If you think about the reach Linked in has, combine that with each contact the linked in user has and you have a very fast database of emails that can be misused.
The contacts application also sends things like reminders for your contacts work anniversaries or when they change positions (something that you can't access in the LI API).
I sometimes think that I shouldn't be giving LI all of this information, but this is a typical case where the benefit received is greater than my privacy concerns.