WikiLeaks Exposes Stratfor Intelligence Agency, Releases 5 Million Emails
WikiLeaks made good on a promise to expose Stratfor, a global intelligence company, by publishing on Monday five million emails taken from the firm.
The leaked emails detailed some work that the company has done for clients along with the names, emails and credit card information for thousands of Stratfor customers. According to WikiLeaks, the information was compiled over a seven-year time period.
The WikiLeaks organization, which "publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct" on its website, released a statement that revealed Stratfor had been keeping tabs on the group and its founder Julian Assange.
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"The material contains privileged information about the U.S. government's attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor's own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks," the statement said. "There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange."
Still George Friedman, Stratfor's founder and chief executive officer, refused to confirm or deny that there were any misdealings between his global intelligence organization and its subscribers, which included many Fortune 500 companies.
"(The emails) may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic. We will not validate either," the statement released from Stratfor said. "Nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them."
Friedman also released a statement on Jan. 11, after his company learned that it had been hacked by an anonymous group. He said the company would continue to function in the same way, and told critics that there were no misdealings taking place at Stratfor.
"We will continue to publish analysis and sell it to those who believe it has value. To our subscribers who have expressed such strong support, we express our deepest gratitude," Friedman said. "To our critics, we assure you that nothing you have said about us represents a fraction of what we have said about ourselves. While there is much not to be proud of in this affair, I am proud beyond words of all my dedicated colleagues at Stratfor and am delighted to return our focus to analyzing critical international affairs."
Still, the whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks, vowed to unveil Stratfor's "web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods," in a press release.
The website's statement said people can learn the inner workings of an intelligence agency from the exposed data.
"The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients," the press release stated.
