I think you're forgetting that a corporation did not send these emails. People did. As others have pointed out, these emails include a great deal of very personal information that have nothing to do with Sony the corporation, or any other topic of public interest.

If Wikileaks had reviewed these emails and released only the ones that are of genuine interest to the public (or did not disclose sensitive personal information), as it did with the Manning leak, that would be one thing. But I can't agree that it's responsible to release the entire trove of emails simply because they were sent to and from corporate email accounts.

That's pretty much why Snowden went to Glenn Greenwald instead of WikiLeaks - he didn't want to just publish all the info he took, possibly doing a lot of damage and risking people's lives, and he also didn't feel he should decide for himself what to expose, so he left that in hands of journalists.

Yep I definitely think there is an argument to be made that our current press does not publish enough details (numerous incidents of big press delaying publishing of big stories at government request), but I feel like the Wikileaks "publish everything" model is on the other end of the spectrum and it's not the solution. There needs to be a middle ground and responsible review/disclosure.

Not to mention publicly publishing Seth Rogan's personal email address. Given the context of some emails I would guess he has a new one now.

>I think you're forgetting that a corporation did not send these emails. People did.

And whose servers were they on? Sony's.

When your correspond with someone, the only rights you can claim are on your end.

As a hypothetical, if you started a one-person side project, or freelanced or something, would you feel it equally appropriate for your work emails to be published, in bulk, unredacted, without your permission or consent, by people who hacked into your computers?

Would it be appropriate for all YC funded companies to have all of their emails published on WikiLeaks tomorrow?

If not, what's the difference, and where do you draw the line?

I'd willingly make that sacrifice if the emails of the corrupt in power were also published.

Who exactly at Sony has been "corrupt in power"?

The one that managed the FBI to give them a cover story with the whole "North Korea" stuff might be a good start.

If your YC funded company engaged in illegal activities, why not?

What exactly was Sony doing illegally that this leak apparently exposed?

    "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, 
    I will find something in them which will hang him."

Sony Pictures is the American subsidiary of a multinational corporation - merely by virtue of their size and power, they have to be guilty of something.

The reason for the link is _right_ there in the intro, assuming you clicked the link.

Sony has been engaged in some questionable activity with questionable organizations making questionable deals. The reason is transparency so illegal activity can be exposed.

Last time I checked, employees definately were people.

So you would be cool with all your employers records being available to the world.

Or MR X has a medical condition - congrats your insurance premiums just went up 100% - and possibly your kids in the future if its genetic