I think it mainly gets tricky if you are talking about private information. Or something like FBI files—rumors reported/generated by US gov.
If they are getting public funding, their work is in some (at least ethical) sense, public, I think.
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I thought about this a LOT when I wrote my blog post on "outing" someone who wrote a letter in Feynman's FBI file: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/07/11/smeared-richard-feynman/ …
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I concluded several things. 1) Letter writer almost surely dead. I felt I did "due diligence" in investigating that; she wd be 100 if alive.
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2) She had volunteered the information to sit in a public (if classified) record. E.g., she "put the information" into the public sphere.
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3) Sufficient time had passed that it was a matter of historical interest and not just lurid curiosity. Tells us something useful to know.
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4) Lastly, responsibility of maintaining confidentiality of that info is on FBI, not me. Data was "out there" whether I wanted it or not.
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So it was just a question of whether anyone else would to try to figure it out. I am good at this sort of thing but it is not rocket science
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I can see where others might make different call. Either way, I think no obvious argument for harm, which is my guiding principle on this.
End of conversation
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