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Was it wrong to hack and leak the Panama Papers?

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Was it wrong to hack and leak the Panama Papers?

#71

Slowly but surely, I'm coming to the position that "hacking and leaking" is never "wrong". It's a form of speech, and I'm a free speech absolutist. Let's stipulate that some things are illegal and not "wrong", just as others are legal and "wrong". It's not clear to me, however, that this case actually is a hack, in the sense that whoever released this material might have had legitimate access to it as a part of doing…

You don't mind posting a link to your girlfriend nude pics then? In the name and spirit of absolutely free speech. We will be waiting.

to all the down voters - you are infringing on my right to absolutely free speech!

Re: Was it wrong to hack and leak the Panama Papers?

#72
An article by Tyler Cowen of the Mercatus Center - "the most important think tank you've never heard of." [1]

If you're interested in the background of this interesting organization, there's some funding information at [2].

It's maybe not that surprising that a board member of an economics outreach effort heavily funded by Koch Industries would argue for the freedom of the very rich to "to minimize their tax burden through (mostly) legal shell corporations," especially considering that the Kochs were exposed doing just this by a previous round of ICIJ published leaks. [3]

But maybe it's worth asking why such a reasonable practice, totally within the law, would be so secret in the first place that it takes leaks like these to make it known.

1: http://web.archive.org/web/20070824203256/http://gazette.gmu...

2: http://www.desmogblog.com/mercatus-center

3: https://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks/new-leak-revea...

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