Charles Dharapak / AP Photo
Wednesday’s New York Times has an interesting but not blockbuster business story about Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre. The Goldman Sachs employee who became infamous for emails he sent saying that mortgage securities the firm was selling were bad investments. The Times reports his lawyers will argue he was just one member of a team involved in similar behavior. So why is the story so interesting? It’s based in part on emails to Tourre acquired in an unusual way. A New York artist was given a laptop in 2006 by a friend who found it in the trash. “E-mail messages for Mr. Tourre continued streaming into the device, but Ms. Cohen said she had ignored them until she heard Mr. Tourre’s name in news reports about the S.E.C. case,” the story states. “She then provided the material to The Times.” It’s not just a curiosity, though. Reuters blogger Felix Salmon says the use of the emails is probably at best unethical—and at worst illegal.