
Panama Papers source issues statement - p0ppe
https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160506-john-doe-statement.html
======
jobu
There's a lot to parse in that statement, but the call for whistleblower
protections seems to be the single most important (and achievable) item. Most
people are aware of Snowden and Manning, but it really surprises me that these
haven't been reported more:

 _" Bradley Birkenfeld was awarded millions for his information concerning
Swiss bank UBS—and was still given a prison sentence by the Justice
Department. Antoine Deltour is presently on trial for providing journalists
with information about how Luxembourg granted secret “sweetheart” tax deals to
multi-national corporations, effectively stealing billions in tax revenues
from its neighbour countries."_

Law enforcement agencies don't have the resources or knowledge to go after
much of the corruption and wrongdoing inside governments and large companies.
If insiders with integrity don't have a safe way of stepping forward there
will never be a way to keep wealthy/powerful/connected individuals from
abusing the system.

~~~
sievebrain
I'd think it's the least achievable thing of all. Governments will happily
pass laws to {increase transparency / reduce privacy} and will happily pass
laws that {add new taxes / close tax loopholes}, because these things align
with their pre-existing agendas. They will not, under any circumstances, make
it easier to engage in whistleblowing and especially not large data dumps,
because governments absolutely do not want millions of { citizens holding them
to account / vigilante info-warriors } increasing their OWN transparency!

That said, whilst I agree with that part, the rest of John Doe's essay left me
cold. Other than its defence of whistleblowers it reads like more or less any
standard left-ish Guardian article. The cause of increasing global inequality
being a handful of law firms, really? They "write the laws" themselves,
really? Which laws does he have in mind? All lawyers are corrupt and
unethical? The British island territories are the "cornerstone of
institutional corruption worldwide" and not, say, African states where the
corruption actually occurs? Billionaires own the press and serious
investigative journalism is dead, except, presumably, the press and the
journalists who he worked with?

I was and still am a huge supporter of Snowden because he revealed behaviour
that was unquestionably bad. Literally nobody tried to defend what he showed
was happening, and in fact the people doing it had lied in Congress to try and
cover it up. It was a classic case where whistleblowing is justified.
Additionally, Snowden had a very clear and straightforward thought process
justifying his actions: what was happening was unconstitutional, and his
attempts to use the formal complaint paths had failed.

John Doe comparing himself to Snowden rubs me up the wrong way, because
although he claims the MF files are bursting with criminal evidence, so far
all the stories I read about the Panama Papers were about things that are not
illegal, and in fact apparently some of the papers show MF dropping clients
when they started to suspect illegal activity, which implies MF was not quite
the sinister conspiracy Doe makes it sound like. They clearly had legal
compliance efforts and they clearly did things. And his justification is a
long, rambling and rather incoherent screed that tries to claim the fault of
every problem in the world lies with a kind of global conspiracy of evil and
spineless people.

I think Doe is walking a very thin line between whistleblowing for a cause and
generic vigilante-ism with his actions.

~~~
lolc
> so far all the stories I read about the Panama Papers were about things that
> are not illegal

So the accusation of perjury left you cold? It was linked in the piece.

[https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/03/19506/offshore-
la...](https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/03/19506/offshore-law-firm-
runs-trouble-las-vegas)

------
mgraupner
_But most of all, the legal profession has failed. Democratic governance
depends upon responsible individuals throughout the entire system who
understand and uphold the law, not who understand and exploit it._

Sigh. One of the most puzzling questions I have to deal with in my mind. Why
is there so little moral left in this world?

~~~
psadri
Why should there have been any morals in the first place? Does nature by
default have morals?

~~~
glup
Nature by default doesn't have nuclear weapons, stock exchanges, global supply
chains, industrial manufacturing, central banks, etc. Humans need morals (and
norms more generally) in order to ensure that the above serve us rather than
hurt us. Morals are a cultural technology like language or counting, and like
those they may be (at least in their strong form) uniquely human.

~~~
tmptmp
>>Nature by default doesn't have nuclear weapons....

While I agree with your sentiment, just would like to point this out that
nature does have nuclear weapons, pretty scary ones for that matter: the
stars.

Also, if we take these things to their logical conclusion, then the nuclear
weapons created by human beings are, of course, created by nature - in this
case, indirectly, using the humans.

This is just to point out the logical aspects of the arguments. Other than
that, I do agree with you that we, the humans, need morals to sustain a better
life for most human beings.

~~~
return0
These are nuclear, but not weapons. Nature doesn't have an enemy.

~~~
tmptmp
>>Nature doesn't have an enemy.

How are you so sure? Have you talked with Nature by any chance? Has Nature
given you this statement, say, in English? I am not trying to be sarcastic
here, I am dead serious.

I for example, think that Nature likes to fight many of its creatures against
each other. e.g. polio viruses against human beings

I may be wrong, but one cannot be so sure.

~~~
return0
" Nature likes to fight many of its creatures against each other

Anthropomorphising can only go that far. Do you know any physical law that has
volition?

------
1024core
The call for whistleblower protection is important, but it'll never happen.
The powers-that-be don't want to encourage whistleblowers.

What _may_ change their mind is if all the data were made public. Since
whistleblowers have not much protections, their only protection right now is
to release everything on the 'net, anonymously. Now, clearly this is not a
good idea, as in many cases there will be collateral damage. But what is the
alternative? Once the governments see that such collateral damage is the only
alternative, they will be force to enact meaningful whistleblower protection.

~~~
r00fus
This is correct. There is Government, but then there are the secret powers-
that-be that pull governments' strings.

And they can't work effectively to further their own ends while in the light
of public scrutiny.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I don't like this attitude. In fact, some whistleblower protection laws
already exist (whistleblower protection act).

I'm sure there are forces that act on politicians other than loyalty to their
constituents, but there's no reason in the American democracy we couldn't
(theoretically) get to a point where we elect representatives who understand
the importance of whistleblower protection and care more about their
constituents than other influences.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
"In fact, some whistleblower protection laws already exist.."

This is true, on paper. But the other reality is that states have passed laws
(or tried to) prohibiting the sort of investigative behavior that leads to
whistleblowing, and a lot of companies have in-house rules against it. No
cameras and cell phones in your work area, for starters. This sort of thing
makes it easy to dismiss the paper laws. I imagine that if they are violated,
one must sue to get it worked out.

Yes, it is theoretically true we could get to a point where we elect folks
that understand the importance of them, or at least have the wherewithal to
listen to experts in the field. And care more about their constituents.
Unfortunately, I think we are a long ways off, and those very people - the
ones that care less about the constituents and have little grasp of the
importance of such laws - have made high entry hurdles for the ones that
_would_ care.

------
raverbashing
This statement is very interesting, it is very well written and researched,
and it uses less common words. I wonder if there was some level of
editing/embellishment done to it.

Might as well be a non-native speaker. It also seems to me that the author
might have had some personal reasons to target MF

But to be honest, I don't think Income Inequality is one of the most defining
issues of our time, through human history, inequality, not only monetary, but
cultural and intellectual has usually been higher.

~~~
kuschku
It’s known that the editors working on the panama leaks are mostly Germans,
and that Mossack Fonseca mostly targeted German customers, too, (and had
mostly German employees).

So it might very well be a case of a German whistleblower, and a German
editor.

------
voodootrucker
"issues involving taxation and imbalances of power have led to revolutions in
ages past."

Given that all the checks and balances have failed, I don't see very few other
options.

~~~
manopeace
Electoral reform. Can't right the ship without being at the wheel.

------
sohcahtoa
And yet... why no American names in the leaks? Funny that.

~~~
lumberjack
It is a legitimate question but it could simply be the case that the US has
laws that made it impossible for Americans to exploit the services of this
particular law firm.

~~~
sievebrain
It's the other way around. American's can more easily get the same services
on-shore, for instance, by setting up shell companies in Delaware.

------
tobltobs
There will never be better protection for whistleblowers. That is just not in
the interest of those who make the laws nowadays. What will come are new laws
which will make the publishing of whistleblower material illegal. The EU for
example is currently working on a law for better protection against theft of
trade secrets. Which such a law in place no newspaper would risk anymore to
publish something like the panama papers.

------
jayjay1010
Question for John Doe. Where's the missing American names and other retracted
elements. Further given his naive calls for governments to do something to fix
the problem seems naive to the extreme since they were the ones who created
the 'problem' or backdoors in the first place

~~~
fit2rule
How do you know there are missing American names? It was my understanding when
this leak happened that Mossack Fonseca didn't have that many American
clients, because Americans still have to pay tax if they try to hide their
money in Panama. Admittedly, I have no clue what I'm talking about - but I'm
quite curious how it is you know that Americans are being overtly excluded
from this action?

------
nxzero
>> "Source known only as John Doe says income inequality "one of the defining
issues of our time" and calls on governments to address it."

Calling on any government to create change, not it citizens, is a mistake -
especially on a topic like this.

~~~
luso_brazilian
That's a distinction without a difference considering that, in most democratic
countries, the government is nothing but a segment of the overall population
appointed as their legitimate representatives.

It is the government responsibility, in their mandate as representatives, to
address the problems perceived as important by the citizens (as, for instance,
the problem mentioned in the quote).

Now, if the government is unable or unwilling to use the power it was given
"by the consent of the governed" to address such important issues then
__that__ become "one of the defining issues of our time", not income
inequality or any other problem derived from that.

~~~
ordinary
> It is the government responsibility, in their mandate as representatives, to
> address the problems perceived as important by the citizens

But it is the citizens' responsibility to make clear to their representatives
the problems they consider important. For a couple of examples of this
principle in action, see the civil rights movement of the '60s, or the
marriage equality movement of the noughts and teens. No politician would've
dared approach those issues until the citizenry made its voice heard.

As a rule, on issues that we as peoples consider important, we lead our
politicians, they do not lead us. This is partly because of the incentives in
play in modern democracies and partly because, as you say, they are merely our
representatives, not our dear leaders.

------
joesmo
The revolution might be digitized, but if it does indeed happen, I'm afraid it
will also be bloody as hell, as almost all revolutions are. I suppose some
things never change.

------
return0
I think their upcoming release is more interesting:

 _The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists will release on
May 9 a searchable database with information on more than 200,000 offshore
entities that are part of the Panama Papers investigation._

 _The data [...] includes information about companies, trusts, foundations and
funds incorporated in 21 tax havens, from Hong Kong to Nevada in the United
States. It links to people in more than 200 countries and territories._

------
glasz
more and more this feels like a big smoke screen to keep sheep walking in
circles. german publications are losing readers in droves. they desperately
need to capitalize on a good story.

there's absolutely no real news here. but suddenly "democracy’s checks and
balances have all failed".

come on.

------
curuinor
This seems to be long enough for a statistical attack to narrow things down to
~100 people.

~~~
dredmorbius
Rather. Possibly far fewer.

------
homero
Why can't I donate bitcoin

------
yxlx
The tone of the statement is very anonymous in nature. Cold and factual. I
wonder if this is how its author normally express theirself or if they've
written in this style in order to defeat authorship attribution.

------
marmaduke
I am impressed at how well it's written.

