Paying for hacked emails? No thanks

Apolitician; private emails, a leak. Why does this sound familiar? Hillary Clinton was, of course, the target of one of the most famous email hacks.

We’ve had our own email scandals; former National leader Don Brash has always claimed a hacker fed Hollow Men author Nicky Hager his private emails – though Hager maintained they were supplied by disgruntled Nats.

But news that someone is shopping around Auckland Mayor Phil Goff’s emails for as much as $20,000 is as disturbing as it is distasteful.

There is an undoubted public interest in being told why Goff used his private email account for council and governmentrelated business. Especially as avoiding the scrutiny of official information laws seems the most likely answer.

But there is no public interest in publishing emails that have been obtained illegally and offered to the highest bidder.

As far as I know, the emails have never been offered to Stuff or the Sunday Star-Times; they were offered to the New Zealand Herald for the reported sum of $20,000, That newspaper’s editors are to be applauded for refusing to negotiate.

There is no tradition of chequebook journalism among print media in New Zealand; paying sources for stories undermines both their credibility and the reliability of the organisation that paid them.

The Goff hack appears to be opportunistic rather than politically motivated; if the intention was to destabilise him and Labour, the hacker would have drip-fed selected emails, rather than flog them off for money.

There may or may not be a legitimate public interest in exposing some of Goff’s emails, but that doesn’t legitimise criminal behaviour.

As for paying for such information, let’s hope it never comes to that. In an election year, it’s not hard to see where that might lead.

No one’s hands would be clean.