Where did you find that this will be released in the future? There are public persons in this batch of data and it makes sense to know this information but there must also be a lot of private information and I don't think it would be right to have them released in the while. My guess is that this is the main reason why it's not publicly released.

Edit: Le Monde has an article on the subject (French) http://www.lemonde.fr/panama-papers/article/2016/04/04/pourq..., translated: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

Some data should be released. Not sure if all, but all data related to information published will be released, so maybe they will spare average "Joes" from it. You can find on Reddit people involved in this commenting regarding releasing data, I have seen few comments last night after release.

Some data should and will be released, but do we know how the released data was chosen?

And who decides? IMHO it's no longer legitimate to leak to "the press" if they are unwilling to properly disseminate the whole truth.

In theory the person who leaked to the press could be prosecuted for leaking information. But press has the right to protect their sources, which prevents that from happening, so you get a balance between information and privacy. That wouldn't be the case if it was leaked to the general public. You'd also leak passports, SSN etc. to the general public.

The organization responsible for investigating it. They are quite reputable for staying independent.