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Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% from Panama Leak
- marvel_boy 11y agoSo true.
- gjvc 11y agosite appears down -- connection refused
- youngbullind 11y agoRetry it. It took a couple of attempts to load for me.
- godzillabrennus 11y agoThis will hit wiki leaks. These news outlets won't be able to keep Anonymous and others out. The world will know.
- xufi 11y agoThis reminds me of the last episode of Mr.Robot
- hendersoon 11y agoRaw Snowden data didn't hit wikileaks. Don't bet on it.
- jacquesm 11y agoYet.
- deepnet 11y agoFree Assange !
- bloat 11y agoThe Guardian has its faults of course, but should it really be described as corporate media? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited Compared to say the Telegraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Frederick_Barclay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Frederick_Barclay Or the Times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corp
- mr_tyzic 11y agoIn terms of their reporting, sure they are. They're at the liberal end of the spectrum but well within what Murray is talking about.
- force_reboot 11y agoIt's hard to characterize this movement that this article is critiquing, because it is diffuse. But I think it's fair to say that events in Syria and Iraq, and the anti-Russian stance taken by the liberal media, show that there is some consensus among liberals and conservatives in the US and UK around ideas that used to be called "neoconservative". The basic idea is that liberals want to spread liberal ideas in Russia and other places, and realize that Europe is too tired of war to do this, so they conclude correctly that this requires more US power. Similarly, the neoconservatives would like to increase US power for its own sake, and the pro-Israeli elements would like to encourage the US to be more hawkish so that it relies on Israel as an ally more. So the net effect is that both liberals and conservatives (of some kinds) would like to move away from a balance of power between the US, Russia and China, and move to a unipolar world where the US calls the shots.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- notahacker 11y agoIt's hard to characterise the "movement" the article is critiquing because it isn't a movement, still less a neoconservative conspiracy against Russia. (personally if I wanted to facilitate the spread of liberal ideas in Russia, the very last thing I'd do is boost US power to be a convenient bogeyman for Russians to unite against) The idea that the Guardian is reluctant to publish anything likely to unduly upset multinational corporations or powerful Westerners - as expressed in the original article - is a bit hard to take seriously if you've ever read the Guardian. The idea that liberals are actually part of some general movement to orchestrate a "move to a unipolar world" because they have the temerity to criticise Russian policy (as well as US policy, especially US interventionism) is lunacy.
- Paul_S 11y agoIt's a self-destructive move by these media outlets. How much more irrelevant do they want to make themselves?
- eruditely 11y agoWell if Bernie Sanders is elected and he charges some outrageous tax rate, I think we will all need tax havens, which would not be unethical.
- smelendez 11y agoICIJ says they'll make the database searchable, as they've done with previous leaks, as of next month.
- Animats 11y agoGive it 24 hours until lists of names start to appear.
- doener 11y agoEditor in chief of sueddeutsche.de: "Just wait for what is coming next" Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/ploechinger/status/716763595820941312 https://mobile.twitter.com/ploechinger/status/71676359582094...
- ddp 11y agoI pretty much figured that out from banksy: https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/716740923615350784 https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/716740923615350784
- brown9-2 11y ago(That's not banksy)
- smegel 11y agoThat is extremely telling.
- not_kurt_godel 11y agoOff-topic, but what is going on with the I in "reaI"? When I replace it with L, it resolves to the same account. Odd...
- niccaluim 11y agoLooks like Twitter fixed an old trick people used to pull to make misleading usernames. Scammers used to take advantage of the fact that lowercase L and uppercase I are indistinguishable in sans serif fonts, so you'd end up with people registering names like TWlTTER or StephenCoIbert to gin up followers for spamming and the like. (And to reiterate another poster, that's not Banksy in any case.)
- fweespee_ch 11y agoThere is a very consistent pattern of events with sensitive subjects in the West when dealing with powerful interests. Step #1 - Report on the people who can't sue you effectively. Step #2 - Verify. Step #3 - Report on what you can verify in regards to people who can sue you. I'd give them a month before crying bias. Gawker exploited this loop to a degree by skipping #2 and we've seen how well that turned out for them. However, it was largely their own hubris that created the problem that might sink them (Hulk Hogan). Most of the rest of the lawsuits they were able to bat away. As much as I'd prefer some actual firebrand journalism which is willing to report with less verification (in regards to the people in power, not the general population), I can understand caution. https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-... HSBC, Credit Suisse, etc. are named so its not like they are completely ignoring the West. It also mentions David Cameron's father: > Ian Cameron, a stockbroker and multimillionaire, was a Mossack Fonseca client who used the law firm to shield his investment fund, Blairmore Holdings, Inc., from U.K. taxes.
- bluefox 11y agoThis guy is impatient... They learned this from wikileaks: 10 huge headlines spread across half a year is more effective than 1 huge headline today.
- hendersoon 11y agoActually, Wikileaks released a dump of everything Chelsea Manning sent them, including diplomatic cables that only served to hurt innocents across the globe. That's a great example of what not to do. The Guardian and Washington Post handled Snowden's leaks very differently, sourcing and verifying each article, then releasing quite a lot more than 10 major headlines over the course of a year or so. I trust the ICIJ will do the same.
- xyzzy123 11y agoWikileaks released the 'insurance file' encrypted. The release of the password seems to be some kind of bizarre mix-up, the Guardian journalists released it in a book... See: https://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-password-leak-faq/ https://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-passw...
- hendersoon 11y agoThank you for that link. I was not aware of the circumstances.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Havoc 11y agoThis to me is almost bigger news than the leak itself. Its so obviously and blatantly stacked one can't help but conclude media has been thoroughly "captured".
- carterehsmith 11y agoOn CNN, top news is about some soccer star charged with DUI. And nothing about this Panama thing on the home page.
- BogusIKnow 11y agoThe soccer star is from the Panama leaks.
- treerock 11y agoCouldn't believe that but it absurdly true. Checked British sites and it's splashed all across The Guardian, BBC, Telegraph, even Sky New and the Daily Mail. Each reporting it from multiple angles. But the Washington Post has just: "The Panama Papers are super awkward for Beijing". ('super awkward'? really?) Couldn't find anything on The NYTimes front page. Fox has something at least.
- onewaystreet 11y ago> What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all the corporate media and their companies, and all the editors and senior corporate media journalists? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and their companies? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they could trace? This is exactly why the person who leaked this information didn't just torrent it. Not everyone that did business with Mossack Fonseca is guilty of a crime.
- kalv3n 11y agoFord Foundation is no longer controlled by the Ford Family, and has divested itself of all Ford assets. I don't think you can reasonably believe that funder interference, or fear of funder interference, would alter how this into gets reported. You certainly can't make that claim about Ford, specifically. I've also worked with OSF before, and can absolutely say that they routinely fund matters that fit the ideology of the Soros families, even if those grants fund activities critical of wealthy investment managers.
- Quanttek 11y agoThat article is bullshit. Yes, we can't access the raw data - true, but understandable. The editor in-chief of the SZ says they are still working on it and will expose more and more "in waves", often getting statements from the accused before or sharing it with law enforcement agencies. And no, they didn't focus on Russia or Assad, one of the main revelations was that three members of Iceland's government (PM, financial, interior) have offshore accounts. And the scandal was, that the PM bailed out banks he had personal investments in. so no, "corporate media" isn't ignoring "the west". Also, as published pretty much everywhere, a number of heads of state had offshore accounts, many allies of "the west": Mauricio Macri, president or Argentina. Bidzina Ivanishvill. ex PM of Georgia Sigmundur something something, PM of Iceland. Ayad H. Allawi, ex PM of Iraq. Ali Abu-Ragheb, ex PM of Jordan. Hamad Jasim J.M. Al-Thani, ex PM of Qatar. Sheik Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar. HRH Prince Salman, King of Saudi Arabia Ahmad Al-Nirghani, ex-president of Sudan Sultan Al-Nahyan, president of the UAE. Pavlo Lazarenko, ex-PM of Ukraine. Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine. Also pretty much every major german bank is on the list, as published widely, and new evidence in the Siemens scandal came to light. Non-germans didn't get fully published yet, because the journalists give them the chance to respond to the accusations (having an offshore account isn't illegal by itself, but is often used to hide the identitiy of the owner to do illegal things). To think, that for a database of 2.6tb, that data can just be made public and seeded (see main HN thread) is absurd. Source confidentiality and all
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jonesb6 11y agoAlso wasn't this a law firm whose data was leaked? A lot of that information is probably financial and personal records which would be massively irresponsible, not to mention highly illegal, to release in a dump.
- brown9-2 11y agoA law firm whose sole business is establishing companies on paper in tax havens, so not quite your average firm.
- takno 11y agoIn the first week this is just an ultra paranoid reaction. The comments about corporate ownership in view of the guardian being owned by an independent trust, and about them destroying the wikileaks info indicate that the author is either poorly informed or a shit-stirrer. The UK press in particular has to vet stuff before in prints in order to avoid being sued out of existence, and as a matter of good journalism will stretch this out over the summer
- spdy 11y agoThis will roll out slowly like the Snowden leaks over time. Lets hope an pray, this time its about money something everyone understands an can get angry about.
- thmcmahon 11y agoFound at least some of the raw documents on the ICIJ researcher Mago Torres' document cloud account. https://www.documentcloud.org/public/search/Account:%2013504-margarita-torres https://www.documentcloud.org/public/search/Account:%2013504...
- hendersoon 11y agoIt's only day 1, and the ICIJ has said they have at least 14 days of "major revelations" mapped out in advance. I expect we'll be seeing stories from the Panama Papers for months to come, spaced out for maximum impact, similarly to Snowden's leaks. If a month goes by and not a single story is contrary to american corporate interests, the author's position may be reasonably supportable. But day 1? Not a chance. They went for the most immediate impact-- two CURRENT heads of state.
- r3bl 11y agoI can guarantee you at least two more heads of states tomorrow (European time): Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
- hendersoon 11y agoNote to readers: From a post in the other Pentagon Papers thread on HN, r3bl claims to be a web dev at one of the sites reporting on these leaks, ICIJ, Guardian, BBC, etc. So he isn't guessing!
- r3bl 11y agoBest proof I can provide at the moment: https://tech.occrp.org/about/ https://tech.occrp.org/about/ (members of our tech team on our lame tech blog) and, of course, our affiliation: https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/ https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/. Also: https://twitter.com/r3bl_/status/716754286059864065?s=09 https://twitter.com/r3bl_/status/716754286059864065?s=09 and https://twitter.com/r3bl_/status/716325999785418753?s=09 https://twitter.com/r3bl_/status/716325999785418753?s=09 Our journalists have already started posting this on Twitter, kind of like we did yesterday when we warned Russian spokespeople that they're going to have a sleepless night tonight: https://twitter.com/DrewOCCRP/status/716320506052493312?s=09 https://twitter.com/DrewOCCRP/status/716320506052493312?s=09
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- return0 11y agoI thought so too, it's silly to pretend this is all about putin putin putin and his cellists. Besides i would expect the russians to have moved their money in some offshore corner in middle east rather than panama. The Bloomberg website does not even report it in its frontpage right now (eventhough possibly many of their customers are in the list). However i trust that they are keeping the best bits for the starting week. This seems very interesting btw. We should just face the fact that offshore banking exists and is neither good or evil, its a product of globalization and the emerging stateless jet set. If anything , maybe more and more people should take advantage of it.
- hendersoon 11y agoTax shelters and hiding money is difficult to explain to the average man on the street, so they're focusing on explaining the very real impact of this sort of corruption, talking about pension funds being drained, people not getting disability checks, and so on. Corruption has a huge impact. The Putin fortune they talk about is blood money. It came from raping an entire country.
- smegel 11y ago> someone already with dementia Translation: someone who can't be put on trial.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoIt's possibly an oblique reference to one Lord Greville Janner, who was accused of child abuse by numerous witnesses, but was spared a trial because of advanced dementia - even though he'd been voting in the House of Lords and attending committee meetings. Tragically, Janner died not long after he was declared unfit to plead. Even more tragically, it was decided the public interest would not be served by a trial of fact which would put evidence from witnesses and alleged victims on the record without aiming for a conviction. Wikipedia has more of the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greville_Janner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greville_Janner
- brown9-2 11y agoThe story was first published 6.5 hours ago. This is premature.
- a3n 11y agoI am "hoping" to see US clients exposed. But even if they are, I expect a big "meh" from any authority that could do anything about it. It's easier to chase resourceless drug users and scientific publication "pirates."
- AlgorithmicTime 11y agoThe IRS loves to go after tax fraud. Which is ultimately what this would be.
- hendersoon 11y agoHere's a map showing all entities mentioned in the Panama Papers. TONS in the west, including the US. https://briankilmartin.cartodb.com/viz/54ddb5c0-f80e-11e5-9a9c-0e5db1731f59/embed_map https://briankilmartin.cartodb.com/viz/54ddb5c0-f80e-11e5-9a...
- acqq 11y agoWhere is your link from? Isn't that map based on the 2014 leaked data?
- hendersoon 11y agoIt was tweeted by one of the journalists last night-- I can't find the source tweet easily now. Reference is to the "panama papers" so no, it is current.
- coleca 11y agoThe Miami Herald has started some excellent reporting around what this reveals about the booming Miami luxury real estate market. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article69248462.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/ar...
- clamprecht 11y agoThe first thing I did when I looked at the Panama papers was filter by country, and I saw that "United States" wasn't even listed.
- rrss1122 11y agoI did find it peculiar that the focus of the leak was Russian wealthy associated with Putin. Curious to see if further leaks expose western wealthy.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoProbably because the opportunities for gross corruption is much less in the west (though Italy might be an outlier) - and there are well established legal ways to shelter your assets.
- pinaceae 11y agocui bono, two can play this game. isn't it strange how this article springs up right after someone implicated a group surrounding Putin? russia's media strategy using "journalists" and forum trolls is well documented and known, i guess you can add this one to the list. because everything is a false flag of a false flag.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aryehof 11y agoI'm always left wondering when data is leaked or stolen, why the data wasn't encrypted at rest. Is it too hard or expensive to do so?
- dredwerker 11y agoPossibly because it was a sysadmin that leaked it. It has to be decrypted at some point for people to see it.
- BogusIKnow 11y ago"There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires – the main customers." Such as strong claim ('main customers') would be nice to be substantiated. Also the author needs to show the data is there. If this is the map (linked in another comment), and it main customers were not cut out, then it doesn't look as it has a lot of e.g. US content. https://briankilmartin.cartodb.com/viz/54ddb5c0-f80e-11e5-9a9c-0e5db1731f59/embed_map https://briankilmartin.cartodb.com/viz/54ddb5c0-f80e-11e5-9a...
- pudo 11y agoReality has a well-known liberal bias. Seriously: the data that was leaked is a formation agent that has it's clientele in specific places and focusses on a specific type of clients. That doesn't seem to include US senators, or, for example, senior officials from my home country, Germany. I can assure you that the folks doing research on this have run both names from "Western" and "other" countries. They are some of the best and most independent-minded people I know (and yes, they do need a salary). Many are actually from non-Western countries, check out these three amazing folks who actually did the heavy lifting on much of the Russia stuff: http://krug.novayagazeta.ru/ http://krug.novayagazeta.ru/ The fact they ended up with more stories from developing economies may just be a bias in Mossack Fonsecas client base, or it may be indicative of who uses these services, or of the sophistication in distancing assets from their real owners. Don't know. But it does make sense to consider that people who run countries under less-than-democratic circumstances and use state capture to extract personal and family wealth might have a greater need of offshore services. Political leaders in Europe, on the other hand, sometimes actually are almost as boring as they make themselves look in public. (Disclaimer: working with one of the reporting centers, same as r3bl)
- B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago> or of the sophistication in distancing assets from their real owners My good man, I can assure you that our elites are impeccably candid. They have been so since the days when they used to whiten their togas with chalk when running for office. Practice makes perfect.
- stult 11y agoI suspect that Mossack Fonseca avoids taking on American clients to skirt the federal Foreign Accounting Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA gives the IRS many powerful tools to pressure foreign banks and financial institutions to disclose information about American citizens in order to ensure that those citizens are reporting all of their income. This frequently involves disclosures of non-Americans' finances, because stashing income in a corporation with foreign citizenship is an easy way to evade income tax. Many, many non-American financial institutions categorically refuse to provide services to American citizens in order to avoid IRS scrutiny of their books and to protect the privacy of their non-American clients. I expect that, before offshoring dark assets, the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jiping would select a management firm that poses minimal risk of disclosure to US regulators and thus a firm that has no American clients. Meaning, a firm providing these kinds of services can probably only serve either US citizens OR the government officials of America's geopolitical rivals, but not both. The presence of those officials does not indicate that Americans aren't engaged in similar activities, just that they are probably serviced by other firms and so won't be implicated in this particular leak. Otherwise, there are three possible explanations for the lack of Americans that I can think of. First, later releases may reveal US citizens in the client list, rendering this discussion moot. I have no idea why the journalists would wait to disclose information about Americans, but we might get some idea about that once further details emerge. Second, the journalists may be protecting their own nations' interests, as posited by this article. Personally I find that unlikely given that the ICIJ has a track record of integrity and releasing information that is damaging to US persons. Plus, I suspect if they were protecting certain parties, they wouldn't protect an entire nation's citizenry but would instead selectively exclude key figures from the releases. Third, it is entirely possible the party that released the data edited it before hand to exclude Americans and Germans. I think that may be the explanation if it turns out that this is a joint NSA-BND operation posing as an anonymous, solo whistle-blower. I could see a basic inter-agency operational agreement stipulating that the leaked information should not implicate anyone from the home nations of the participating agencies to avoid thorny political issues arising from intelligence agency activities that interfere with domestic politics. Regardless, I personally see my original FATCA theory as the most probable explanation. But we can't know the true explanation given the current released information and ultimately we may never know the real truth.
- visarga 11y agoCan the 1% tell us now that they don't need privacy? The leak is similar to the effects of digital surveillance on the population.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 11y agoI'm calling B.S. on Mr. Murray's claims here. ICIJ provided a full searchable database of their prior documents trove. They're working with something immensely larger, and the story's less than 24 hours hold. I'm just hoping that the mainstream media carry this. It's been awfully quiet on many fronts yet.
- randycupertino 11y agoI wouldn't be surprised if my bosses are implicated in this. They're a rich and powerful family with generational wealth. Will be interesting if the full leak is published and I can search their name myself.
- nl 11y agoIt's probably worth noting that the author (Craig Murray) is no apologist for non-Western dictators. He was the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan until he decided that boiling people alive wasn't an interrogation method he believed a supposed UK ally should be using[1]. As such his views shouldn't be dismissed out-of-hand. I think it is worth noting that the data isn't available yet. I'm sympathetic to the view that journalists should get a first look at the data. But be aware that the longer they promise "more revelations to come" the higher chance that the operation will get shut down. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jul/15/foreignpolicy.uk http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jul/15/foreignpolic...
- acqq 11y agoAdditionally, we also have to consider why exactly this company out of all possible companies was selected as the target of the "leak" (or hack?) Maybe exactly because these who selected it as the target knew who would going to be hit and who wouldn't. I wouldn't be surprised when the impression of most observing or commenting the case would assume "if somebody is not found here he's clean" instead of "this is a (possibly very biased) subselection of some people from all who possibly attempt to obscure something using similar methods."
- lunchTime42 11y agoEveryone involved in this is going to have a copy and a copy of a copy for safety reasons. The whole thing will leak eventually. What a fine day at the river, watching old enemies drifting by..
- robocaptain 11y ago> Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6. Wow. I actually did 'forget' this. Actually I don't think I ever heard of it. I see lots of articles about The Guardian being under pressure, but haven't found one confirming they actually "smashed" them. I haven't been looking that long, so would welcome any pointers.
- deepnet 11y agoGCHQ sent men with angle grinders to destroy any computer, hard drive, or chip that had touched those files. This prompted the Guardian to move it's head office to New York - leaving the UK after 195 years. A better illustration of the UK freedom of the press could not be devised. /s Interestingly the Guardian article notes they specifically destroyed particular chips, like the keyboard drivers... http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-released-guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-relea...
- robocaptain 11y agoThanks for replying.. I didn't realize that all actually happened. Scary stuff.
- edgarvm 11y agoThe same thing for Unaoil scandal, it's not being covered by the media
- deepnet 11y agoUnaoil is glaringly absent from the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=unaoil http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=unaoil