Controversy over climate data lost in the 1980s

An article in yesterday's Sunday Times reports an admission by University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit that when moving to a new building in the 1980s, they threw out raw temperature data, keeping only data "adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected". This may or may not be an accurate reflection of what happened, but we do need to remember that raw data (magnetic & paper tape) was much more voluminous then than now, and much more of a problem to manage. The story has certainly whipped up blogosphere conspiracy fervour, of course!