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TechCrunch plans to release illegally obtained documents about Twitter

nickdouglas:

So some guy calling himself “Hacker Croll” stole hundreds of confidential documents from the Twitter founders, and he sent copies to TechCrunch. That blog’s founder, Mike Arrington, says the documents include people who interviewed at Twitter, floorplans, and security passcodes.

So of course once Mike (a former lawyer) saw this was some heavy illegally-gotten shit, he stopped reading, right?

Nope! He and his team read the docs all night. And MIKE PLANS TO PUBLISH SOME OF THEM.

I’ve never liked TechCrunch, but before now it was mostly personal preference or distaste. Now it’s major. IF YOU EVER, EVER, EVER READ OR LINK TO TECHCRUNCH, YOU ARE NOW SUPPORTING A SITE THAT UTTERLY DISRESPECTS ALL PRIVACY AND RULE OF LAW. THEY ARE SCUM.

Oh come on. This is the a ridiculous tempest in a teapot. If anyone believes this is rare, unique, or even remotely unorthodox, you may as well stop reading the news. How do you think we learned about yellowcake, or the pentagon papers, or that Apple is planning a tablet PC? Someone, somewhere, broke a law to learn these things or leak these things. This is how news WORKS. Do you think Steve Jobs like forgot to get a factory to sign an NDA or just called up the China Times and said “hey we’re gonna build a tablet PC. Don’t tell anyone I told you?” Do you think that however the WaPo learned about Cheney’s plans for an assassin squad was LEGAL? The shit was TOP SECRET. Someone broke the law to tell them. The only difference here is that Arrington is being on the up and up of where he got the info, and letting us judge the motivations of the hacker as well. And to call them illegally-obtained documents is disingenuous. Arrington didn’t break any laws. They landed in his inbox.

That said, Mike no longer gets to question why people spit in his face.

Source: nickdouglas