Wikileaks reveals Stratfor emails

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27 February 2012 Last updated at 20:50 GMT Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said publication of the emails was justified Whistleblowing website Wikileaks has begun publishing the first of more than five million confidential emails from US-based security think tank Stratfor.

The group said the documents would reveal Stratfor's "web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods".

Stratfor's computers were hacked by the activist group Anonymous in December.

Stratfor boss George Friedman said at the time anyone looking for signs of a vast conspiracy would be disappointed.

The firm warned ahead of the Wikileaks publication that it would make no comment on whether any of the emails were authentic or inaccurate.

"Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimised twice by submitting to questioning about them," Stratfor said in a statement.

'Shadow CIA'

Wikileaks did not say how it acquired the documents, but it is widely assumed to have been given them by the loose-knit hacker group Anonymous, which claimed to have stolen emails, passwords and credit-card details from the Texas-based firm in December.

Wikileaks said the emails date from July 2004 to the end of last year.

The first set of emails include messages suggesting US firm Dow Chemical had Stratfor monitor groups that campaigned for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India.

Also in the files are emails involving a request by Coca-Cola for Stratfor to investigate animal rights group Peta ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, amid concerns by the drinks-maker that it could face protests by Peta activists.

Continue reading the main story Founded in 1996, based in Austin, TexasProvides geopolitical information and analysis through paid subscription and unique requests for individuals or companiesDoes work by developing global network of human sources and analysing vast quantities of online dataOnce likened, by the US weekly business magazine Barron's, to a "shadow CIA"Grew in popularity after publishing analysis of Nato bombing in KosovoThe whistleblowing website says it will release further emails in the coming days, promising evidence that the company's analysts had monitored Wikileaks itself.

"Here we have a private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the US government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations and journalists," Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Reuters news agency.

"What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are, among others, activist organisations fighting for a just cause."

Stratfor provides analysis of world affairs to subscribers which include major corporations, military officials and international government agencies.

The firm said in its statement that it had worked hard to build "good sources" in many countries, "as any publisher of global geopolitical analysis would do".

Despite the new disclosures, Wikileaks is still facing difficulties on several fronts.

The group admitted last October that it was running out of money.

Mr Assange is currently on conditional bail in Britain while he fights extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he denies.

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Wikileaks Stratfor Memo Reminiscent of a Spy Novel

The anti-secrecy group Wikileaks began publishing more than five million internal emails from U.S. based private intelligence company, Stratfor on Sunday. It includes a memo allegedly written by George Friedman, the CEO of the company that reads like something out of a spy novel.

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The document is allegedly Friedman’s own wry rundown of intelligence lingo that his employees use in their work for corporate and government clients.

It explains that an "All-Source Fusion Cell" is: "A trans-compartmentalized group of analysts who get to see everything and have to make sense of it. Don't wish it on your worst enemy."

A "Barium Meal" is defined this way: "When there is a leak, feed bits of radioactive (traceable, false) information to suspects. See which bit leaks. You will know who leaked it. The leaker will know you know. Livens up a dull day like nothing else we’ve ever seen. Bring the kids."

And a “Code Crypt,” in turn, is described as “the code name and control of a source in encrypted form. If this confuses you, it’s working.”

The spy lingo glossary is just one document amid an enormous cache from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private intelligence company that counts government agencies and some of the world’s biggest companies among its clients.

In a press release late Sunday, Wikileaks said the emails “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, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.”

"The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods," the Wikileaks press release said. The organization claimed that the emails expose "how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world."

Stratfor did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC, but CEO George Friedman posted a statement on Stratfor’s website in January explaining that the firm had been the target of hackers who had obtained sensitive internal data. He emphasized at the time that Stratfor had never been deceptive about itself: "We are what we said we were — an organization that generates its revenues through geopolitical analysis," Friedman wrote. "At the core of our business, we objectively acquire, organize, analyze and distribute information."

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told the Reuters news agency, "Here we have a private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the U.S. government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations, and journalists. What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are, among others, activist organizations fighting for a just cause."

Documents released by Wikileaks on Sunday also include a purported memo from Friedman to his staff detailing how Stratfor was partnering with a Goldman Sachs veteran, Shea Morenz, to create its own hedge fund.

The new venture, Friedman wrote in the memo, "… would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue - an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds, we would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea. Shea invested over $2 million in Stratfor.”

Wikileaks said that it had partnered with more than 25 media organizations around the world, many of whom would begin publishing stories based on the documents.

All of that coverage is likely to refer to the spy-novel milieu in which Stratfor operates. But in its own internal terminology memo, Stratfor had a word of caution for those who love spy novels a little too much.

The memo defined the term "Clancy" this way: "Somebody who has read a lot of Tom Clancy novels and thinks he knows the Craft. Total moron. Really dangerous if he is the Customer."

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