Warmist Scott Mandia suggests that people who file FOIA requests are trying to keep climate science from advancing at Suffolk County Community College

Climate Control | The American Prospect

Scott Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences at Suffolk County Community College, cautions: “As we saw with the stolen e-mails from the climate research unit, all these guys have to do is find a couple of sentences taken out of context, and they can try to create another one of these so called ‘Climategates.’ There was nothing there, but if you make enough smoke people assume there is a fire.”

Not only do events like Climategate injure the credibility of global warming science, they are also disruptive to the individual scientists. “[Opponents] use FOIA to access information that is freely available, mostly because by law you have to respond to it," says Mandia, "One of the tactics is to bury them with paper.” Mandia felt the weight of this attention in 2010 when he was threatened with a lawsuit from Christopher Mongton, who works with Heartland Institute, a conservative non-profit that denies global warming (and who have worked with tobacco giant Philip Morris in the past). “I’ve got two small children, I teach classes," thought Mandia, when confronted by the suit, "now I understand why these guys are doing this. If they keep you busy, you can’t do your research. If you can’t do your research, you can’t advance the science.”
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“The trend will continue until there are serious repercussions," says Mann, who is preparing to return to court on November 1, "be they in the financial or public relations realm, for the organizations and front groups that fund these ongoing attacks.”