"The Justice Department is helping British authorities in an investigation into the hacking of climate scientists’ emails, which caused an uproar among skeptics of global warming when they were released two years ago."

"Ten days ago, the Justice Department contacted San Francisco web development company Automattic, asking it to preserve records of three climate skeptic bloggers in the U.S., Canada and Britain who recently received another batch of stolen emails sent from a server in Russia.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the nature of the investigation and did not give Automattic a reason for its request. But the letter to Automattic suggests the request is part of an ongoing investigation by law enforcement officials in Britain."

Neela Banerjee reports for the Los Angeles Times December 19, 2011. [2]