Is it sin to read wikileaks and other hacked data?

Jamdoc

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So, the EMA (European Medicine Agency) got hacked yesterday, and data about Pfizer's vaccine has been leaked.
On the one hand I desire to know as much as I can in light of perilous times and many people fear the vaccine. I have a background in immunology, virology, and molecular biology. I can make sense out of a lot of the data I'd read, some good can come out of it.
But ultimately, the information is stolen. So there's a bit of a conflict over that, but at the same time, there's conflict about what Pfizer and the drug regulatory bodies may be hiding that we should know.
Just whistleblowers in general.. does it count as stealing and is therefore sin?
 
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zippy2006

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This is a good question, and a difficult one. In general I would say that if you have probable cause to believe that Pfizer is concealing important information from the public, then it would not constitute illicit remote cooperation with the sin of theft. If you do not have probable cause to believe that, then it would be a sinful cooperation with theft.
 
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Tolworth John

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But ultimately, the information is stolen

That is your answer, would you buy a laptop or a car for a fraction of its value from a man in a bar, knowing that it is stolen?

Your only justification is that it is now in the public domain.
 
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Jamdoc

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That is your answer, would you buy a laptop or a car for a fraction of its value from a man in a bar, knowing that it is stolen?

Your only justification is that it is now in the public domain.

But at the same time if it gave information that was valuable to know like risk factors they don't publicly disclose (where they basically use people as guinea pigs to make up for how undertested it is)
I mean would God judge you for hacking information that led to learning information that uncovers a pedophile ring or something like that?
 
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Hazelelponi

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So, the EMA (European Medicine Agency) got hacked yesterday, and data about Pfizer's vaccine has been leaked.
On the one hand I desire to know as much as I can in light of perilous times and many people fear the vaccine. I have a background in immunology, virology, and molecular biology. I can make sense out of a lot of the data I'd read, some good can come out of it.
But ultimately, the information is stolen. So there's a bit of a conflict over that, but at the same time, there's conflict about what Pfizer and the drug regulatory bodies may be hiding that we should know.
Just whistleblowers in general.. does it count as stealing and is therefore sin?

A couple things. First, it would only become stealing if you plan on taking the information gleaned in order to profit in some way from it. Read-Only isn't theft on the part of the one doing the reading.

However, there's a reason there's a chain of custody when it comes to evidence, you want to be certain evidence has not been tampered with for it to remain viable as evidence.

If your certain that you could discern whether the material had been tampered with or not, then by all means, read it. But if your not sure you could spot obvious inconsistencies then it may do you little good, because the issue concerning any hacked material is whether the agenda of the hackers would lead them to tamper with this evidence in order to forward a nefarious agenda.
 
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