EXTRAITSDECOURRIELSDEFREDSHARP(ENANGLAIS)

4MAI2016:

Judge Learned Hand stated in 1934: "Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes

shall be a low as possible." Tax planning is a global reality that results from international
competitionandinefficientgovernmentalregulation.Itpromotesefficiencyandislegal.Theft,
however, is not. Since the Panama Papers were stolen by someone powerful enough to
break through secure firewalls and drain millions of documents, it has been stated in the
news that offshore companies are legal. The bigger story is: whostolethePanamaPapers,
and why? One apparent reason is to entice the press to engage in plumptuous innuendo
about the new political incorrectness of tax avoidance. As the world trends towards
transparency through digitization, invasive surveillance, and now theft, it should mourn its
main casualty, privacy.Anotherisfreedom.Askyourselfthis:howwouldyoufeelifsomeone
broke into your house, stole personal information and then broadcast itonfacebook?Inthe
acerbic words of Saki: "I might have been agoldfishinaglassbowlforalltheprivacyIgot."
It is a brave new world where the fourth estate sides with the powerful to crush privacy.
Whenwillthethiefberevealed?

[...]

I cannot speak accurately to your various queries as you have provided no evidence

regarding events that may or may not haveoccurred20yearsago.Whatwecansayisthis:

you are receivers of stolen information. If you publish stories using this stolen information,
you are stating that you have no respect fortheruleoflaw,therebyaligningyourselveswith
your alleged targets. We would add that your investigation provides strong support for the
offshore world, to protect the privacy of people from journalists who will stop at nothing to
publish a good story. How would your viewers feel about having their private information
stolenandpublishedbyyou?