
Panama Papers - 2.6TB leak on offshore tax havens - goshx
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/
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paraxisi
Previous discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416928](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416928)

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hendler
I think less quality coverage, but interesting to watch the news spread
through media here:

\- [https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-aides-among-world-
leaders-e...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-aides-among-world-leaders-
exposed-tax-haven-195848285.html)

\- [https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/associates-
of-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/associates-of-russias-
putin-had-2-billion-in-offshore-accounts-report-
says/2016/04/03/25437e1e-f839-11e5-8b23-538270a1ca31_story.html)

\- [http://www.usatoday.com/](http://www.usatoday.com/) (prominent on front
page)

\- [http://time.com/4280200/panama-papers-vladimir-putin-
russia-...](http://time.com/4280200/panama-papers-vladimir-putin-russia-
mossack-fonseca-leak/?xid=homepage)

\- newyorktimes.com buried under politics
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us/politics/leaked-
documen...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us/politics/leaked-documents-
offshore-accounts-putin.html)

Nothing on CNN's front page as of yet. Don't know if on TV. Imagine editorial
staff doing catch up, but wonder why they weren't collaborating earlier. Maybe
AOL/TimeWarner are in there?

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chvid
No leaks involving Americans (yet).

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retrogradeorbit
Don't expect to hear much on that front:
[https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-
me...](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-media-
gatekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/)

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hendler
Editor says there may be some:

[https://twitter.com/ploechinger/status/716773530436825088](https://twitter.com/ploechinger/status/716773530436825088)

[https://twitter.com/ploechinger/status/716763595820941312](https://twitter.com/ploechinger/status/716763595820941312)

Also, I hope journalists are asking the "accused" for their comments, and
giving them time to respond, as journalistic best practice.

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ratsmack
"Some" really isn't good enough. From what I've been able to put together, the
whole thing seems choreographed if not outright rigged. Why is it that Putin
and Assad seem to be the only targets with the initial release?

I will have a hard time believing any of the reporting until the raw data is
released.

~~~
panamaleak
The group putting out this leak is also funded by George Soros and Rockefeller
Funds through OpenSociety.

Makes me skeptical to say the least.

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MagnumOpus
Süddeutsche Zeitung is funded by Soros? Any proof? And here I thought it was
owned by five Munich publisher families for generations - Friedmann,
Goldschagg, Seidlein, Schwingenstein and Dürrmeier...

(BTW, people will believe your rather out-of-the-box accusations more if you
don't create separate brand-new accounts to post them.)

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ajmurmann
Warning: If you click through to the article itself it will automatically
start playing music. You might want to turn your volume down if you are in an
environment where that would be inappropriate.

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usaphp
Can someone explain me if reading these documents is even legal for
journalists? I mean I am pretty sure most of the people that used that law
office are completely innocent and having their personal information leaked
and now read and investigated by some journalists is kind of crime in its own,
I would not want my legal papers stolen and read by anybody if I am doing
everything according to the law.

My question is - what legal right do these journalists have to read this
confidential information?

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jMyles
Mere possession of information is rarely illegal. The right to possess
information - even that which was gleaned illegally initially, goes back
further than the US Constitution and is clearly established.

If you are interested in the current jurisprudence surrounding the matter of
when possessing information can be (and can't be) illegal, you might be
interested in "illegal numbers":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number)

~~~
usaphp
But can't this Mossack Fonseca firm now go ahead and send a legal request to
these journalists to delete these confidential documents and journalists will
have to comply with it? It's just so hard to believe for me that company
confidential information is not protected by any law and these leaks can
happen with no punishment for those who possess this confidential information.
It's a great success that this leak had some information to bring public's
attention to individuals who evade taxes, but what if there was no
compromising data in it - does it mean you can get away with just reading
people's confidential data?

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jMyles
> company confidential information is not protected by any law

This is not the case. Presumably the original leaker(s) are in violation of
their contracts with the company and possibly Panamanian criminal law (which I
know nothing about). In some jurisdictions, there may also be statutory civil
liability surrounding the subsequent losses realized as the result of the
information being in the hands of these non-parties.

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zanny
Aren't these documents the copyright of Mossack Fonseca? They could just sue
everyone reproducing copies for copyright infringement, beyond just the
original leaker breaking contract and also committing copyright infringement.

If there is no license, full rights are reserved and copyright is implied.

~~~
MagnumOpus
They could sue but they would lose because of fair use/fair dealing clauses.
In the UK for instance the rule is:

"Fair dealing for criticism, review or quotation is allowed for any type of
copyright work. Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of reporting current
events is allowed for any type of copyright work other than a photograph. In
each of these cases, a sufficient acknowledgment will be required."

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ikeboy
[http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3...](http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3c3495adf4/)

>Generally speaking, owning an offshore company is not illegal in itself. In
fact, establishing an offshore company can be seen as a logical step for a
broad range of business transactions. However, a look through the Panama
Papers very quickly reveals that concealing the identities of the true company
owners was the primary aim in the vast majority of cases.

This makes it sound like owning an offshore company solely to conceal your
identity is illegal. Is that true?

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qaq
It highly depends on your country of tax residence and citizenship.

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dragonwriter
And the countries in which you do business that in some way involves the
offshore entity.

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xor_null
It's kind of sad, that the data is not really published. I mean i cant go to
some side and take a look at the data. Maybe this is one reason:

"The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised
entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include

\- Ford Foundation \- Carnegie Endowment \- Rockefeller Family Fund \- W K
Kellogg Foundation \- Open Society Foundation (Soros)" [1]

[1] [https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-
me...](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-media-
gatekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/)

~~~
radicality
I also wish the data was published in its raw form so people can not only form
their own conclusions but maybe someone out there would find an interesting
link that no other journalists have found.

Otherwise it's like reading a research paper that provides no raw data - this
way the analysis is not replicable by third parties.

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a-dub
It pleases me greatly that the firm is located in Panama, and therefore has a
strange sounding name to native English ears and a menacing looking logo that
looks like something that walked right on out of a Bond movie.

I guess the real world isn't so boring afterall.

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woodman
Native english ears reporting in, sorry to disappoint you but the name and
logo do not strike me as sinister in the least - it looks like the name and
logo of a company that would make ink blotters.

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chvid
I wonder who did the leak? I wonder if the law firm knows who did it and where
he is now?

My guess is some sys admin presumely at some central office (as this spans the
whole company); I mean 2.6TB data - not so easy for an average lawyer to
download to his laptop.

~~~
Nishioka
Good call and probably European given the choice of paper leaked too.

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chvid
It is Germany's largest newspaper.

The data probably would have been handed over in person.

My guess is he is German speaking; maybe from Switzerland or Liechtenstein.

But I wonder about doing something like this: He is not exactly protected,
what he has done is illegal (at least to some extent - whistleblower laws
etc.), he stands to make no personal gains.

One thing is being a high profile whistleblower like Snowden or Assange. But
this guy? Where does he end up?

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Nishioka
I have never heard of this paper. But really impressed with what they have
managed to pull off. Kudos!

It would be cool to see the global engineering community coming together in a
similar manner that the journos have, towards one such big project.

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jmspring
Sueddeutsche is one of the major papers in Germany. It is worth being aware of
major papers in large countries if you pay attention to foreign affairs.

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partiallypro
This data has been out there for a year, Vice did a piece about it a long time
ago. I'm sure there are some juicy things in there, but I highly doubt it will
be as explosive as some seem think it will be (especially as the stories begin
to rollout over the next 14 days.)

If anything it will be an interesting insight into how tightly knit world
leaders are to one another and their investments. The story does say that more
data is expected to come in, about 700GBs worth...so that could be new
material. However, as it stands I don't think this will cause much upheaval.
It does almost read like a plot to a Stieg Larsson novel though, and I'm sure
someone is going to write a terrific book about it all.

I do hope there is a lot of explosive material in here, but I do have my
doubts, given the amount of time the data has been available.

Here's the Vice article from 2014. [http://www.vice.com/read/evil-
llc-0000524-v21n12](http://www.vice.com/read/evil-llc-0000524-v21n12)

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usaphp
Why is Mossack Fonceca company website excluded from Wayback Machine?
[https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mossfon.com](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mossfon.com)

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akanet
You can choose to have your own website excluded from archival.

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ISL
It's interesting to see how leak disclosure has changed over the years.
Leakers/reporters are increasingly sophisticated at maximizing the impact of
their information through titrated disclosure.

Someone, somewhere, is building the theory of the optimal leak.

~~~
woodman
I'd be surprised if the method employed for Snowden's leak is ever topped -
several of the first reveals were responded to by the USG, and then the
following day the next reveal would demonstrate the response to be a lie. I
don't remember the specifics of it, but I do remember wondering how long it
would take the PR folks in government to realize that their spin was actually
amplifying the message. I'm pretty sure it took three news cycles. It might
have been less to do with masterfully predicting the media and government
response, and more to do with the amount of evidence available - but it was
hilarious (in the darkest way possible).

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tomlock
Is it just me or is this expose surprisingly low on American citizens?

Is this one of the times when conspiracy theory could be conspiracy fact? It
feels like this is an extremely selective release.

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sebiche
From the Reddit live thread: The Editor in Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung
responded to the lack of United States individuals in the documents, saying to
"Just wait for what is coming next".

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tomlock
Good news :)

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wrong_variable
Finger crossed for some dirt on Hillary.

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scrollaway
(Assuming you are a US citizen from your previous comments)

Why are you hoping one of your presidential candidates is corrupt? Shouldn't
you be crossing your fingers _not_ to find dirt?

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losteric
Many people have totally lost faith in establishment politicians... our system
is constantly exploited by business and even "good" politicians have shady
support (through lobbying/superpacs/etc). If a mainstream politician is
implicated in this mess, it gives the public concrete evidence to improve the
status quo.

It's like the Snowden leaks. Many knew about the NSA conspiracies years before
his information came out. For all those years the public was blind to their
rights slowly slipping away as precedents were set, while those that knew were
ignored as paranoid nutters. Now we can see the light.

edit: to be clear, I'm not talking about any specific politician here.

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sshykes
Is there a torrent available for us to download the documents?

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mikeyouse
There are banking details, passports, drivers license info for thousands of
people.. It'd be hugely irresponsible to publish all of that in a Torrent..
Redacted docs are accompanying all of the news reports.

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sshykes
\- Passports: Not Secret.

\- Drivers Licenses: Also Not Secret.

\- Banking details of the people who have been ripping off the rest of the
world...sorry if I fail to see the downside of dumping all of it :)

EDIT:

At the same time, I understand where you're coming from so thanks for the info
mikeyouse!

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mikeyouse
Some of whom had been ripping off the world, many of whom who are completely
innocent.. Also, it'd be incredibly easy to steal identities of just about
anyone in the data dump if you had the level of detail the documents have.

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wglb
In terms of e-discovery, 2.6TB is not really all that large.

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wglb
Large, in terms of e-discovery, is on the order of 1PB.

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agjacobson
Looking for some creative data filtering here, hackers.

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skrowl
TLDR - The super wealthy use loopholes & hide money offshore to avoid taxes /
etc

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hwang89
But now we know it's Person A, Person B, etc. and not just "the rich"

