Stratfor, a.k.a 'Shadow CIA,' Had Contracts With 13 Federal Departments: WikiLeaks

OTTAWA - At least 13 Canadian government agencies have had subscriptions with U.S. private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc. or Stratfor, sometimes dubbed a shadow CIA, newly released WikiLeaks emails indicate.

Stratfor came under fire recently after a leaked company document prepared for an oil company outlined ways to counter activist groups, such as Greenpeace, who oppose Canada's oil-sands development.

The same cache of leaked emails indicates Canadian federal agencies have purchased at least half a million dollars in Stratfor services.

Leaked Stratfor Email Suggests Secret U.S. Indictment of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

he whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has published an internal email from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that suggests the U.S. Justice Department has obtained a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The email is one of around five million obtained from Stratfor’s servers by the hacker group, Anonymous. "Somehow you have a private intelligence company, Stratfor, a 'shadow CIA,' as people have called it, having information about this sealed indictment—secret again—that Julian Assange doesn’t have, that WikiLeaks doesn’t have, that his lawyers don’t have," says Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is a legal adviser to both Assange and to WikiLeaks. "What you see here is secrecy, secrecy, secrecy." News of the indictment comes less than a week after Army Private Bradley Manning was arraigned for allegedly leaking classified U.S. military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks.

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Did Private Spy Shop Get US Intel From Bin Laden Raid?

On May 1, 2011, not only did US special forces kill Osama bin Laden, they collected a treasure trove of intelligence from his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan—material that would be of tremendous value to analysts, both in and out of government. Less than two weeks later, Fred Burton, the vice president for intelligence of Stratfor, a private US intelligence firm, was telling colleagues within the secretive company that he could get his hands on the Abbottabad booty. If so, that would be quite a coup for Stratfor, which peddles expensive intelligence reports on economic, security, and geopolitical matters to private clients, such as major corporations, around the world.

This week, WikiLeaks published 214 internal Stratfor emails that it was provided by Anonymous, the online activist collective that hacked into Stratfor's servers and swiped 5 million emails. In one of those messages, sent by Burton to a "Secure List" of Stratfor colleagues on May 12, 2011, he noted,

    I can get access to the materials seized from the OBL safe house.

    What are the top (not 45) questions we want addressed.

Within minutes, Sean Noonan, a tactical analyst at Stratfor, wrote back:

    1 specific operational plans

    2 communications with franchise groups (like AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula])

    3. connections to anyone associated with the Pakistani state.

Stratfor Emails Published By WikiLeaks Reveal Private Intelligence

LONDON — Private intelligence firm Stratfor is in the business of shedding light on the world for its many clients. On Monday, anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks was the one shedding light on Stratfor, saying it had more than 5 million of the company's emails and would publish them in collaboration with two dozen international media organizations.

The small selection so far published on WikiLeaks' website gives a look at the daily routine of the Texas-based think tank, whose clients range from local universities to global megacorporations. One described a $6,000-a-month payment made to a Middle Eastern source, another carried bits of gossip dropped by a retired spy, and many were filled with off-color office banter.

An initial examination of the emails turned up a mix of the innocuous and the embarrassing, but WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange promised more explosive material in the coming weeks.

"What we have discovered is a company that is a private intelligence Enron," Assange told London's Frontline Club, referring to the Texas energy giant whose spectacular bankruptcy turned it into a byword for corporate malfeasance.

WikiLeaks: Stratfor Confidential Emails Published

LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing on Monday more than five million emails from a U.S.-based global security analysis company that has been likened to a shadow CIA.

The emails, snatched by hackers, could unmask sensitive sources and throw light on the murky world of intelligence-gathering by the company known as Stratfor, which counts Fortune 500 companies among its subscribers.

Stratfor in a statement shortly after midnight EST (0500 GMT) said the release of its stolen emails was an attempt to silence and intimidate it.

It said it would not be cowed under the leadership of George Friedman, Stratfor's founder and chief executive officer. It said Friedman had not resigned as CEO, contrary to a bogus email circulating on the Internet.

Some of the emails being published "may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic," the company statement said.

'Anonymous' Stratfor Hack Reportedly Start Of Weeklong Assault

LONDON -- The loose-knit hacking movement "Anonymous" claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals' accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor's confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos. The company's main website was down, with a banner saying the "site is currently undergoing maintenance."

Proprietary information about the companies and government agencies that subscribe to Stratfor's newsletters did not appear to be at any significant risk, however, with the main threat posed to individual employees who had subscribed.