Sadly, and not unexpectedly, some in media chatterbox have given up their own standards for revenge:

Peter Gleick lied, but was it justified by the wider good?

Gleick has been criticised for how his Heartland Institute probe, but perhaps more climate scientists should play dirty

[…]

Suppose you stop a friend from driving after he’s had too many drinks by slipping his keys in your pocket and lying about it until you manage to drive him home yourself. Sometimes lying is the right thing to do – a lie isn’t just wrong full stop. We think through the moral side of our lives with a mixed bag of ideas, but consequences and intentions have a central place here. Maybe lying about the keys is morally right because the consequences of lying are better than the consequences of telling the truth. Or maybe the lie was right because of your intentions – you were trying to prevent harm coming to your friend, not trying to steal his car.

You can see where I’m headed. Gleick’s intentions matter when we try to work out whether he was wrong to lie. It’s worth noticing that he wasn’t lying for personal gain. What resonates for me, though, are the consequences of his action. If Gleick frustrates the efforts of Heartland, isn’t his lie justified by the good that it does?

[…]

Yes, I can see where you (James Garvey) are heading: the ends justify the means.

Problem is, once one starts down this path it can be used to justify just about anything.

And, there is a big difference between deceiving a friend at the moment of a poor decision, say your drunk friend who’s about to drive his car off a cliff, and a planned ruse to sidestep laws that exist in society, whether we like those laws or not.