2012-02-27
On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.
...
wikileaks.org
The Strategic Forecasting Inc., commonly known as Stratfor, is a private firm dealing in the lucrative business of intelligence gathering and assessment.
Founded in 1996, the company gained global prominence during the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 when its seemingly cutting-edge analysis was publicized by various news agencies. But it was the events of 9/11 and the subsequent “war on terrorism” that elevated the stature of the firm, turning it into a highly sought after informant for major Western media organizations like Bloomberg, Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, and the BBC.
...Stratfor was founded over a decade ago in Austin, Texas by George Friedman, a former political science professor. Friedman is the company’s chief intelligence officer, financial overseer, and CEO.
Commonly referred to as the private CIA, Stratfor claims that it gathers its intelligence through a number of publicly accessible sources, such as wire services, chat hubs, other Internet sites, and unclassified government studies, in addition to well-placed sources internationally. The agency now boasts close to 300,000 subscribers and over two million recipients of free email updates.
Until recently, much of the inner workings of Stratfor had been shrouded in mystery. But last December, members of the internet activism collective Anonymous, hacked into the system during the "LulzXmas" campaign to highlight the plight of Bradley Manning, an American soldier currently incarcerated by the US government for suspicion of passing on information to WikiLeaks.
Read more at alakhbar.com (by Yazan al-Saadi Feb 27, 2012)
News articles
WikiLeaks publishes security think tank emails
Stratfor: Inside the World of a Private CIA
Israel, Kurdish fighters destroyed Iran nuclear facility, email released by WikiLeaks claims
No comments:
Post a Comment