes being formed at any terrestrial collider is correctly calculated as zero, and even if a 14 TeV General Relativity black hole was formed, its gravity would be negligible and its cross-section with matter too close to zero to measure. Rather than fall to the center of the Earth, it would flit through like a neutrino -- even in the case where you hypothesize it was produced at zero momentum in the lab frame. BP wishes its problems were like 14 TeV GR black holes, because then everyone would ignore them.

08:34: LS: The possibility of applying the (Statute?) of US Code Section 831 which states quote "the nature of nuclear contamination such that it may affect the health, environment and property of the United States nationals, even with the act that constitutes legal activity outside the territory of the United States and primarily directed towards foreign nationals." So even in a foreign territory, the Unites States, if there is a huge risk, as there is in this case, could interfere. Of course, I don't ask for a political intervention ..

Critic said:

09:10: J3: What can the Court do to redress the problem that you've identified?

09:15: LS: Well, (unintelligible) say that this will be a risk for politicians which is what I think. So, if the politicians knew the truth both in Europe, our allies, and here in America, they will at least politically and administratively ..

09:29: J3: I can't tell politicians what to do. As a judge, I don't have the power to say "You politicians, you enact this law or you face the sanctions .."

09:37: LS: I know. I know. But a positive jurisdiction .. suit on this matter will alert politicians. They say set up a study review of independent scientists, and realize this is a nuclear company, which a lot of interesting .. interest .. scientific interest, bureaucratic interest. That international responsibility to the laws of NEPA, to the obligations of environmental laws in Europe, is lying to the public, and is just living like (unintelligible) company.

Critic said:
Both Sancho and Wagner want to be able to say anything and have it be accepted as fact. Too bad that their job at this hearing is to argue from the established facts for the simple proposition that their case should not have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, for lack of standing or for mooted. (Wagner asserted that the LHC operating as "half power" should not moot his case, but supported that claim with no facts or even argument.)

10:07: LS: They keep a big risk our lives and expecting that nothing happens. There's no (compassion?) in this company. No safety at all. The only thing we ask the court, is to accept jurisdiction in the NEPA because they did violate NEPA. Allow this to become a serious matter, because it is a serious matter.

10:28: J2: Are you acquainted with the doctrine of standing? Of standing?

10:36: LS: Doctrine of standing?

10:37: J2: Standing to sue.

10:40: LS: I do not understand your question.

10:41: J2: It looks like your partner does.

Critic said:
Appearances can be deceiving.

10:45: WW: Your Honor, I'm familiar with the doctrine of standing. Yes, I am. We have standing to sue because we are citizens of .. I am a citizen of the United States. Doctor Sancho, even though he is not a citizen of the United States, he is a resident of the United States. So we have standing under NEPA.

10:59: J2: You think that being a citizen of the United States gives you standing?

11:04: WW: Ah.. It.. It.. (unintelligible) No.

11:05: J2: You think any citizen of the United States can come up here and say "I'm a citizen of the United States,"

11:11: WW: No, that's not what I'm saying. The standing arises from the fact that this activity in Switzerland will affect me here in the United States, even here in Hawaii where the suit was filed because this .. should it create this kind of a condition of creating strangelets it would affect me here in Hawaii. And that's what gives me standing. Not the fact that they're doing something in Switzerland, but that what they're doing in Switzerland can affect me here in Hawaii. That's what gives us standing.

Critic said:
The Government raise standing in trial court back in 2008. Surely by now Wagner could have read a book on the topic.

11:45: J2: There's an element of speculation there, is there not?

11:48: WW: It's a fifty-fifty so far as we know. There's an element of speculation on the part of Doctor Sancho as well.

Critic said:
Hint: Speculation is bad when you are trying to establish an injury. And without a concrete and particularized expectation of injury, you have no standing to sue.

11:53: LS: Please. Standard science in this case is Mister Einstein. This is not speculation. It is standard science. When we switch lights, lights come always on. This is standard science. Speculation is what CERN is saying. Mister Hawking is not (unintelligible) has never been proved. And Mister Einstein says that they will destroy the Earth. So speculation is on the side of CERN.

Critic said:
But Einstein says there are no black holes, even though his physics say there are. And lights don't always come on. Since Hawking basically wrote a theorem, it has been proved multiple ways. Einstein certainly never said that they will destroy the Earth. Citation, please!

12:19: J2: Let's hear from the Government now.

12:21: WW: May I read one very brief quote that was in the Amicus brief?

12:24: J2: I can't say stop you because you look a little like Judge Reinhardt.

12:29: WW: I apologize for that, Your Honor.

12:32: J1: That's exactly what I thought.

12:34: WW: Your Honor, I feel sorry for his family. Then, let me read very briefly from what
Sheldon Glashow wrote. "The strangelet disaster scenario described by Glashow and Wilson would only be credible if strangelets exist (which is conceivable), and if they form reasonably stable lumps (which is unlikely)," -- that's the weasel word -- "and if they are negatively charged (unlikely" -- again the weasel word expressing fifty percent chance -- "given that current theory strongly favors positive charges), and if tiny strangelets can be created at RHIC" // "then there just might be a problem. A newborn stranglet could engulf atomic nuclei growing relentlessly and ultimately consuming the entire Earth." Okay, that was from the Amici Curiae Sheldon Glashow and Robert Wilson co-authored a paper "Taking Serious Risks Seriously" in Nature Magazine that was then quoted in the Amicus brief. From that ..

Critic said:
I bet you were confused why Wagner was quoting from the brief of the Nobel Laureate Amici who opposed Wagner. He's actually misquoting from the 1999 Nature opinion piece and leaving out the central evaluation: that the chances of creating stranglets at RHIC is "exceedingly unlikely." Sheldon Glashow and Richard Wilson reuse much of this sentence (with citation) in their Amici brief with Frank Wilczek, but go on to point out that not only no strangelets were formed at RHIC but that is less likely that LHC would form any. Why does Wagner even bother to pretend at this point, no law, no physics and no calculation back up his claims.

13:29: J2: You went to school, where?

13:31: WW: I went to a lot of places. I teach school and I went to school at UC Berkeley as a physics major, initially, degree in Biology.

13:41: J2: And where did you go to law school?

13:42: WW: I went to law school in Sacramento, several schools. McGeorge School of Law, Lincoln University, Lorenzo Patino School of Law.

13:53: J2: Because you sounded like a Berkeley guy.

13:57: WW: I don't know if that's a compliment, Your Honor. I take that as a compliment.

14:01: J2: I'm a Berkeley graduate.

14:03: WW: Yes. No, and I did graduate research at Berkeley and then I went to another .. I was probably on the Federal payroll before you were.

14:10: J2: Oh, yeah? When did you ..

Critic said:
The highlight of the hearing.

14:14: WW: 1979.

14:16: J2: I've been on the payroll since 1941.

Critic said:
Pearl Harbor is never very far away ...

14:20: WW: I apologize. I take it back. Okay. But it's been a while.

14:26: J2: What?

14:27: WW: It's been a while.

14:28: J1: Thank you ..

14:29: J2: You know, it's .. when did you start?

14:33: WW: When did I start what?

14:34: J2: 1970-what?

14:35: WW: Law school?

14:36: J2: No, on the payroll.

14:37: WW: '79, yeah. It's been a while.

14:39: J1: Thank you

14:41: J2: And you're paying your taxes?

14:43: WW: Yes, I got off the payroll after 5 years.

14:45: J2: Okay. Alright

Critic said:
Now if I were the judge I would feel kind of disgusted that someone would put up "5 years" against the lifetime of Federal service that he had.

14:47: WW: Thank you, Your Honor. The gentleman here has been on the payroll, I don't think since '79, certainly not as long as you.

Critic said:
Your his civil opponent in Court, Wagner. Not a smarmy master of ceremonies.

14:56: J2: Well..

15:03: J2: You're carrying the future of the .. fate of the future of the world on your shoulders.

15:10: JA: I feel like I have a great responsibility here this morning, Your Honor, and I only have ten minutes in which to discharge it. I'm John Arbab on behalf of the ..

15:19: J2: Einstein said, I think, that, y'know, time isn't a factor.

15:26: JA: Right, time is

15:27: J2: Relative.

15:27: JA: It's relative and the clock can always keep running.

15:30: J2: It's irrelevant, really.

15:32: JA: If I might ..

15:33: J2: That's what I tell people when I'm late.

15:37: J1: Which is constant.

15:40: J2: I'm a constant force.

Critic said:
Joking from the bench is almost all the rest these judges are going to get.

15:42: JA: Your Honor, I would like to try to refocus on the legal issues that are actually involved in this appeal. As the Court ..

15:51: J2: What about standing, you want to address that?

15:52: JA: I would like to because that's the first issue that really must be addressed. As we discuss in the brief, there's a serious standing problem with the plaintiffs ability to bring the suits based on redressibility and causation requirements of Article III standing. The basic problem is that the suit seeks an order from a Federal Court enjoining further operation of the LHC. The problem is that the only entity with authority to do that is not any of the Federal defendants, but CERN, who is not a defendant in this case. So the harm.. the alleged harm.. the operation of the LHC is not fairly traceable to either of the Federal appellees.

16:40: J1: Can you explain to us the structure and what participation the United States has. Apparently, it operates a couple of experimental laboratories.

16:53: JA: Your Honor, there's some confusion in the briefing about this but I think the facts are pretty simple. According to the record,

17:00: J2: Speak up just a little.

17:02: JA: The facts are pretty simple. There's been some confusion in the briefing about this point. First of all, as the District Court found, the two Federal agencies here, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, contributed a very small amount of the total construction costs of the LHC. Less than ten percent.

17:22: J3: A very small proportion. I have difficulty saying it's a small amount. It's over a half billion dollars.

17:30: JA: It's about five hundred and thirty million dollars, Your Honor, but under the Circuit's case law, the relevant comparison is not just the figure in the abstract, it's how it measures up compared to the total expenditure of all parties, including the non-Federal contributors. And here, as in many of the Court's cases, like Rattlesnake Coalition, Ka Makani, Friends of the Earth, the percentage of the Government's contribution is ..

17:56: J3: Is there any case where the number of dollars is in nine digits that's been held to not be a Major Federal Action?

18:04: J3: I just don't think that's your strong point with regard to standing.

18:07: JA: Your Honor, the .. this issue would not go to standing. This goes to whether the LHC is a Major Federal Action, which would be the merits issue, assuming that one of the plaintiffs had standing.

18:20: J2: You were talking about standing.

18:22: JA: Yes, I was just answering Judge Fletcher's question as to the exact nature of the Government's involvement in the project. So there's the construction .. the small percentage of construction funding which is less than ten percent. And the relevance of that is, as I said, Major Federal Action is not indicated where such a small percentage is Federal funding.

18:42: J1: I guess I'm more interested in what operational things that it currently is doing.

18:48: JA: Yes, Your Honor. As we discussed in the brief, and is detailed in the Declaration of Doctor Strauss, the Department of Energy has, subject to funding from Congress, has in the past, in Fiscal Year 2009, allocated some monies towards support of US scientists doing research on two of the four detectors. But that's completely unrelated to the graviment of the suit which is that the Plaintiffs don't want the accelerator itself to operate. The accelerator operates irrespective of whether the US scientists participate in research on two of the four detectors. And that's quite clear from the Strauss Declaration. He states that even if ..

19:42: J2: Could you speak a little louder?

19:43: JA: Yes, Your Honor.

19:42: J2: There's been a Big Bang, and all I hear is a whisper.

19:47: JA: I'm sorry. The Strauss Declaration makes clear that even if the US scientists, who were doing research on the two of the four detectors, packed their bags and went home tomorrow the LHC would still continue to operate. It's not as if this kind of support for US researchers has any effect on whether the LHC will continue to operate or not. So that fact is relevant for two reasons. As to standing, it only reinforces the problem with repressibility and causation. And, secondly, it also reinforces the point that the LHC is not a Major Federal Action because it indicates that Federal agencies have no control or authority over whether the LHC continues to operate. They fund some scientists doing research on the detectors, and that's it.

20:45: JA: So, based on the record that was compiled before the District Court, it's quite clear that neither plaintiff had standing even assuming that Mister Sancho is still an appellant, involved in the case on appeal.

21:08: JA: I think the only other point that I would like to make, unless there are further questions, goes to the Major Federal Action question. Even assuming that at least one of the Plaintiffs had standing to bring the suit, they're asking that NEPA be applied here. And NEPA is not applied, does not even trigger, unless the project at issue is a so-called Major Federal Action under the text of NEPA.

21:38: JA: Here the District Court properly found that the two important guideposts come to make a Major Federal Action question cut in favor of a conclusion that the LHC is not a Major Federal Action. Again the first factor being the minimal amount of Federal funding as a percentage of the whole, and secondly the fact that the Federal agencies have no control over the operation or management of the LHC, that authority being vested exclusively in CERN, who was not even a Defendant here.

22:13: JA: So unless there are further questions, I would just ask that the judgement below be affirmed.

22:22: J2: (aside) Do you have another question?

22:24: J2: Thank you.

22:25: JA: Thank you.

22:28: WW: I'm not certain if I used up our ten minutes. I would like to take one minute for rebuttal, if I may?

Critic said:
How can you not be certain when the red light went on before you misquoted Nobel Laureates?

22:34: J2: The Government cedes two minutes to you.

22:38: WW: Thank you. So.. Wonderful!

22:42: WW: The (unintelligible) is a defendant. CERN is a defendant. CERN as a defendant defaulted at the trial court level -- did not appear in court -- but it is a defendant. And basically, they did not want to show up and argue their case. So..

Critic said:
What basis does Wagner have for knowing what CERN (an organization) wanted or did not want?

22:58: J2: They weren't properly served.

Critic said:
Snap! That's what I've been saying.

23:00: WW: That's what they .. Subsequently, the Government has complained that they were not properly served. And we never really delved into that issue in depth at the trial court level because it went up on appeal before we did so. I believe that they were properly served, but we could go serve them again if it gets back to the trial court .. or when it gets back to the trial court.

Critic said:
Remember when the District court asked you about the Hague Convention? I do.

23:23: WW: And as to standing, yes, the Government has conceded that the US Government is continuing to fund two of those four detectors, and those are integral parts of the operations -- there is no point in operating the machine if you aren't going to have the detector there. It's integral to it and so it's sort of like having the car wheels …

Critic said:
What is your basis for claiming that the detectors are integral? Why can't the LHC operate with less than three detectors? Also, I think this analogy needs work.

23:44: J3: Could someone else fund those portions of the project?

23:48: WW: Pardon?

23:49: J3: Could somebody else fund those portions of the project?

23:51: WW: I'm sure that other persons could always step in. The US could have never funded it in the first place .. maybe something might have happened. But that still aren't that facts of what did happen.

Critic said:
Note -- Wagner is assuming that the Federal Court has a time machine and can go back and unspend money.

24:03: J3: I think (unintelligible) Now wait a minute, Son. What we are dealing with here is a question of whether the United States has a finger on an on/off button. Do you concede the United States does not have a finger on the on/off button?

24:15: WW: It does. Very much so, because if the detectors are off, the machine will ..

24:20: J3: You just told me somebody else could fund that.

24:23: WW: May.. (elbow!)

24:27: LS: According to the administrative rules of CERN if this huge quantity of five hundred.. half billion dollars disappears, it will be entirely settled of all the systems. It will have to appear money from the European Union which is not very interested in giving more money for this thing. And so it will really halt the machine and put the issue into the scientific community. So it will really effect tremendously this machine. It won't work.

Critic said:
Note -- Sancho is assuming that the Federal Court has a time machine and can go back and unspend money and unbuild the LHC.

24:57: WW: Essentially, Your Honor, we want to be asking this Court to issue.. to send it back to the Trial Court for the Trial Court to issue injunctive relief if we can get it to do anything. We're very confident that should the Trial Court issue injunctive relief ordering a NEPA .. or affirming that NEPA was required, that they need to follow NEPA -- we don't know what the outcome of NEPA will be, it might very well be that Okay, we go through all the procedures and everybody's on-board with taking that risk, then that would be the outcome -- but we don't know what that outcome would be. That's so with British Petroleum, perhaps if they went through NEPA procedure everybody would have gone on-board with Let's-take-the-risk. But that's not saying that that's what the law is. The law requires that this be reviewed. Thank you, Your ..

Critic said:
Okay. Here is where Wagner is reducing NEPA from being a firewall to being a bureaucratic hoop-jumping exercise -- precisely the type of administrative law that can't give rise to redressible injury for already spent money.

25:37: J2: (unintelligible) whole sentence.

25:40: WW: Thank you very kindly for your time, and I appreciate your cordiality.

25:44: J3: Oi, thank you. Interesting. And the matter is submitted and we'll call the next matter. United States of America versus Bihno Tanaka.

26:00: (Various people exit the room)
 
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The fraudulent criminal charge lodged 2-1/2 years ago, referenced throughout this thread, was dismissed today as to both parties. This sets the stage for pending civil actions against the people who were lying to the judiciary to initiate the fraudulent charge.
 
The fraudulent criminal charge lodged 2-1/2 years ago, referenced throughout this thread, was dismissed today as to both parties.
Specifically, the contested motion to dismiss under Hawaiian law implementing the US Constitutional right to a speedy trial (6th Amendment) was granted.
This sets the stage for pending civil actions against the people who were lying to the judiciary to initiate the fraudulent charge.
The existence of the decision seems to specifically speak to the issue of whether the prosecution was slow without good cause, and does not on its face establish that the charges were fraudulent or that any people were "lying to the judiciary." Perhaps Wagner can quote from the (as of yet unread) text of the decision to support this claims, but I suspect not. Since no trial was held on the merits of the charges, I am not a lawyer but isn't this a classic case of no jeopardy attaching, and thus may not the prosecution appeal the dismissal if it feels an error in law or discretion was made?

And this is the sore point I have had since 2006 -- where is the positive case for Article III standing? Where is the concrete, non-speculative, redressable case that the LHC will cause damages? There is none. Article III standing is complicated because it rests on about 200 years of interpretation of the Constitution, but ultimately this case should be about physics. How is the LHC dangerous? Under that model, how dangerous is it?

Instead of physics models, we get ephemeral and undefined buzzwords. We get "black hole" by which sometimes the Plaintiffs mean "GR black hole of the type that everyone acknowledges is impossible to be dangerous" and sometimes they mean "chargeless, spinless, high-dimensional quantum black hole that for unexplained fundamental reasons lack Hawking radiation and have in addition some magical property of only being formed and dangerous when created by Man" . By "strangelet" they mean "unevidenced stable, negatively-charged collection of 10-90 mostly down and strange quarks that can form at from the matter-antimatter soup of multi-TeV collisions and can remain negative and grow without limit upon contact with nuclear matter and yet leave to the history of observation no evidence in nature."

Instead we get a failure to argue why NEPA applies when the District court said it didn't. We get a failure to establish that 18 USC 831 covers anything at the LHC, and a failure to support the view of the Patriot Act.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art3frag14_user.html#art3_sec2
 
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The fraudulent criminal charge lodged 2-1/2 years ago, referenced throughout this thread, was dismissed today as to both parties. This sets the stage for pending civil actions against the people who were lying to the judiciary to initiate the fraudulent charge.

It sure is nice to see the taxpayers dollars at work. How much more will you waste, Walter?
 
Update -- For Bizarre reasons given what the appellate court was asked to decide, after the hearing Wagner filed again, citing http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.2198v1 , and claiming is was a "peer-reviewed scientific law article" showing "scientific uncertainty". Apparently, Wagner thinks this gives him standing. (Article III Standing and the Hague Convention are two legal subjects I think Wagner can't speak articulately on.) In version one of the paper, the Abstract contains "If this Hawking decay is not universal, some black holes can live long enough to penetrate into the Earth and grow dangerously," and yet the topic of black hole growth is not addressed. Indeed, while Giddings and Mangano is cited as a peer-reviewed paper, the author of the present paper thinks this work is about meta-stable black holes, when in fact it is about down-right magical stable black holes.

Yesterday, John Arbab (Goverment lawyer) cites the usual arxiv page that says stuff on Arxiv is not necessarily peer-reviewed. That's a job of scientific journals of good repute, not arxiv or its endorsers. http://arxiv.org/help/endorsement

Indeed, on June 28 the author put the lie to the claim of peer review by posting an updated version of the paper. They cleaned up the abstract considerably. But they still haven't understood even the topic of Giddings and Mangano, and to my eye it looks like a mish-mash of upper division thermodynamics, salted with equations from black hole papers and Newtonian physics. The author in both versions suggests controlling the "impact parameter" as a way of exerting control on the black hole state.

// Update2 -- The author, is the director of an engineering research unit (with lamentably stale web pages, even in Korean) at the University of Seoul. The group is focused on quantum computing which explains some of the unfamiliarity of collider experiments. I still think his thinking on the "internal state" of a black hole is muddy.
 
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'Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have seen several candidates for the heaviest elementary particle known to science.

If the observations are confirmed, it would be a first for Europe; so far, the top quark particle has only been generated by one lab in the US."

FROM: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10746900
 
You see -- that's just evidence that the laws of nature are the same everywhere -- one of the foundations of both Newtonian physics and the LHC safety arguments.
 
Unrelated but for same-courtroom, same-day, and same-judges. The criminal appeal which was held with the most lawyers on that day, has been decided.
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2010/07/26/09-10211.pdf
I remember that the N-1 attorneys representing N clients were having a discussion on sharing the podium. Would one laywer get 2t/N or would all be content with t/(N-1) ? Sadly, I left to return to downtown Honolulu and a walk to Waikiki so I never found out.

Oh. In actually related matter, Wagner files more incorrect statements of fact with regard to arxiv.org. The letter was received on Friday.

Review:
- Wagner makes new claims of fact, but does not submit them under oath.
- Nor does he supply references.
- Nor does he update his "Legal room" so in effect, I have scooped Wagner in reporting on his own activities on a letter he wrote on July 20th.
+ Wagner uses the preferred capitalization and gives a pronunciation guide for "arXiv"
- Wagner says that arXiv was established because the high volume of "quality papers" exceeds the capacity of "traditional publication in peer-reviewed journals."
But the actual history of arXiv.org begins with Los Alamos at least far back as 1991 and is not intended as a substitute for peer-review and publication, but as a high-speed, automated, and lightly-moderated means of "dissemination" http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/blurb/sep96news.html
There is a tongue-in-cheek reference both to assessing charges and automated paper valuation which date back to 1991. Not everyone got the joke. http://arxiv.org/new/91-94.html NSF funding started in March 1995, and the current name dates to December 1998. The current era of "endorsement" of authors as appropriate posters in specific fields dates to January 2004 and the John Arbab-supplied link is exactly correct in that there is no peer-review.
- Wagner, without evidence, claims "many if not most papers published in journals" appear on arXiv and yet this ignores the large area of scientific disciplines which have not yet found a happy home on arXiv.org.
+ Wagner indicates arXiv is a pre-print server when he indicates that when the papers appear on arXiv first, publication in a journal comes "months to years later"
- Wagner doesn't call out that this expectation of appearing in a journal is speculative and in some cases, like authors with poor performance, unjustified.
- Wagner doesn't call out that indeed the paper which he started this exchange with Mr. Arbab has already been superseded, and therefore the paper is never going to appear in print as he submitted it to the Court.
- Wagner fails to understand the on-line description of the endorsement process in that it is an endorsement of authors with respect to certain whole areas of science, not of individual papers.
- Contrary to Wagner's claims of what the endorsement prevents, examples of "self-publication" and "quack science" abound on arXiv.org.
+ Wagner calls the policies of viXra as inferior to arXiv.org in this respect.
- Wagner claims the already-revised paper as a proof only of ongoing "legitimate scientific debate." Yet this is precisely what his misunderstanding of arXiv.org undermines.
- Wagner claims that the fact (I will stipulate to this) not 100% of people who write papers have the exact same opinion actually gives rise to risk. That is not how natural law or risk management works. The universe doesn't care that different people have different opinions on what will happen in the future or the details of natural law. Also everyone lives in the same universe. So if not 100% of people have the same opinion on a question of natural law, the fault, Dear Wagner, is not in the stars but in ourselves. Different people have different levels of demonstrated understanding of different areas of physical law. Risk management only cares what the best of those say. Personal ignorance does not give rise to a claim against another.
- Finally, Wagner tries to claim that this single, now-revised paper, gives rise to his Article III standing because the risk is "inherent" when the paper doesn't calculate the risk and doesn't even address the arguments of Giddings and Mangano which it mischaracterizes.
 
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True, the original Ahn article was revised and resubmitted to arXiv about two weeks after its original submission. Here's the abstract as it originally read, and as it now reads:

Original:

"Abstract: Microscopic black holes with mass in the TeV range to be produced in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should undergo the prompt and quasi-thermal evaporation by emitting Hawking radiation. If this Hawking decay is not universal, some black holes can live long enough to penetrate into the Earth and grow dangerously. At present, the effects of black hole internal quantum state evolution on the evaporation are not well understood. This study shows that Hawking decay could be suppressed when the black hole internal matter state is in the coherent state. In this case, black holes created in the LHC may live long enough to grow catastrophically. The condition to avoid this catastrophic situation is also discussed. Our results demonstrate that the black hole evaporation is strongly dependent on the black hole internal quantum state and its evolution."

Revised/Current:

"Microscopic black holes with mass in the TeV range to be produced in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should undergo the prompt and quasi-thermal evaporation by emitting Hawking radiation. In this study, we show that Hawking decay could be suppressed when the black hole internal matter state is in the coherent state. In this case, black holes created in the LHC may have substantially long lifetimes."

Please note that I am not associated with the author, and had no knowledge of his efforts prior to submission.

The Letter I wrote to the court countering the Arbab letter was only about 1/3rd the length of the rpenner "Review" of my Letter. It would be better for rpenner to simply publish that letter (it is, after all, public record) rather than make all of his fanciful proclamations, and simply let this readership judge for themselves. It was kept very abbreviated for a reason, and such abbreviation sometimes makes it difficult to give a full explanation. It served its purpose in countering the Arbab letter, which is all it was intended to do.
 
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My post might be long, but it is the length required to address the issues raised in your letter. You, who have the computer original, are in a far better place to render an ASCII or web equivalent post for this thread or to post it on your website and I would link to it. The PDF of the clerk-scanned letter to the court looks rather shoddy.

The Arbab letter ( see my post above for July 13 ) has the uncontested citation of what the arXiv.org maintainers claim their endorsement policy is and isn't. That you dispute plain text interpretation is not admissible as evidence as it appears in your unsworn letter and concerns the intent of a body which doesn't have you as even a member, let alone an authorized spokesperson.

Professor and Director Ahn's paper is still in need of revision in my opinion, however. In particular, the current paper does nothing to rebut Giddings and Mangano and mischaracterizes the paper as concerned with meta-stable black holes, when Giddings and Mangano focus on hypothetical stable and uncharged black holes and their eating rates in uniform fluids. As Ahn's paper doesn't discuss the care and feeding of black holes, and importantly doesn't describe the effect of the capture of the smallest fermion on the hypothetically important pure states, his paper(past and current drafts) is not yet relevant in addressing safety.
 
I thank you for the long post it has helped bring me up to speed a bit. I would first like to apologize to you for our previous encounters and my wild writing. and I see that no harm can come from the LHC's. they are only particle accelerators of corse.
 
Still waiting for news from the Appellate court. Just a reminder that the best possible outcome for Wagner and Sancho is that they will have to demonstrate that the LHC threatens the world in a non-speculative manner at the District level. The continuing refusals to talk about the science behind their end-of-the-world claims seems to indicate they don't have a basis for any such claims.

But while we wait for the judgement from Pregerson whose lifetime commitment to serving his country perhaps began with Pearl Harbor, scant miles from the courtroom where he was exposed to Wagner's smug superiority in the face of his lack of competence, perhaps some good news for Wagner -- press clippings.

The fraudulent criminal charge lodged 2-1/2 years ago, referenced throughout this thread, was dismissed today as to both parties. This sets the stage for pending civil actions against the people who were lying to the judiciary to initiate the fraudulent charge.

The motion to dismiss was held on July 2. Wagner wrote that in July. Finally (from August 12) we have press coverage of it:
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12970623

Deputy Prosecutor Jason Skier said the case was dismissed last month without prejudice due to a technicality.

The Wagners could be recharged.

Also: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20100812_Fraud_case_dismissed.html

Complete with a snarky comment from "County Retiree"

// Edit: Also http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/news.do?feed=yellowbrix&storyid=148514882

Wagner has not said I got one word wrong in the transcript. Wagner has not updated his "Legal Room" since 2008 to post his own court documents. Wagner has not replied to material attacks on his legal, logical, and scientific grounding.

rpenner said:
(Jun 17 2008) I am giving you the best break of all: I'm asking you to support your own claim. When you use middle management press tactics of trying to avoid answering the question, this just makes you look like [a] petty coward instead of someone who is capable of answering basic human questions.

http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=4830&view=findpost&p=349493
 
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Short and sweet -- here it is. Yesterday's decision in appellate court. http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2010/08/24/08-17389.pdf

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii
Helen Gillmor, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted June 17, 2010
Honolulu, Hawaii

Before: B. FLETCHER, PREGERSON and CLIFTON, Circuit Judges.

Walter L. Wagner (“Wagner”) appeals the district court’s dismissal of his claim against the United States Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation (collectively, “the U.S. government”), and others. The parties are familiar with the facts of this case, which we repeat here only to the extent necessary to explain our decision. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

This court can affirm on any ground supported by the record. Cook v. AVI Casino Enters., Inc., 548 F.3d 718, 722 (9th Cir. 2008). We review questions of standing de novo, Mayfield v. United States, 599 F.3d 964, 970 (9th Cir. 2010), and factual findings for clear error. Robinson v. United States, 586 F.3d 683, 685 (9th Cir. 2009). To establish standing, Wagner must demonstrate (1) an “injury in fact,” (2) “a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of” that is not attributable to “the independent action of some third party not before the court,” and (3) a likelihood that a favorable decision will redress the injury. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992).

Wagner cannot demonstrate that he has standing. A plaintiff alleging a procedural injury, such as Wagner, must still establish injury in fact. See Laub v. U.S. Dep’t. of Interior, 342 F.3d 1080, 1086 (9th Cir. 2003). Injury in fact requires some “credible threat of harm.” Cent. Delta Water Agency v. United States, 306 F.3d 938, 950 (9th Cir. 2002). At most, Wagner has alleged that experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (the “Collider”) have “potential adverse consequences.” Speculative fear of future harm does not constitute an injury in fact sufficient to confer standing. Mayfield, 599 F.3d at 970.

Even if Wagner has demonstrated injury in fact, he nevertheless fails to satisfy the causality or redressability prongs set out in Lujan. The European Center for Nuclear Research (“CERN”) proposed and constructed the Collider, albeit with some U.S. government support. The U.S. government enjoys only observer status on the CERN council, and has no control over CERN or its operations. Accordingly, the alleged injury, destruction of the earth, is in no way attributable to the U.S. government’s failure to draft an environmental impact statement.

CERN maintains total ownership, management, and operational control of the Collider. CERN has never been properly served, and is not a party to this case. Even if this court were to render a decision in Wagner’s favor, such a decision would have no impact on CERN or Collider operations, and would not afford Wagner the relief he seeks. [[Because our determination of standing is not dependent on the identity of the Appellant, we need not address whether Luis Sancho is a party to this appeal.]]

AFFIRMED.
 
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Hello. While looking for news coverage of this result, I found this unattributed post. But it looks to me like the writing style of Luis Sancho.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/852204

What do you think?

// Update, I'm not sure, but it looks like Luis Sancho is indeed taking credit for the post which he claims also appeared on leagal.com

http://www.cerntruth.com/?p=130 (Once again, Luis Sancho thinks he has a unique grasp on truth)
 
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I think its finished...in the U.S. courts.
 
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I see, and know he is a frequent poster here..

After a study on his subjects he poses, have very little influence on the subjects you persecute the man of. I take it, that Rpenner, and the rest of you who have given a little, hardly understand that the positions you take are actually taken as real evidence?

As much as it's easy to scathe things from the vast internet, I find it almost ''animalstic''.. What are you guys trying to prove now? I've heard all this news before, and now it's old.\

It's like Pauls thread. It should be locked now.
 
I think this has become monotonous Rpenner, and substantially boring.
The battle for reasoning your way to truth upon the evidence is boring? I disagree. It's fascinating how someone would go into battle voluntarily, armed with so little.
I see, and know he is a frequent poster here..
Who is 'he'? Me? Where is 'here'? This thread? I formed this thread to talk on a single subject. I did so because Walter L Wagner (WLW) didn't want to discuss things elsewhere. I have always been willing to discuss any issue in physics or law raised in connection to that subject. Here, while WLW doesn't talk about anything of substance, we've seen him many times adopt an unshakeable confidence in the strength of his arguments that vanishingly few others see any merit in. This is probably not good in physics or the law.
After a study on his subjects he poses, have very little influence on the subjects you persecute the man of.
To what study, published where, do you refer? To what subjects do you refer? Given that I have filed no lawsuits, just who is persecuting whom, in your opinion?
I take it, that Rpenner, and the rest of you who have given a little, hardly understand that the positions you take are actually taken as real evidence?
Given a little what? What position of mine do you believe is not based on real evidence? Since Wagner's website lacks any Legal Room updates since September 2008 this is one of the best sites for updates.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/hawaii/hidce/1:2008cv00136/78717/

This thread has somewhat better descriptions of what went on in September 2008, June 2010 and August 2010 in this trial than news sources -- because very few pay attention to both physics and the law.

Before the lawsuit began I told WLW it was a poorly planned idea. When I read that WLW was soliciting donations and seeking 501 tax-free certification, I didn't think he was going about this the right way. When someone claimed to have donated $2000 and yet there was no sign of financial disclosures or fiduciary duty to the stated cause, I asked questions that have gone unanswered for years. My physics questions on page one of this thread have gone unanswered for years. My legal questions about expert witnesses have gone unanswered for years. My questions about the death of the Indian girl who committed suicide have gone unanswered.

The safety argument for LHC is complex, because all of the disaster scenarios are based on completely unevidenced objects and events, and to argue against them you have to cast such objects and disasters into rigorous forms on which to do physics with and then use the negative evidence of hundreds of years of observation to demonstrate that such objects (1) cannot exist in this universe, (2) cannot be formed at the LHC or (3) cannot be dangerous in the manner suggested. That's a complex argument and while it can be followed by a talented high schooler, you actually need rather deep results from both theoretical physics and experimental physics to argue for either side. In this WLW and Luis Sancho have failed to present a case. They have simply named objects and named disasters, but never argued that evidence and reason leads one to the conclusions that such objects can be formed at the LHC and will cause disaster.

Giddings and Mangano (2008) on the other hand have described the demise of the Earth via a hypothetical magically uncharged, magically stable black-hole-like object. Such an object, if possible, will eat the Earth, certainly, but in a time scale that is long compared to the period between major asteroid strikes and the boiling of the oceans caused by the expansion of the sun.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3381

As much as it's easy to scathe things from the vast internet, I find it almost ''animalstic''.. What are you guys trying to prove now? I've heard all this news before, and now it's old.\

It's like Pauls thread. It should be locked now.
How is it both "animalistic" and "like Pauls thread" ? Paul is not acting like any animal I can name.

I can't speak for any other "guys" but as to what I would like to prove:
1) Neither WLW nor Luis Sancho is a physicist or lawyer, and no physical truth motivates what they say,
2) WLW really did collect funds in excess of $2000, under guise of setting up a 501(c) non-profit to persecute the LHC, and
3) WLW did not accomplish 501(c) status, and left no paper trail that he tried.

If I am wrong about any one of these ideas, it would be trivial for WLW to convince me. WLW could present a single disaster scenario in detail -- he's been working on the strangelets angle since 1999. He could write up an argument which was at least aware of Article III standing to sue and the Hague convention to at least show that he was legitimately surprised by the August 2010 ruling on service to CERN and his inability to show standing. A 501(c) is required to keep detailed records and it's in the public interest to make some of them public. WLW runs a website, which went neglected for years.

Being critical of WLW is by no means the same as "persecuting" him.
 
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