“Me gustaría un dato por favor - extra grande, con papeles.”
May 9, 2016 11:36 AM   Subscribe

The BBC: “Panama Papers affair widens as database goes online”
The ICIJ has made the Panama Papers data available for download. It is a Neo4j database, but has been saved as CSV files so most anyone should be able to mess with it, provided they have enough disk space.
posted by Going To Maine (21 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
OMG, Putin stashed cash in Switzerland AND has an Ashley Madison account?
posted by infinitewindow at 11:46 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Apparently, I should have said “muy pequeña”. The data is 37 megs zipped, 220 unzipped.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:58 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not sure I have enough disk space for that back here in 1993
posted by Existential Dread at 12:01 PM on May 9, 2016 [33 favorites]


Well, BBC says the data should be 2.6 terabytes all told, but the ICIJ is just releasing a subset of the data, which seems reasonable.
The ICIJ said: "The database will not include records of bank accounts and financial transactions, emails and other correspondence, passports and telephone numbers. The selected and limited information is being published in the public interest."
posted by Existential Dread at 12:04 PM on May 9, 2016


Not sure I have enough disk space for that back here in 1993

Have you tried deleting Doom? That should free up some room.
posted by entropicamericana at 12:05 PM on May 9, 2016 [25 favorites]




Noooooo! Not Jackie Chan!
posted by Going To Maine at 12:20 PM on May 9, 2016


Well my family doesn't have hidden offshore bank accounts according to the panama papers. I am both relieved and poor.
posted by srboisvert at 12:31 PM on May 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


Ah! That's where I put it all.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:38 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Is the story about the Saudi king bankrolling Binyamin Netanyahu's election campaigns (that was reported elsewhere) in there? If that one's true (at least to president-of-Iceland standards of plausibility), there could be all sorts of fallout from it, in several countries.
posted by acb at 1:31 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


I didn't think this was quite strong enough to stand as its own post on the blue, but it's relevant and hopefully not too derail-y here: the Panama Papers source has issued an 1,800 word statement, titled The Revolution will be Digitized and decries income inequality as a defining issue of our time. (The BBC article links to it, but I want to draw more attention to it, since the statement is available in full from ICIJ.)
posted by fragmede at 2:04 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


Society works better if information is open. I am very encouraged by this latest development. Hopefully we will see many more Panama Papers-style leaks in the future.
posted by Triplanetary at 2:43 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Courtesy of the CBC, here are the Canadians in the database.

Wow, Alain E. Roch and Jules Brossard really, really, really like fucking their fellow citizens over.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:44 PM on May 9, 2016


Society works better if information is open.

Where is the limit? Should everyone's financial information be made public? They say they are not dumping everything, which seems like a good start to me. But I'm curious how they are deciding what should be released and what should not. It depends wildly on where you live and everything, but in many cases merely having these accounts is not illegal, so are they checking and only releasing info of people they have some evidence have been doing something illegal?

(Still trying to digest what has actually been released, I'm not (yet at least) saying the release so far is wrong, but I wouldn't support releasing the financial info of everyone on the planet, so the decision making process for what would or would not be OK is interesting, as are the specific criteria they are using here)
posted by thefoxgod at 4:31 PM on May 9, 2016


Where is the limit? Should everyone's financial information be made public?

Your average tax-paying citizen isn't likely to be offshoring large sums of money, surely? I know the US wants you to report all your income and where it's stashed (though clever accounting may help you avoid getting taxed on it). If you are abiding by the law, your financial information is not actually all that "private."
posted by emjaybee at 6:09 PM on May 9, 2016


(In Norway everyone's tax information is public, online and searchable.)
posted by Harald74 at 11:49 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Your average tax-paying citizen isn't likely to be offshoring large sums of money, surely?

So I don't have to care about privacy because I've got nothing to hide?

/hamburger
posted by chavenet at 2:42 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


I spent a my lunch break looking at people in my city (specifically, my suburb, my parents' suburb which has a higher socio-economic band, and the place all the mining companies have registered offices) in the online version and assuming that's a representative if extremely small sample, I couldn't connect any doubts between people and shells I know to be dodgy.

I was surprised at how many Chinese residents popped up with Australian addresses and tax haven accounts, but anecdotally I have heard a lot of articles about Chinese nationals moving money to offshore accounts via Australian investment shells to get it out of the notice of Beijing, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

(In Norway everyone's tax information is public, online and searchable.)

I think that is a terrible idea. Does it not get abused?
posted by Mezentian at 3:19 AM on May 10, 2016


Noooooo! Not Jackie Chan!

Emma Watson!?! 10 points from Gryffindor :(
posted by Justinian at 5:13 PM on May 10, 2016


where it's stashed

I don't think this is true? I have to report income but not holdings. Or maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years.

I imagine quite a few Americans have money in other countries given the high percentage of foreign born residents.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:56 PM on May 10, 2016


Also my tax returns are not public in the way a database released to the Internet is.
posted by thefoxgod at 6:00 PM on May 10, 2016


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