It making the news does not have any bearing on whether or not they were personal attacks on the scientists or attacks on the credibility of their data/interpretations.
Yes, they were attacks. They were not, however, ad hominems. I hope you understand this some day.

You're rambling. It wasn't a valid point against global warming or climate change, but it wasn't an ad hominem either.

Facebook sold all the data that I entered into my Facebook profile after I made it as private as possible to scam site Mylife.com. Now that data is available to anyone and Mylife.com is more likely to fraudulently charge my credit cards than take down the info if I contact them.

There is no way I would want any sort of Facebook-government integration.

Nah, if they want to manufacture a scandal in the media, "gate" will still be the appropriate suffix to draw direct comparisons with regard to severity of the scandal to Watergate. It's like a Godwin's law variation.
"Leak" is only accurate and that's just worthless for yellow journalism.

To enforce a policy of minimal tolerance, you are implicitly required to use minimal thought.