Demaestro - 4:01 pm on Apr 27, 2010 (gmt 0)

What if your phone had classified work information in it that was shown to everyone on the internet as a front page news story? Then returned to you...you'd say thank you?

One companies classified is just another person's new story. Since when does a freelance journalist have to oblige a company's policy or secrets?

Going with your logic a reporter should be arrested for theft and receiving stolen goods if they open and report that tobacco companies knew that cigarettes are bad for you and cause cancer but hid it, using leaked internal memos and documents.

That is not a place I want to live.

A while back there was a case where a Coke employee sold secrets to Pepsi, or vice-versa.

Selling secrets to competition for internal use is miles apart from selling it to a reporter who does a PUBLIC story on it.