The whistleblowing site Wikileaks has announced that it will be releasing and publishing Global Intelligence Files from the global intelligence company Stratfor, who was hacked by the internet hactivist group Anonymous in December.
The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011 and reveal the "inner workings of a company" that fronts as an intelligence publisher, a press release said.
The emails are said to be highly intelligence sensitive which will provide an insight into some of Stratfor's clients including 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 Defense Intelligence Agency. Wikileaks says the emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods.
First email
"[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase" is the first email CEO George Friedman sent to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.
Wikileaks says there are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. They also say that the emails show some of the workings of the murky world of diplomacy, alleging that government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. "The Global Intelligence Files exposes 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."
The announcement by WikiLeaks to investigate Stratfor with more than 25 media organisations and activists will mean we will see a lot of more of the 'sensitive' emails in public in the coming weeks.
