WikiLeaks Begins Releasing Stratfor Internal Emails

owenferguson writes "WikiLeaks has begun leaking a cache of over 5 million internal emails from the the Texas-headquartered 'global intelligence' company Stratfor. The emails date from 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 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. The associated news release can be found on pastebin."

Comments

Huh?

[the linux geek]

A company that fronts as an intelligence publisher... but is secretly an intelligence publisher? Oh, Associated Press, why you make no sense?

Re:Huh?

[QuasiSteve]

How do you go from this...

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 Defense Intelligence Agency.

...to this...

A company that fronts as an intelligence publisher... but is secretly an intelligence publisher?

...instead of something like:
A company that fronts as an intelligence publisher... but secretly acts as an intelligence agency.

Even if that introduction wasn't clear enough, the remainder of the press release would have cleared things up quite well.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that these intelligence services go beyond what any reasonable person would consider ethical or appropriate.

Re:Huh?

[Samantha Wright]

No, pastebin fronts as a code-sharing site. :)

Seriously, how have they not been nuked from orbit by the powers that be? Or at least vigorously co-opted by the NSA?

Re:Huh?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

When my daughter was 3 she riddled me this:

Her: "What looks like a bear, acts like and bear and IS a bear?"

Me: "Gee honey bubbles, I have no idea... I know I know - A BEAR!!!!"

Her: "Nuh uh!"

Me: "No? Then what looks like a bear and acts like a bear and IS a bear that ISN'T a Bear?"

Her: "A BERENSTAIN BEAR!!!!"

My daughter, the genius. If the CIA is a bear, Stratfor is a Berenstain Bear. Kind of like how a Southern Mansion is a Southern Mansion, but a Southern Mansion Style McMansion in the exurbs of San Diego is a caricature of a Mansion. Both comfy places to live, the McMansions just fake and cheezy and third rate as fuckall.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Hicks: yeah yeah, I know YOU think your children are special. I'm just here to tell you - they're not!

Re:Huh?

[owenferguson]

Just a note: The press release is the one associated with the story. It is not from the Associated Press, which I would have capitalized as such, had it been the case.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am seriously baffled that there are people who didn't realize that Stratfor gathers up and analyzes the intelligence they publish.

Basically, what I think the GP poster is saying is that they're a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher... but secretly generates intelligence. To publish. And, as a private company they save some of it for paying customers.

I haven't finished reading every document in the leak (and probably won't if I don't find something interesting soon) but so far it's not really revealing anything that anyone who's heard of Stratfor didn't know. Except maybe a level of security incompetence (which is really what Anonymous is best at revealing).

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol I know, I heard the president of stratfor SAY ON A RADIO INTERVIEW that they were a compiler publisher of intelligence information lol

Re:Huh?

[AHuxley]

Re: Seriously, how have they...
Disinformation, selective leaks, like to see who is interested, who can work out what. All the chatter lights up a lot of hidden blogs, press people who can still think.
95% can be true, a few real gems in the released works and then that small fake amount that makes the next war seem "ok" to the average person when the press 'finds' it.
If a real expert gets talking in court or via lawyers to the press, then it gets much more interesting.
Costas Tsalikidis, the Greek telco whistleblower who was found hanged.
Spyware eavesdropped on the Greek prime Minister and other top officials’ cell phone calls; it even monitored the car phone of Greece’s secret service chief.
Adamo Bove head of security at Telecom Italia who exposed the CIA renditions via cell phone logs ‘fell’ to his death.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the D.C. Madam was found hanged.

Re:Huh?

[dbIII]

Either way it's a newspaper clipping service with less than twenty employees and delusions of granduer.
Look at the comments on that last story about these people to see how well their self promotion worked. Restoring their computer systems was seen by many here as an epic task and not the reality of dealing with a server or two and twenty or less PCs and laptops.

Re:Huh?

[Sir_Sri]

I don't see how as a practical matter you could be one and not the other and be any good at your job. A newspaper publisher either has to do its own journalism, or it has to just aggregate other peoples. An intelligence company needs to either aggregate other peoples information (which is really analysis, rather than data sourcing), and it will need a source of that information. The difference between a publisher that contracts independent sources, and a company with regular employees doing these things is not that big a deal.

The actual article isn't 'intelligence agency vs intelligence publisher' it's an intelligence company that as one of the things it's doing is trying to bribe people for insider information, and to resell that insider information in violation of corrupt practices and insider trading rules.

If you want information (call it journalism, intelligence, verification or whatever) on the health of say Hugo Chavez, your options are limited on how to get that which isn't illegal (assuming he isn't telling the truth). If you're being contracted to train intelligence analysts or agents from a government agency you need to have people who have past experience with intelligence gathering and analysis. To accomplish either of those things it's pretty obvious what they're up to. How do journalists get sources or info? Right, either you pay them, or they volunteer for the promise of future payoffs. That's the nature of the business and insofar as journalism is legal, it is legal.

The only thing particularly more sleazy than the nature of the business itself is the insider trading and related work (either paying off private or government persons for information about information that is not yet public). That's the sort of thing that journalists, parliament/congress etc. have particular legal walls around, because you really really really cannot use information that will be public before it becomes public. It shouldn't even be surprising that these things happen, it's only a matter of if or when they get caught by people who aren't in on the deal.

Just in general doing business in most of the world requires paying off the right people, in cash, in the right currency, at the right time. Everyone knows it, no one admits to it, no one really does anything about it because that's just how the world works. It used to be tax deductible for businesses in germany to pay bribes overseas for example, it's just the cost of doing business.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q:What's a Stratfor?
A:Playing the blues.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

one of the things it's doing is trying to bribe people for insider information, and to resell that insider information in violation of corrupt practices and insider trading rules

And what is your evidence that Stratfor is bribing anyone or doing anything illegal? If you have an actual evidence, let's see it.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey guess what. Its black history month!!1!!

Niggers.

Re:Huh?

[chaboud]

I think the most unnerving parts of this could be:

- They are sometimes used by the US government (and others), presumably to provide a hint of plausible deniability.
- They're trading on markets using information gained via espionage, sometimes with information gained at the urging of government agencies.
- They're all-around scary dudes with close ties to our government and our financial organizations.

We'll get more details, but those crazies with delusional rantings about shady para-governmental organizations with nearly boundless resources and a shortage of moral or ethical restriction? Yeah, they're going to be busy for a while.

Re:Huh?

[chaboud]

"[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"

At the very least, they're looking to coerce or bribe an Israeli intelligence informant. It's certainly well into the grey area. Their great efforts to set up a pseudo-independent StratCap StratFund for StratInsider StratTrading stinks of SEC violations if they leveraged information gained in one space (by its nature, illicit) for gains in another.

Re:Huh?

[fusiongyro]

I agree. The scandals, if there are any real ones, are going to amount to fancy new kinds of insider trading and tax evasion, with some outing of dirty politicians on the side.

Re:Huh?

[gmack]

If we learned anything form 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq it's that government internal intelligence seems hampered by ideological slant and internal politics. Stratfor, on the other hand, tries to be as accurate as possible and even publishes how accurate it's predictions were on a quarterly and yearly basis. Quite frankly, I would be more worried if governments weren't using services like Stratfor.

Re:Huh?

[Ihmhi]

The last time we had something like this, they were called Pinkertons. Between this company and companies like Blackwater, it's... it's just not good.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

never driven by the stratfor building have you?

Re:Huh?

[Sir_Sri]

The other guy basically summed it up, but I was referring to the linked article and what it implies, whether or not the article paints an accurate picture of the situation I have no idea.

Re:Huh?

[rolfwind]

From http://pastebin.com/D7sR4zhT :

Stratfor's use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS: "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like".

Is insider trading exciting enough for you?

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Came for something along these lines. Left happy. Would read again.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way it's a newspaper clipping service with less than twenty employees and delusions of granduer.

Wait, wait wait. Were you talking about Strafor or Slashdot?

Re:Huh?

[sociocapitalist]

"...government internal intelligence seems hampered by ideological slant and internal politics"

Not to mention national and international law, some level of oversight and what passes for morals and ethics. The same justification was used re the hiring of mercenary companies as they could do things outside the laws that restricted the normal armed forces.

A private intelligence/security company working at this level and unhindered by governmental limitations makes me very nervous.

It also makes me nervous that national security information is being passed to a private non-governmental entity in the hope of a job after leaving 'public service'. Such people should be prosecuted as traitors.

Re:Huh?

[Motard]

Insider trading might be enough, but this isn't insider trading. If you are trading on information you're getting from an external source, it is, by definition, outsider trading. Unless they were trading Stratfor shares.

Re:Huh?

[aldousd666]

lol. I'd vote that up if I could.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should think thing through before hitting submit...you aren't making sense here. You said..."A private intelligence/security company working at this level and unhindered by governmental limitations makes me very nervous." Where does that come from? Absolutely everything that goes on in the US has government limitations, why should Stratfor be any different?

You also said..."same justification was used re the hiring of mercenary companies as they could do things outside the laws that restricted the normal armed forces."
You seem to think the military is the answer to everything. So for internal matters, should we eliminate police forces and rely solely on the military? And for external matter we should eliminate the state department?

No, each job has it's own requirements so use whatever tool works best for the job.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes me nervous is people like you who actually think that a government engaging in these activities is constrained by what you call "limitations".

Naïveté indeed.

Re:Huh?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Q: What's a dickfer?
A: To pee with.
-Spies Like Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB8sG4smWbo

Re:Huh?

[MartinSchou]

John is on the board of director's of company A.
John tells his friend Dave, that company B is in secret talks about buying out company A.
Dave tells his friend Charlie, that he should buy lots of stocks in company A.

Dave gets his information from an outside source, but I'm fairly confident it still counts as insider trading.

Re:Huh?

[Blue Stone]

Alas, I ran outta mod points.

Re:Huh?

[khallow]

Dave and Charlie didn't get their information from an outside source. As I understand it, any knowledge that is not public knowledge or which could be obtained from public sources (PIs following board members around in public or possibly even going through the trash), is considered inside information, no matter that it's gone through people before it gets to you.

Re:Huh?

[MartinSchou]

That was my point.

I set up the example, because motard claimed that it wouldn't be insider trading.

Re:Huh?

[GameboyRMH]

Pastebin is the best thing for intelligence agencies since Facebook. All they have to do is subscribe to the RSS feed for new posts and they have their fingers on the pulse of some of the seedier parts of the Internet. Not saying you shouldn't use it, just...be aware.

Re:Huh?

[khallow]

OH. My bad then.

Re:Huh?

[garyrich]

In general there are no laws against using inside information to trade in "government bonds, currencies and the like". Even if there were how are you going to prosecute some Iranian general that buys crude futures in Dubai the day before doing some grandstanding in the Straight of Hormuz?

Re:Huh?

[garyrich]

Substitute in "country A's soverign debt" for "company" and it's perfectly legal

Re:Huh?

[Wakko Warner]

holy shit, you have a Firesign Theater quote in your sig.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. It's analysis website: it reads from newspaper posts, has topic submissions, and comments on the topics. In other words, very much like Slashdot -- except, seeing as how they try to provide something of quality in exchange for money, lunatics like you would not be included.

Stop being an Anonymous excuser. At this point, it's very obvious that dirtbags like yourself are engaged in a witch hunt, desperately trying to find something wrong with Stratfor, in order to justify the criminal attacks it suffered. Frankly, this whole hack stinks of a political attack from anti-usa groups -- and your desperate defense of these creeps makes it very obvious what kind of slimeball with an agenda YOU are.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymus]

Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services and then to Academi. It's important not to let them get away with something as stupid as a name change.

Re:Huh?

[sociocapitalist]

You really should think thing through before hitting submit...you aren't making sense here. You said..."A private intelligence/security company working at this level and unhindered by governmental limitations makes me very nervous." Where does that come from? Absolutely everything that goes on in the US has government limitations, why should Stratfor be any different?

You also said..."same justification was used re the hiring of mercenary companies as they could do things outside the laws that restricted the normal armed forces."

You might want to re-read what I wrote before pressing submit ;-)

Stratfor is not 'in the US' as you write, but is a private multinational company that would not be regulated like Federal intelligence agencies are. There would be fewer restrictions overall and probably none that couldn't be got round by going offshore. When a US federal agency operates outside of the US it still has to follow US laws restricting its behavior and there are checks and balances in place to minimize abuse (granted the US govt hasn't done a great job of keeping the checks and balances in place but that's another discussion).

You seem to think the military is the answer to everything.

I can't even begin to guess how you got that out of what I wrote. I was making a reference to private 'security contractors' such as Blackwater, a mercenary company hired by the US government that was responsible for killing civilians in Iraq but who was never correctly prosecuted.

You seem to think the military is the answer to everything. So for internal matters, should we eliminate police forces and rely solely on the military? And for external matter we should eliminate the state department?

No, each job has it's own requirements so use whatever tool works best for the job.

Frankly my belief is that we already have national intelligence agencies and I'd prefer they do their job rather than farming it out to private companies of dubious loyalty to the best interests of the citizens of the US (or any other country for that matter). We also have a (more than) fully funded and functional military and should have no need to resort to mercenaries, either military or intelligence, to avoid the laws and treaties that our government(s) signed up to.

finally, through the looking glass

[Anonymous Coward]

The plots of the reverse vampires will be revealed.

Meh.

[siddesu]

If they are as exciting as the Manning leaks, I'll pass. Newspaper excerpts and rumour collections from various countries, even when stamped "CIA" or "Stratfor" do not an interesting reading make.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the ones that acted as the catalyst for the Arab Spring? Maybe you didn't find them that interesting, but some of us did.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've totally nailed the purpose of wikileaks: to entertain you. They should just give up.

Re:Meh.

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean the ones that acted as the catalyst for oppressive Arab governments to be overthrown and replaced by even more oppressive Arab governments? Maybe you didn't find them that interesting, but some of us did.

FTFY

Re:Meh.

[ToadProphet]

I'm pretty sure that proof could be posted that the president eats babies, and a large segment of the population like yourself would say 'meh'. There was some rather nasty revelations in the Manning leaks, but I'm guessing you missed them or didn't cae.

That complacency is why our democracy is sliding away.

Re:Meh.

[Ethanol-fueled]

What a fucking fag-ass you are. Of course, Timothy is pro-JIDF so he will ban me (again, like he did last night) for posting this comment.

When the Kikes get too big for their britches, the majority of starving, jobless Americans will not surrender their few remaining resources to Israel.

Wikileaks for the win. Destroy-Iran-for-Israel rhetoric for the lose.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the ones that acted as the catalyst for oppressive Arab governments to be overthrown and replaced by even more oppressive Arab governments because the US will never tolerate democracy in the middle east? Maybe you didn't find them that interesting, but some of us did.

FTFY

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I say "meh" because I'm not surprised nor am I bothered by a government that acts in this way. In fact, I'm rather comforted to learn these nasty things go on behind the scenes. Are a few eggs broken on the way to the omelette of life in America? Sure. Some even get dropped on the floor and eaten by the dog. But in the end our way of life prevails. Oh sure, you'll call me selfish and amerocentric and whatever nasty leftist label you can come up with, but when it comes right down to it you'll cry a fucking a river the moment you're slightly inconvenienced in your comfy Western life.

Espionage, enhanced interrogations, renditioning, torture, political assassinations, the overthrowing of governments... I'm OK with these things, and so are most people when faced with the alternative. Oh, and I'm sure you'll pounce on that one, too... about how it's all unnecessary and the world could be puppy dogs and rainbows if we'd all just get along. Sorry, but all the We Are The World ensembles in the -- well, world -- won't change the fact that someone else thinks their way of life is better, yours is evil, and that you should be killed because you don't agree. I prefer to be better at protecting my way of life than they are, and with guns and deplorable violence if necessary.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

The french revolution had quite a lot of bad governments before something good was found as well.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, governments engaging in murder (including the U.S. government) was TOTALLY boring.

Re:Meh.

[ToadProphet]

I'm not a 'leftist', so I'll have to apologize for not fitting into your world of walking, talking strawmen.

Regardless, you seem to be under the (albeit sincerely naive) impression that all those things you list are still working in your favour, and that those in political and corporate power are beholden to your interests. They aren't. You're thinking is about 50 years too late - those were the 'good ole days' of benevolence and spirit, working against common enemies and using whatever means necessary to triumph.

In a world where governments are beholden to corporations with no loyalties, they are as likely to be working against you as they are for you. Get it yet?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

That diatribe certainly sounded Ethanol-fueled.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh...

Dude, there are ways to say pretty much everything you said, minus the slur, and get +5 instead of a karma burn.

Tact. Use it.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

If these revelations are so nasty, what are they? I don't mean to imply what you are saying is wrong, I'm genuinely asking what are these revelations? I'm puzzled as to why none of them are discussed in the media, any media outlet. Please provide links. My impression is the leaks must not have much in the way of a "pentagon papers" moment, which is why no one is pointing to a smoking gun?

So please. Post links. Inquiring minds want to know!

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

No one likes you here.

Re:Meh.

[cold fjord]

. . . because the US will never tolerate democracy in the middle east?

Ignoring Iraq and Israel?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize that they had found a good one.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel's purpose it to destabilize any emerging threats to US hegemony, though that dog got off it's leash a long time ago. It's also only a democracy if you ignore the Palestinians...

And Iraq... democracy??? Hehe... priceless.

Re:Meh.

[artor3]

Yeah, if they can't form a perfect representative democracy within a single year, then they deserve to live under dictatorial rule forever. It's high time we take up the white man's burden and show them how to live, because clearly they have no right to try to rule themselves.

Just out of curiosity, roughly how many fifths of a person would you say Arabs are?

Re:Meh.

[mosb1000]

At least you're honest about it. Probably won't help you when they come after you though.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid dick.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Veys mir - why wouldn't you ignore the Palestinians? We do!

Re:Meh.

[cold fjord]

You mean the ones that acted as the catalyst for the Arab Spring?

We keep hearing that from fans and boosters of Wikileaks, but it simply isn't true. Do you really think that the Arabs living under bad governments needed someone to tell them that they had badly run corrupt governments when it was a fact that assulted them nearly every day of their lives? Do you not know that many of those countries had been simmering under revolution or revolt for years? I guess the "White Man's Burden" is still with us in the form of "Wikileaks".

A Tunisian man named Mohamed Bouazizi is generally credited with starting the Arab Spring after he set himself on fire when the police confiscated his fruit stand in December 2010. Less than a month after his self-immolation – he eventually died – President Zine al Abdedine Ben Ali fled Tunisia after 23 years in office. Several other self-immolations quickly follow Bouazizi’s, particularly in Egypt where that revolution would start a little more than a month later. -- Moroccan Protesters the Latest to Set Themselves on Fire

The facts are that on 17 December last year, Mohamed, a market trader whose father had died when he was three and who had been helping to support his family financially since the age of 10, set himself on fire after a dispute with a government official over where he could sell his fruit and vegetables. At the time, it was widely reported that the municipal inspector, a woman named Fedia Hamdi with a reputation for strictness, had slapped Mohamed across the face – the ultimate insult in such a patriarchal Arab community. The confrontation seemed to pit an ordinary man, struggling to make a living, against the uniformed symbol of a corrupt regime. Bouazizi's suicide at the age of 26 was seen by many as an act borne of his intense frustration with authoritarian rule. It became the domino that fell and triggered a chain of revolutions across the Arab world. -- The slap that sparked a revolution

Re:Meh.

[MightyMartian]

And we don't want to be around the kind of people who like him.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that proof could be posted that the president eats babies, and a large segment of the population like yourself would say 'meh'. There was some rather nasty revelations in the Manning leaks, but I'm guessing you missed them or didn't cae.

That complacency is why our democracy is sliding away.

Proof? I suppose the e-mails and diplomatic cables all came with certificates of authenticity, right? How the hell do we know ANY of the supposedly leaked documents are true? That's what I've never heard anyone explain.

Re:Meh.

[MightyMartian]

And principles are for chumps, and limits on government power,pah! those Founding Fathers was a bunch of commie queers! If you're not taking it up the rear every hour of every day as a card carrying member of the Cult of Authoritarianism, then your a Leftist fag!

Re:Meh.

[afabbro]

Just out of curiosity, roughly how many fifths of a person would you say Arabs are?

Five.

But yahoos on Slashdot who ascribe any criticism of Middle Eastern fascism to some kind of racism...perhaps one.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be fascinating to know how that actually sounded in your head.

Re:Meh.

[psiclops]

and if his purpose was to enter into intelligent discussion he probably would have tried to.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

...There was some rather nasty revelations in the Manning leaks, but I'm guessing you missed them or didn't care.

Problem isn't that we missed them or don't care. Problem is, if we pay attention we're left with two choices: do nothing and have all the crap hanging over our conscience, or abandon our comfortable lives to do something about it. It's much easier to shove our fingers in our ears and sing lalalala, ignorance is bliss.

That complacency is why our democracy is sliding away.

When our you people going to stop using "democracy" as some fucking magic incantation? Democracy was a good form of government for the 20th century, but it's been completely subverted now. Get over it, it don't work no more, the politicians have figured out all the loopholes that circumvent all the advantages that "democracy" gave to regular people. Time to move on and come up with a better form of government.

Re:Meh.

[Internetuser1248]

This was one of the main things i believe Manning is alleged to have leaked. It shows a reuters journalist and some children (and the usual bunch of Iraqi civilians) being gunned down by an attack helicopter for no reason.

Re:Meh.

[ynp7]

Five. Maybe a bit more if they've got an extra arm or two. Depends on how well they can use the added appendages, I suppose.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're thinking is about 50 years too late - those were the 'good ole days' of benevolence and spirit, working against common enemies and using whatever means necessary to triumph."

This wasn't true 50 years ago either. The last time this was true was before recorded history.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which ones were those?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic neocon fantasist.

Re:Meh.

[Tom]

Regardless, you seem to be under the (albeit sincerely naive) impression that all those things you list are still working in your favour, and that those in political and corporate power are beholden to your interests. They aren't. You're thinking is about 50 years too late - those were the 'good ole days' of benevolence and spirit, working against common enemies and using whatever means necessary to triumph.

The thing that has changed is the enemy. This is really old wisdom, literally 2000 years at the least. If a country lacks outside enemies, it starts to find inside enemies. And since we don't do that christian/jew/black/whatever persecution thing anymore, it turned out that simply considering everyone else an enemy and taking the whole capitalist everyone-for-himself mantra seriously was the easiest solution.

Like all dogmas, once you take things too seriously, they start to go downhill.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be confusing 'democracy' with the various allegedly democratic forms of democracy. Democracy is an ideal, not an absolute, and can include constitutional republic and constitutional monarchies, etc, etc. Marxists will even make a valid argument that communism is closest to the ideal that is democracy.

Do you have a better ideal that hasn't been tried yet? If so, why are you depriving the world?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you didn't, because it wasn't reported on Fox News.

Re:Meh.

[gox]

Yours is a simplistic world view as well. After you buy the story, sure, what you say makes sense.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, and that's why the 'good ole days' are in quotes. There was a greater belief in those things post-war and a lot less of the cynicism of the current era.

Not that blind faith and naivete is necessarily a good thing, but they do make for a stronger nation, for better or for worse.

Re:Meh.

[siddesu]

If you missed that news the 3457 times it was reported before the clips of those reports made by US various embassies were released by Wikileaks, you should not pretend that you care about wikileaks.

Re:Meh.

[the entropy]

Democracy != puppet government that doesn't even have sovereignty over the land(in the case or Iraq).

As for Israel, I think the GP's point would better be phrased as: "The US will never tolerate Arabic/Muslim democracies in the Middle East". Polls of most Arab countries have shown that people overwhelmingly dislike/hate both the US and Israel and see Iran as less of a threat or no threat at all. A true democratic government in any of these countries would definitely not be in the best interest of the US. It is therefore not a big leap to assume that the US would try to stop the formation of such governments since it has been shown in the past to be proactive about defending its own(and Israel's) best interests.

One counter-example you could have given that might have been more correct of a democracy in the ME that the US does tolerate, would've been Lebanon. Although that still sort-of fails under the "sovereignty over the land" criteria of a proper government as the country is in a very precarious state and the government is not free to act as it wants to(for fear of civil war). Especially since there exists a militia in the country that has greater military might than the actual military(cf. Hezbollah).

Re:Meh.

[siddesu]

Which exactly did you find "interesting"? Can you name at least 10 that you dug up personally due to your interests in the matter? I didn't think so.

Re:Meh.

[Attila Dimedici]

Just out of curiosity, roughly how many fifths of a person would you say Arabs are?

That would depend on how many slaves he is voting for. Perhaps you are unaware that it was the slave owners who wanted slaves counted as whole people so that they could use the number of slaves they owned to increase their own political power.

Re:Meh.

[chrb]

Do you really think that the Arabs living under bad governments needed someone to tell them that they had badly run corrupt governments

Strawman argument. The claimed effect of Wikileaks wasn't to "tell them how bad their government was", it was to "confirm" it. There is a difference between suspecting that your leaders are corrupt, and actually seeing classified intelligence reports from another country's diplomats detailing the exact corruption that is going on, and basically stating that your government operates more like the Mafia.

Would the revolution have happend without Facebook? Possibly - Berlin Wall fell long before people commonly had access to email. But does that mean that Facebook wasn't a factor? Obviously not: the fact that something was possible without X (where X is Facebook, Wikileaks etc.) does not mean that X was not a factor in this particular case.

Nobody is claiming that the Arab Spring happened because of Wikileaks, or because of Facebook or the internet. What people are claiming is that these things were contributing factors. Amnesty International named Wikileaks, the Internet, technology and journalism as being catalysts of the Arab Spring It's also worth pointing out that Qaddafi accused Wikileaks of being behind the Arab Spring in Tunisia, so it's not as if it's only Wikileaks supporters who saw Wikileaks as being a factor. Julian Assange has said Wikileaks played a role, but was not the major factor in the Arab Spring:

He said WikiLeaks had ''played a significant role'' in the uprisings sweeping the Arab world by publishing secret documents about those countries' authoritarian regimes, but the site was not the major factor in the movements.

''It does look like we played a significant role in it. That said, the tinder of the Middle East was drying,'' he said, crediting the internet and satellite TV stations like al-Jazeera with major roles in the uprisings.

Even those who reject the Wikileaks factor do admit it "may have played a minor atmospheric rule":

There’s been a lot of speculation, notably in the U.S., over the role social media played in the Tunisian revolution (it sure feels nice to say those two words.)

Wikileaks may have played a minor atmospheric rule in baring to the whole world what was whispered about the Ben Ali regime’s corruption, showing that US diplomats were aghast at the mafia nature of his regime.

Social media, from Twitter and Facebook to video upload sites, were crucial in spreading the word about what happened in a country where the press was tightly muzzled. It generated tremendous amounts of solidarity in the Arab world in beyond. But it’s just a means of communication, not a driver in itself.

At the end of the day, Tunisians took the streets because they had enough. They risked getting shot and beaten with no guarantee of success. And it’s likely that if they hadn’t heard about events around their country through Twitter and Facebook, they would have heard it by telephone.

Re:Meh.

[X.25]

If they are as exciting as the Manning leaks, I'll pass.

So, you can't read, or you just didn't want to read it?

Which one is it?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

In comparison to Greece's government, all of europe has good governments (except for Greece)

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

No reason? Well, no reason other than the group the helicopter attacked was shooting AK-47s and RPGs.

Re:Meh.

[stewbee]

Is it possible thought that many of these places don't like the US is because we support their oppressive dictator? What is the causality for their 'hate' of the US? Not that I know the answer is here, but we should at least know what caused their dislike of the US first. Perhaps getting out of their business would be a good first step to winning their support.

Re:Meh.

[anagama]

I would call helping to end the phase of the Iraq war with the US Military being officially there, a bit more than a yawn:

That cable was released by WikiLeaks in May, 2011, and, as McClatchy put it at the time, "provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." The U.S. then lied and claimed the civilians were killed by the airstrike. Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama administration was seeking. Indeed, it was widely reported at the time the cable was released that it made it much more difficult for Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain beyond the deadline under any conditions.

In other words, whoever leaked that cable cast light on a heinous American war crime and, by doing so, likely played some significant role in thwarting an agreement between the Obama and Maliki governments to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and thus helped end this stage of the Iraq war.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/

Re:Meh.

[Attila Dimedici]

I'm confused, what does this have to do with the U.S. assistance to the Muslim Brotherhood and other fascistic Islamic groups in overthrowing governments in the Middle East this past year?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You see this is a massive misrepresentation of the video. You want to know why you guys are so easy to ignore. It's this right here.

Re:Meh.

[khallow]

Same thing happened in Europe in 1848. The results may not have been all that was hoped at the time, but it sure qualified as interesting. And that long ago event picked up familiar-sounding snappy names as well (according to Wikipedia, "Spring of Nations", "Springtime of the Peoples", and "Year of Revolution").

Re:Meh.

[GameboyRMH]

Wow, the rant at the end of Shooter is like a Disney cartoon compared to this. Ho. Lee. Shit.

Re:Meh.

[Attila Dimedici]

Except that in those cases the failure to live up to hopes was because those who led the revolutions failed to create a governing coalition, whereas the "failure" of the Arab Spring is a result of those who led the revolutions being successful in forming a governing coalition.

Re:Meh.

[khallow]

In other words, pretty much the same sort of failures for the same sort of reasons. We no longer see the failings of the 1848 leaders because they didn't achieve or stay in power, while we don't yet see the failure of creation of governing coalitions in the "Arab Sping" revolutions because the current attempts haven't fallen apart yet.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a Strawman. People living under a bad government generally do have real world, first hand experience of their own government's misbehavior when their lives are directly affected by it. Arrests, disappearances, abused family members, blacklists, death squads, accidents and first hand experiences with corruption count as direct and verifiable evidence when you and people you trust are their to observe or experience the events.

You don't merely suspect that your leaders are corrupt when you witness it happening in front of you. Just because WE, The West, suddenly see it on the news, and via trusted media sources, and as verifiable evidence according to our own standards of proof are suddenly convinced of a fact we did not witness first hand, does not equal citizens of any given nation being fully aware of the circumstances but being silenced by their own state's censorship, and a disinterested, or accommodating foreign media and political system.

In other words, THEY would know, it's us, outsiders. WE are the ones who require this confirmation. YOU may have merely suspected. YOU would have needed the confirmation, but it happened to THEM, so THEY know. THEY needed wikileaks to prove it to US.

Then suddenly they get close air support from drones, because the previously apathetic media picks it up, and sees our diplomats are implicated, and so on, and so forth...

Re:Meh.

[Attila Dimedici]

I am quite confident that the "Arab Spring" governments will last for a while and will successfully impose their interpretation of Islamic law on the countries in which they have taken power (Egypt and Libya at least, I am less sure of the outcome in Tunisia).

Re:Meh.

[khallow]

A similar confidence surrounded many of the 1848 revolutions.

Re:Meh.

[toriver]

Including the children in the car, which a different American soldier had to practically beg to be allowed to save?

The "RPG" has been found to be a zoom lens on the camera of the killed Reuters photographer. And people were AFAIK practically required to walk around armed there.

Stop defending the indefensible, or get a job working for NAMBLA for a little challenge.

Re:Meh.

[Attila Dimedici]

The difference being that if that had turned out, it would have been a good thing. The reason that I believe that those who seized power in the Arab Spring will keep power is because they are the same sorts as those they displaced, only more brutal.

Re:Meh.

[khallow]

Which was the first part of my argument. Most of the European revolutions didn't get a chance to show their brutality.

Re:Meh.

[steelfood]

Maybe a bit more if they've got an extra leg or two.

FTFY

Re:Meh.

[lennier]

Of course, and that's why the 'good ole days' are in quotes. There was a greater belief in those things post-war and a lot less of the cynicism of the current era.

Not that blind faith and naivete is necessarily a good thing, but they do make for a stronger nation, for better or for worse.

'Stronger' should be in quotes too. There was more faith in government and other institutions in the 1950s, yes - but the institutions in which that faith was placed were not in fact worthy of that faith. Building a nation on a lie did not actually make it stronger; the foundations were shaky even as the shiny chrome cladding on the outside of the building looked great.

This is the period in which the Korean war raged and the seeds of Vietnam began, ICBMs were built and deployed with the full intention of being used, and soldiers and mental patients were exposed to radiation without informed consent. These were not actions which created a strong nation. The Baby Boomers and GenXers learning about these betrayals of trust and growing cynical didn't cause the problem - the "greatest generation" dug their own grave.

In capitalist terms, that means that there was a massive mis-allocation of resources starting in the 1940-50s due to the market being given false information (generally toward war materiel and the secrecy that went along with the atomic establishment), and now that the accounting records are starting to be opened we're learning the full extent of our debts and our credit rating is crashing. But our high credit was a mispricing all along, and this is the necessary correction.

Re:Meh.

[lennier]

Like all dogmas, once you take things too seriously, they start to go downhill.

Especially if it's too heavy and you're on the skids when the wheels come off near a slippery slope, and there's no ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

Re:Meh.

[siddesu]

Heh, so you could not. Complete lack of surprise here.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

" Qaddafi accused Wikileaks of being behind the Arab Spring in Tunisia."

Qaddafi accused everybody he could think of except local discontent of being behind the uprising.

And about as accurately as tooting wikileaks as a cause.

I'd say that getting fed up with the situation combined with seeing other countries rising up was a much more direct cause. And that would have happened even if only standard phones and such were present. It would have been slower if not for modern social media, but remember, the fax machine and telephone were the main communications and organizing methods for the Soviet uprisings.

Seems that jumping on the bandwagon and taking undeserved credit are the coin of politics whether it's Wikileaks or the republican party.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot should give readers the option to only read -1 comments. They're the best of them all. It's unbelievable for a technical discussion site how many sheep there are.

Re:Meh.

[the entropy]

I grew up on Lebanon and I lived for a year in Syria(left in June because the situation there was getting quite unstable). I've talked to a lot of people from almost all sides of these debates, and I can definitely say that nobody that I've ever met and talked to hates/dislikes the US because of anything like the crap usually spouted on western media(they hate our freedoms, etc, etc).

Most people in these parts have a general distrust of the West because for a very long time they were colonies of either Britain or France(until they gained their independence, most of them around WW2). Right before leaving, however, the British decided to impart one final gift to the region, however, and that is the state of Israel(in honor of the Balfour declaration of 1917).

Right now, there is one world power that continues to sustain Israel in the region and in general act like a colonial/imperial power and that is the US, that's the primary reason most people who hate it do so.

Re:Meh.

[stewbee]

Thanks for the info, but I did have two particular countries in mind when I wrote my initial comment and that would be Iran and Egypt. In Iran, the US had its hand in over throwing the government (Operation Ajax) to support an autocratic dictator. In Egypt, we continually supported Hosni Mubarak, who was also a well known oppressor of his people.

Now you are probably right to some extent about the western media distorting some of my knowledge, but I do at least try to get an informed opinion from other sources. And I have not forgotten about the unilateral support we give Israel and how that irks most other Arabic countries, as you pointed out, but I think that goes in hand with us keeping our noses out their business.

Re:Meh.

[the entropy]

Indeed, I was only expanding on your comments, which I agree with.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends, there seem to be more than the average number of amputations in that region.

passwords in leak

[From A Far Away Land]

Here's a fun leak. Complete with passwords like:
changeme
and
stratfor

For a long time

[El Puerco Loco]

after the Stratfor website went live, one could log in with the username/password combo of "username" and "password". If that's how much attention they paid to protecting their rather expensive subscription service, one wonders is if the security of their email servers was any better.

Re:For a long time

[AHuxley]

http://cryptocomb.org/ has some hints.
Some form of intel gathering site and email passing centre for some well known people.

Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[BenJCarter]

Seems like a familiar acronym...

From the article:

"Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money."

I hope it's effective. I don't have a problem with people buying info.

I do have a huge problem with people in positions of responsibility selling it for their own profit at our expense though...

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[causality]

I hope it's effective. I don't have a problem with people buying info.

I do have a huge problem with people in positions of responsibility selling it for their own profit at our expense though...

How do you reconcile those two sentences?

Or ... guess what makes people in positions of responsibility sell information for their own profit? That's right ... other people buy it.

The position of responsibility is why they had the info to sell. They are insiders who are in the loop. Information everyone already knows doesn't command a very high price.

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it's effective. I don't have a problem with people buying info.

I do have a huge problem with people in positions of responsibility selling it for their own profit at our expense though...

How do you reconcile those two sentences?

Easy. He places the culpability only on the person selling the information. The person who's in a position of trust and trusted not to do what they're doing. You know, blame the person whose JOB it is NOT to do it, not the person whose job it is TO do it.

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[martin-boundary]

I hope it's effective. I don't have a problem with people buying info.

Oh, it's *very* effective. That's how we knew just in time that Saddam had hidden chemical weapons and WMDs all over Iraq...

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't blame MAFIA hitman for killing people either, because it's HIS JOB?

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[BenJCarter]

Only if he talks about it afterwards... :D

I see what you tried to do there.

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[BenJCarter]

I guess I reconcile them thus: There will always be a market for information. I hope our people do more buying than selling. Selling information you are entrusted to protect is despicable. Buying information you need is understandable.

To say that it is the buyer's fault is like saying "If everyone were perfect, X would happen"

I believe systems must be designed for the real world, not utopia. I hope our systems work better. Even if they are based on that evil money I never seem to have enough of...

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[causality]

I guess I reconcile them thus: There will always be a market for information. I hope our people do more buying than selling. Selling information you are entrusted to protect is despicable. Buying information you need is understandable. To say that it is the buyer's fault is like saying "If everyone were perfect, X would happen" I believe systems must be designed for the real world, not utopia. I hope our systems work better. Even if they are based on that evil money I never seem to have enough of...

I understand what you're saying. My argument is that it takes two to tango. Both buyer and seller are equally culpable because both are voluntarily engaged in an unethical transaction.

If you consider consenting adult people doing drugs to be a problem (I don't, but humor me here), you must understand that every last drug dealer would be put out of business if no one wanted to buy drugs. The dealer is merely responding to demand. In fact, the existence of such demand for drugs means that there will always be drug dealers until such time as there is no longer a profit to be made due to lack of demand.

It's a market reality. I don't see where utopia or dystopia enters into it. Honest people don't want at any price information obtained through dishonest means. If you think having a basic level of integrity requires utopia, then in a roundabout way you are actually excusing as "just human nature" those who are dishonest. After all, none of us grew up in Perfect Utopia so hey, who can blame us for being selfish and having no integrity, right? Yet I do have integrity and I didn't derive it from growing up in a perfect world. It's called personal responsibility and it's also called having to live with yourself.

Re:Capitalist Intelligence Agency

[BenJCarter]

I don't see adults doing drugs to be a problem unless they screw themselves up. At that point I also believe it is their problem.

I agree, it takes two to tango. I simply think one tango is lame, and the other tango is understandable. Selling drugs is illegal. Betraying legitimate trust is illegal and WRONG.

I agree. This is a market reality.

Viva La Mercado. Not sure Illegal is always wrong in these United States of so many laws I have to pay some certified guy $500/hr to read them to me. No utopia here friend, just hopefully a free market for the best ideas to float to the top, unassaulted by the ravages of politics...

Media Partners?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see Al Akhbar as a media partner...

Is it a trap?

CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

And their CEO is toast... the word of even this leaking out via intercepted e-mail: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/leaked-email-shows-stratfor-ceo-george-friedman-resigned-two-hours-ago-over-latest-breach

Zerohedge is all over this like white on rice. For those complaining about boring content in the leaks, see ZH's coverage on the e-mails relating to Obama's inability to maintain a liberal/progressive position and the Republicans' ability to field a decent candidate: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/stratfor-email-leak-reveals-insider-views-obama-emanuel-romney

Sure, we all knew that the players of the American political football game hadn't yet figured out which direction to run on the field, which team they're playing for, or why their ball is spherical and made of pentagons and hexagons, but it's fun to read about this half-assed private intelligence agency saying the same things that we've all been thinking AND about their supposed contacts with shadowy billionaire Powers That Be saying the same: that the Democrats have no spine and the Republicans no brains.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[oneiros27]

I'll wait 'til I've seen verification before I believe it or not ... but it's real or not, I still found this line funny:

Regarding the latest breach, Stratfor is fully in control of the situation

If it's real, I also wonder about:

To be clear: We certainly do not condone any criminal activities by groups like Anonymous or other hackers

I mean, this is a group that makes their money by paying off people to get them information, in ways that are hinted are against the law (likely they're getting other people to break the law of other countries, even if the company themselves aren't) ... but they're against hackers that break the law? It seems a a bit hypocritical to me.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Who signs your paycheque AC? I'd HEDGE my bets that there's at least a ZERO in there.

I'm too vague...SHILL! SHILL!! SHILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[causality]

Zerohedge is all over this like white on rice.

I eat brown rice because it's more nutritious ... uh, you insensitive clod!

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[causality]

I'll wait 'til I've seen verification before I believe it or not ... but it's real or not, I still found this line funny:

Regarding the latest breach, Stratfor is fully in control of the situation

If it's real, I also wonder about:

To be clear: We certainly do not condone any criminal activities by groups like Anonymous or other hackers

I mean, this is a group that makes their money by paying off people to get them information, in ways that are hinted are against the law (likely they're getting other people to break the law of other countries, even if the company themselves aren't) ... but they're against hackers that break the law? It seems a a bit hypocritical to me.

Sure, just like the way the government can't easily conduct certain forms of surveillance because that would run afoul of the 4th Amendment... but they can contract that out, purchasing the same information from companies conducting the same surveillance, and that's perfectly cromulent.

Yet, if you commit a crime by proxy, you're just as guilty as your hireling. For example, if you hired a contract killer you would be convicted for murder along with your mercenary. And unlike the US Constitution, the law under which you'd be convicted is not the highest law of the land.

Figure that one out in a logically consistent, non-hypocritical way.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, ZH pay someone to shill for them? Beyond that none of the paranoid extremists who read ZH would accept payment in any form other than physical possession of precious metals and CERTAINLY never a paper check signed by anyone, let alone by the fictitious Tyler Durden, your suggestion is mooted by the fact that the ZH crowd are all bitter, twisted, anti-social Sovereign Persons and former Patriot-Movement members for whom posting on Slashdot would be hampered by crippling agoraphobia and constant runs to the basement/bunker windows to scan the horizon for black helicopters homing. The few who are sufficiently psychologically healthy to be able to post coherently on Slashdot are angry, angry mid-level investment bankers who have access to and actually understand financial data that would bore Slashdotters to tears and who in turn are bored by information technology except in as much as it provides them with the data they need to continue raping the middle class by day and writing guilt-ridden screeds by night about economic injustice and the need for dismantling the corrupt abomination that capitalism in the US and Europe has become before the middle class evaporates. There's just no interest in shilling.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Fluffeh]

I mean, this is a group that makes their money by paying off people to get them information, in ways that are hinted are against the law (likely they're getting other people to break the law of other countries, even if the company themselves aren't) ... but they're against hackers that break the law? It seems a a bit hypocritical to me.

It's only hacking if it is done by someone not in power, or not on the behest of someone in power.

The government can listen to your phone calls without a warrant. But a man recording police is being tried for a 75 year jail sentance for recording police out in the open.

In the same way, when it is the powers that be are stealing information through nefarious methods, it is just business as usual. When you do it to them, they call their friends - who arrest you.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[owenferguson]

Please mod parent up for exceptional use of the word "cromulent."

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[demonlapin]

Wait, so you're telling me that one party's nominee is a weak candidate who will probably win because his opponent will be even weaker? Where have I heard that before?

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

This post's score has been duly embiggened.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[rohan972]

Hang on a minute, Stratfor sell their illegally gained information. It's a business. Anonymous et al are giving it away for FREE!!! PIRATES!!! TERRORISTS!!! VANDALS!!!

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[TheLink]

Sure, just like the way the government can't easily conduct certain forms of surveillance because that would run afoul of the 4th Amendment... but they can contract that out, purchasing the same information from companies conducting the same surveillance, and that's perfectly cromulent.

Of course, because big governments are bad.

That's why many very clever US people would rather have a small government, and let the corporations and individuals be more free to do what they want.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a judge threw it out. But Illinois is appealing. I can't find any further info.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[GameboyRMH]

See also the case of Assange vs. Zuckerberg.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Rich0]

I wouldn't really call Obama a weak candidate - disagree or not he certainly had a lot of zeal behind him. Most of the Republican zeal in that election was more about don't-elect-Obama than anything else - when even your opponents define their platform on your positions, you know you have a fairly strong candidate.

What really seemed week was the "analysis" in that email chain. It looked like some email chain that might get bounced around my family.

Re:CEO down, comments on your favorite politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

George Friedman has not resigned, as he states in a video today on stratfor.com. The resignation email is forged, which is too bad because now we can't be sure if any email in the database is authentic.

mod 38own

[Anonymous Coward]

Assholes, as they Sho0ts To the contributed code

Non-US leaks

[Anonymous Coward]

Any? This is getting mundane

Re:Non-US leaks

[dbIII]

There are a lot - wikileaks won an award about their ones from Kenya for example. It's just that US media is of course interested in the US stuff.

Re:Non-US leaks

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Wikileaks simply stole somebody else's report, reformatted it, and published it on their website as their own work.

Wikileaks won an award from Amnesty, for that.

The guys who actually did the hard work? Well, they got murdered.

Oh, my, the irony of this!

[PatPending]

Source: lines 33 & 35 (with added emphasis):

Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused "gravy train" that sprung up after WikiLeaks' Afghanistan disclosures:

"[Is it] possible for us to get some of that 'leak-focused' gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale, so that's a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don't, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet... Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of 'leak-focused' network security that focuses on preventing one's own employees from leaking sensitive information... In fact, I'm not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution."

Union Carbide

[flyingfsck]

The Bhopal disaster was caused by Union Carbide. It had nothing to do with Dow. I don't like Dow either, but blaming them for that is ridiculous.

Re:Union Carbide

[punit_r]

And, Union Carbide is a wholly owned subsidy of .......... ?

The company acquiring Union Carbide has also acquired all the liabilities along with the assets. Dow has pretty much everything to do with Union Carbide and the Bhopal disaster. If Dow did not want the "baggage" that came along with the Union Carbide purchase, they should have stayed away from it.

Re:Union Carbide

[rrohbeck]

Dow acquired Union Carbide so they acquired the responsibilities too.

Re:Union Carbide

[Seraphim1982]

The company acquiring Union Carbide has also acquired all the liabilities along with the assets. Dow has pretty much everything to do with Union Carbide and the Bhopal disaster. If Dow did not want the "baggage" that came along with the Union Carbide purchase, they should have stayed away from it.

How exactly did Dow have "pretty much everything to do with[...] the Bhopal disaster" when the the closest they come is owning the company that at one point in the past owned the company that owned the plant? The Bhopal plant was run by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), and UCIL was sold to an Indian company back in the early 90's. About 7 years later Dow came along and bought Union Carbide. So not only is there a few layers of ownership in between, there is also a gap of several years. Why doesn't Eveready Industries India Ltd (the company that UCIL turned into) get the "baggage" associated with Bhopal?

Re:Union Carbide

[Jafafa Hots]

Corporate responsibility?

What are you, some kind of commie?

Re:Union Carbide

[TheLink]

Poor image and brand management? ;)

Re:Union Carbide

[Anonymous Coward]

So where do you imagine the people involved went? They just disappeared?

Re:Union Carbide

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

So where do you imagine the people involved went? They just disappeared?
As someone who worked at Dow acquired company, they were probably found to be redundant and let go.

Re:Union Carbide

[punit_r]

How exactly did Dow have "pretty much everything to do with[...] the Bhopal disaster" when the the closest they come is owning the company that at one point in the past owned the company that owned the plant? The Bhopal plant was run by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), and UCIL was sold to an Indian company back in the early 90's. About 7 years later Dow came along and bought Union Carbide. So not only is there a few layers of ownership in between, there is also a gap of several years. Why doesn't Eveready Industries India Ltd (the company that UCIL turned into) get the "baggage" associated with Bhopal?

So, Dow just bought the assets in the 50.5% buy from Union Carbide India Ltd. and all the remaining liabilities were renamed to Eveready Industried India Ltd?

Sure, EIIL also has to share the liabilities. But, Dow and UCC (the previous owners of UCIL) cant wash their hands off by saying that "we used to own that company at some point of time and now we dont."

A truck analogy. I jointly own a truck with my friend. While we both are travelling in a drunk state, we run over a bunch of pedestrians. After the accident, I sell off my part of ownership of the truck to someone else and leave the country. I start working for a different transportation company as their truck driver. The new company in the other country claims that the truck using which the murder happened has been re-painted and ownership of that truck lies with someone else. I claim that I no longer own the truck and hence I am no longer responsible for the death of pedestrians. Is that fair?

Re:Union Carbide

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very simple actually.

Slashdot is populated mostly by young, arrogant and ignorant assholes. Their favorite thing is to blame people for things and whine about stuff.

I'd wager that most of them weren't even alive when Bhopal happened and any information they have on it they got from some decrepit, hippie "professor" who spends his weekend hugging trees and crying for the old growth forests.

They ridicule people as Birthers while at the same time maintaining a mini 9/11 Truther alter in their mother's basement. They speak of how highly educated they are and at the same time whine about how they can't get a job to pay off their $100,000 college loans they incurred while getting their advanced degrees in useless disciplines. And oh, BTW, they think the tax payers should be forced to pay off their loans...why? I guess because these morons think they are so smart. They voted for Obama, chanting Yes We Can and talking about post racial America at the same time deride Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas as "Oreo". They have drawers full of Che Guevara T-Shirts.

Yeah...Slashdotters...the most closed minded and ignorant people ever to proclaim themselves open mined and educated.

Re:Union Carbide

[Anonymous Coward]

Because "Eveready Industries India Ltd" doesn't have the huge piles of money, clout, and fame that Dow does.

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[bussdriver]

DOW didn't buy on a whim, many people spent a lot of time in the process of buying the corp. Simply selling a corporation does not allow it to escape justice; despite them usually escaping justice anyway. DOW bought Union Carbide knowing the issues and expecting to never have to factor that cost other than maybe a few PR statements and lawyers considered minor baggage in the acquisition.

It has everything to do with DOW; because Union Carbide still exists within a bigger corporation - simply because the name changed and some people shuffled around does not make them disappear, it means the new name becomes the one we rail against.

The thing I don't get

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing I don't get, and haven't gotten since the beginning is... how the hell do we (or does anyone for that matter,) know ANYTHING coming out of Wikileaks is accurate, true, or even real? They could just be making it all up. For example... I am leaking the following confidential White House Memo: (How can anyone know for sure this isn't real? You can't. Just as there's no way to know the ones leaked by Wikileaks are real.)

From: President of the US
To: Secretary of Defense
Subject: UFO Cover-Up

I have been informed by the Secretary of the Air Force that ANOTHER UFO has landed at Area 52. Pursuant to Executive Order 1972-0812-3b, para. 4, all extraterrestrial aircraft are to land at Area 51. This information must be disseminated to all incoming ETA's, UFO's, etc., to ensure no further incidents of the kind that happened April 5th occur again.

If this kind of thing recurs, the cost to taxpayers incurred by covering up out-of-zone landings will exacerbate the budget deficit. With reelection right around the corner, that cannot be allowed to happen.

Please see that this is taken care of.

~The President.

See? Looks real enough, doesn't it?

Re:The thing I don't get

[AHuxley]

You have people in the press that can look at dates, public info and then ask ex workers, historians if the info looks right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries
If the layout, date, departments and names don't fit, you have problems.
You can get vey detailed about one message or just look at the massive amount and ask...
Where is country x,y,x, why does it seem filtered, pre packaged... if a EU members spy agency is really so upset - why no real action?
You then have cases where a gov goes on raids or just pulls back to let it flow out as not to upset larger PR operations.

Re:The thing I don't get

[msheekhah]

you know when the U.S. Government tries to charge you under the Espionage Act, that's how.

Re:The thing I don't get

[ThatsMyNick]

The US Govt hates wikileaks, but has never questioned the so called facts published by it. Which could mean they are either working with the US Govt, or that, they really havent published anything can be proved to be false. I personally go for the second possibility. You seem to a patriotic american and an apologist for the US Govt, I dont you would like either of the possibilities. Though I really doubt, if you go for the first.

Re:The thing I don't get

[RazorSharp]

See? Looks real enough, doesn't it?

No.

Re:The thing I don't get

[Solandri]

There's a third possibility which is actually the most likely. They're just taking the same approach to the Wikileaks releases as they do to all classified data releases - neither confirm nor deny. Once a secret is out, all you have left is uncertainty as to whether or not it was a real secret. Confirming or denying it eliminates that uncertainty. So standard U.S. policy is to do neither. (Yes the confirmation or denial could be a lie, but there's really no need to lie about it if simply not commenting accomplishes the same thing.)

This policy was reinforced after the end of the Cold War. A bunch of CIA spooks and KGB spooks got together and shared notes. The CIA commented how easy it must've been for the KGB, since they could travel freely around the U.S. and information was readily available, traded, and leaked. The KGB said on the contrary, the openness was the best protection the U.S. had. Getting information on U.S. government and military activity was easy, but there was so much information coming out, much of it contradictory, that it was often impossible to tell just how credible a specific piece of information was.

Re:The thing I don't get

[toriver]

Well, the "proof" for the Iraqi WMDs that poor Colin Powell was forced to present to the U.N. sure were well-crafted so they are probably very apt at forging stuff themselves... maybe ask them?

Re:The thing I don't get

[dbIII]

That entire thing was part of the stupid "let's get the French" bullshit at the time with the silly "freedom fries". There was already a pile of yellowcake sitting in Iraq with no equipment to turn it into anything so Saddam didn't need any more. Pretending that a French company in Niger was selling stuff from an abandoned mine to Iraq was a silly little PR stunt so not much effort was put into the forgery.

Act like a bear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your child will be disappointed to learn bears don't wear overalls or hold tea parties.

NO it doesnt

[Anonymous Coward]

the real documents wikileaks has and people see them and there are ways to tell a presidential MEMO or order form what you just posted....THIS is why people authenticate them which takes time then posts them....I am sure if your really really want to pay wikileaks they will let you have a copy from the originals ....
AND Note that at least in part it is being said in these docs and after the release that Anonymous may or may not have had something to do with said leaks.

Fuck you, Timothy,

[Anonymous Coward]

and your insane conspiracy theories.

Go back to stormfront and stop posting your trash on slashdot.

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Dow bought Union Carbide's assets. That's like saying that if you bought a car from someone that they used to run over an old lady, somehow you're now responsible for her murder. It just doesn't work that way.

Further than that, the government had already released Union Carbide from liability, so it's really perplexing that anybody thinks Dow should have any responsibility in this situation.

who cares?

[Osgeld]

nothing will change, nothing has changed, its a 30 second flash in headlines, and a 10 second clip on one Simpsons episode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDEu0-1TW-c) once the suits in the tv room get a clue.

Its a simple fact, no one cares, or no one cares to understand ... so big fucking what? nothing has changed a single bit.

Re:who cares?

[gox]

Populations might not seem to care. People that have considerable investment power care. In effect it alters the course, even if you won't know how. That's why principles matter.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just like the leaked cables ended the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Oh wait, they didn't.

This is all that's going to happen as a result of the Stratfor release -- people groaning about it on websites like Slashdot and Reddit, maybe the odd article in the mainstream media, that's about all. "People that have considerable investment power" will just buy their way out of trouble like they always have, principles don't matter to them. Plain and simple.

Re:who cares?

[GameboyRMH]

The leaked cables certainly did play a role in ending the Iraq war.

Re:who cares?

[gox]

You clearly misunderstood what I meant by investment, power, principle and not knowing something.

Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[NicknamesAreStupid]

I am about to show my age, but once upon a time, news organizations were amongst the premier intelligence gathering organizations on Earth. No shit. Reporters could discover sources that foreign agents could never approach, keep secrets, and even upend a Presidency. Think of that. Now, they are just parts of conglomerates' entertainment divisions. So, what happened to the really good investigative journalists, who could dig diamonds from piles of crap? Well, some of them are at Stratfor.

Re:Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[KagakuNinja]

No, that is the rose-tinted version of the past. The reality of Watergate was that the FBI was at war with the White House; Deep Throat (Mark Felt) himself was up to his eyeballs in corruption, having overseen COINTELPRO, and later convicted for it. Deep Throat was funneling information to Woodward and Bernstein for selfish political purposes.

Supposed hard-nosed "investigative journalist" Woodward now makes his living as a conduit for White House insiders who want to get their white-washed version of history into his hagiographic "behind the scenes" books. He is a total tool of the American political elite.

Re:Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[dbIII]

Really? Since it's a place with around twenty employees in total you could easily list all of those "really good investigative journalists" at Stratfor in a comment here. Please do so. Then compare that to the list of investigative journalists at a major newspaper and the awards that they have won. Where's their Robert Fisk (whether you think he's biased for daring to write things criticising Israel or not) or anyone remotely similar?
If they are bylines that we know then why not list them instead of just hinting at some haven for supermen in what appears to be a clipping agency?

Re:Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[TubeSteak]

So, what happened to the really good investigative journalists, who could dig diamonds from piles of crap? Well, some of them are at Stratfor.

Investigative journalism is alive and well.
The problem is with the parent companies hushing things up because the government says two magic words: National Security

Almost every major scandal of the Bush & Obama administrations has been followed up with:
"[News Agency] sat on the story for X year(s) at the request of the government"

And this isn't limited to stories that touch on national issues; it happens at every level of media.
Your local paper is just as likely to keep silent as the NY Times on everything from corruption to sex scandals to corporate malfeasance.

Re:Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with all of this except the "after the internet" bit. In the UK, the rot started in the 80's. After Rupert Murdoch saw vastly increased profits following his battle with the print unions (who were resisting the move to electronic publishing), he realised that similar savings could be made on the journalism side.

Massive cuts in the journalism budget lead to even more ginormous profits through the mid-90's. When the web came along, the newspapers were already just rehashing press releases and wire stories. Once the public had a choice between crap for free and crap for coin, the newspapers couldn't compete.

The web didn't kill quality newspapers. The proprietors did.

Re:Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[mcgrew]

No, as a fellow geezer I must say that the GP is correct. Back then they didn't have stories about some two-bit actor's drug problems runnning two weeks straight or having "who won 'dancing with the stars last night'" type nonsense. On Oscar night they might have mentioned who won a few on the news the next morning instead of having the entire "Good Morning America" so-called "news" show entirely fixated on Oscar and only Oscar as they did this morning. The news divisions have been completely co-opted by the entertainment divisions.

Re:Where Journalists Went After the Internet

[lennier]

And this isn't limited to stories that touch on national issues; it happens at every level of media.

Yes, and this voluntary censorship of stories "not in the national interest" goes back at least to the early Cold War years, that golden age of common purpose against a common enemy which a previous poster longed for. It wasn't really a secret - Mockingbird was one of the forms in which it surfaced, British Security Coordination was another, and I'm sure there were others. If you've looked at the old Superman stories, it's interesting how quickly Supes turned on a dime from fighting corrupt defense contractors trying to drag the USA into a European war in 1938, to actively promoting that same war in the 40s. One can see why George Orwell became so cynical about Eurasia/Eastasia when so many "we have always been at war with Russia^WGermany^WRussia" alignment flips in the US-UK axis happened within ten years.

Completely voluntary self-censorship of multiple publishers due to mass patriotic fervour is one explanation. Coordinated propaganda action by intelligence agencies is another. The truth is probably somewhere between the two.

Embargoed?

[PiMuNu]

Ironically the wikileaks press release was embargoed...

Oblig.

[Dripdry]

What's a Strat 'fer?

Re:Oblig.

[Tastecicles]

it's fer killer chords.

Goatse

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how the wikileaks logo for the project looks like goatse and it was cleverly abbreviated as "GI Files" (Gastrointestinal), someone's getting it in the ass over this.

No, you are wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to go back and re-read some of this information, as you've obviously missed a lot.

There are documents describing plans for insider trading. There are tons of references to how they collect and pay for their info, which are shady at best and criminal at worst.

Stratfor claims to be "just a newsletter site that does some intel analysis", but these emails make it very clear that they also do intel COLLECTION, which is a completely different ball-game and far more likely to reveal illegal dealings. There's even more than that.

Basically, they're a vertical integration of the private intel world. They solicit clients for analyis reports, data collection and action plans. They themselves are directly involved with the data collection and marketing it to potential buyers.

So they're actually covert intelligence operatives that will sell to anyone with enough money but have access to a lot of classified US material that claim to be "just intelligence analysts."

FTFY.

Re:No, you are wrong.

[khallow]

This would be more profound, if intel analysts didn't do intel collection as a routine part of their job. Wikileaks, to use a prominent example mentioned in the story, does much the same thing from the other end. They're intel collectors, but do a modest amount of analysis purportedly to reduce certain sorts of harm from information exposure. Obviously, there are substantial differences between the two organizations, but my point is that the mere fact of intel collection occurring doesn't strike alarm in me.

What's significant about this intel collection by Stratfor?

Interesting names cropping up there...

[Tastecicles]

...considering this company, at first glance at TFS, seems to be primarily concerned with passing information of a secure and sensitive nature between not only State agencies of different countries but also defence contractors which themselves are concerned also with collecting and dispersing such information for whatever purposes; I'm concerned that it is dealing with the company which had the dubious honour of processing in and storing the UK census data from 2011. This is considered live information and as far as I'm concerned, what with the nature of the questions* contained in that census (I was a refuser for the following reason), that information in the wrong hands (ie ANY agency or individual working under the flag of a different nation - ANY DIFFERENT NATION!) is a persistent threat to national security, and whoever authorised such an arrangement should hang by their bollocks. If Lockheed Martin are involved with such a company, how much of the UK census data have they passed through this company to other companies or agencies, or how much of that data that this company has been entrusted with has found its way to eg DHS? I for one am very concerned.

*ie, what's the occupation of every adult of working age in the household, what's their earning power, how many hours do they work, how often individuals travel abroad, where they travel to...

Pragmatic Advice for IT Security

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting to one side the virtues or vices of making this particular information public, there are some practical lessons for IT security bods over at the 360 Security blog, at the very least dont get fired when your company leaks!

http://360is.blogspot.com/2011/02/wikileaks-lessons-for-uk-information.html

AG

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[epine]

That's like saying that if you bought a car from someone that they used to run over an old lady, somehow you're now responsible for her murder. It just doesn't work that way.

Stephen King cultivated a loyal readership among people who suspect that it doesn't actually not work that way.

Zyklon B is still in production in the Czech Republic in the factory Draslovka Kolin a.s. in the city of Kolin, under the tradename Uragan D2, and is sold for the purpose of eradicating insects and small animals.

If DOW continues to operate dangerous assets in the same way they were run under the previous administration, the purchase is nothing more than a name change.

the glassmaker's apocalypse

[epine]

In a world where governments are beholden to corporations with no loyalties, they are as likely to be working against you as they are for you.

You've smuggled self-fulfilling prophecy into the equation in ten words or less. Nicely done. I see the eye in the pyramid behind your vision of corporate unity.

In the modern world, the "beholden to" social graph is a complex beast. Where the selectorate is large, the sensible strategy is to produce public goods. Where the selectorate is small, the sensible strategy is to line the pockets of your favorite cronies. Almost every player in an industrial society is tugged upon at both ends. Even where the selectorate is small, often the beholdee faces incompatible demands. Corporaphobes suspect that all corporations are perfectly aligned in their pursuit of evil. This beats thinking. Look at it from the other side. Revolutionaries all want exactly the same thing: to break away and be crowned the next king. When you translate from relative pronouns to absolute pronouns, these turn out not to be blissfully compatible visions. As Tolkien explained: Stalin does not share. Yet in your world, Krupp and IG Farben hatch no petty rivalries.

Thus almost everyone adopts a mixed strategy and acts with restraint, even if they wish it otherwise, though they might seize on a main chance if one presents itself. Conversely, from time to time an alignment of interests occurs where the public good gains the upper hand. Almost universally, the wealthiest countries produce the most public good. This is no accident, but a natural political process.

Only in the hagiography is the restraint of circumstance translated into purity of the heart. A little more difficult to pull off in a world where secrets roam free.

In the year after the downing of flight 007 I attended a evangelic Baptist church with a religious friend one Sunday morning. In addition to demanding an eye for a eye, there was an interesting sideline, a statistic about the vast increase in the number of known diseases as proof that the apocalypse was upon us. In truth, the number of known diseases was expanding at a tremendous pace due to improvements in diagnostic acumen.

Without a microscope at hand, many conditions reduce to "bad air". I hardly think the world is more corrupt than it ever was, we're just a hell of a lot better now at perceiving the tangled tapestry.

Re:the glassmaker's apocalypse

[ToadProphet]

You've smuggled self-fulfilling prophecy into the equation in ten words or less. Nicely done. I see the eye in the pyramid behind your vision of corporate unity.

And you've failed to consider the context of the comment. Nicely done. It's one of the challenge of open discussions like this - my comments were intentionally simplified since the OP clearly has a binary view of the world and dealing in more abstract notions wouldn't achieve much.

Corporations are simply the easiest of the competing power structures to point to. In fairness, there's a vast number of supranational, supra-governmental, non-governmental and private institutions and even individuals wielding power, many of which operate only superficially within national boundaries.

I hardly think the world is more corrupt than it ever was, we're just a hell of a lot better now at perceiving the tangled tapestry.

You've overly simplified it with the slippery term 'corruption'. Corruption is only one element in the power struggle, and entities can easily work against other entities or individuals without being corrupt. It's also a highly subject subjective term outside of the legal definitions and is often difficult to qualify in international relations. So the term is largely meaningless in a political and legal context when discussing the actions of entities unchecked by any such relativistic ideals.

That's one of the reasons it's important to discard the notion of 'smoking gun' with regards to Wikileaks. It's more relevant to determine if, on the whole, our representatives are working for us or for some other entity, especially when the two are in conflict.

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[biodata]

This is wrong. A corporation is not a car, it is a person. If you buy a corporation you buy its assets and you buy its liabilities. If Dow didn't buy the liabilities, who owns them now?

Not ignoring them. Creating them.

[Anonymous Coward]

That then ensures that the democracy they have are "the right democracies". Note how Iraq now has a religious state and the women have far fewer rights (as have people not of the right religion) than under Saddam.

i didn't know that Goldman Sachs bought a board

[decora]

i didn't know that Goldman Sachs bought a board membership and that it basically saved stratfor from going out of business.

i didn't know that GS was trading on information from stratfor. it creates all kinds of possibilities for GS to manipulate markets even more than it already does. it would be like if GS had someone sitting on the New York Times board or the Bloomberg board. it doesn't look very good to have people who make billions of dollars off of news reports actively having an influencing over the editorial decisions of that publishing body. but thats exactly what GS has here with stratfor and 'stratcap'.

now, add on top that Stratfor is allegedly bribing people for information, or using threats and intimidation, or 'pscyhological, sexual control' of sources to get information. you basically have Goldman Sachs directly involved in this stuff, its just all kinds of weird stuff.

Goldman has a history of inserting itself into relationships with other companies, and then doing weird things that are hugely conflicted. A perfect example being the Paulson hedge fund and the ABACUS junk mortgage CDOs they did in the mid 2000s. Then there is what they did on Nymex - being on the board, and being a huge trader at the same time, manipulating the oil market (see The Asylum by Leah McGrath Goodman).

Re:i didn't know that Goldman Sachs bought a board

[Anonymous Coward]

Goldman has a history of inserting itself into relationships with other companies, and then doing weird things that are hugely conflicted. A perfect example being the Paulson hedge fund and the ABACUS junk mortgage CDOs they did in the mid 2000s. Then there is what they did on Nymex - being on the board, and being a huge trader at the same time, manipulating the oil market (see The Asylum by Leah McGrath Goodman).

That might be, I don't know... Because they're fucking criminals?

http://bearfactsspecialistreport.com/

Re:i didn't know that Goldman Sachs bought a board

[Anonymous Coward]

So...Goldman Sachs bought something, and abused it...so we should blame the victims? How does that work?

disagree on how journalism works.

[decora]

"How do journalists get sources or info? Right, either you pay them, or they volunteer for the promise of future payoffs."

actually a lot of journalists get info by asking questions of people who, for various reasons, want the truth to be out there. or, at least, their side of the story to be out there in the public. sometimes sources find the journalists, not the other way around. paying sources is generally frowned upon by the professional journalism industry.

im not saying you are wrong, but not every journalist is like drew pearson.

so he is not guilty under the Espionage Act then?

[decora]

because, the Espionage Act specifically uses the phrase "National Defense Information", which means that the information has to be pretty damned seriously related to the military, not a bunch of 'rumor collections from various countries'.

i mean, if what he gave out was pointless information, then he can't be guilty under that law.

epistemology

[decora]

its a good question and one that we have been struggling with since the dawn of human civilization. how do we know we are all not imaginary, or in a dream, or someone elses dream, or a computer like the Matrix?

but we do have a tool, 'science', which is based on evidence, and coming up with theories to fit the evidence. To badly paraphrase Carl Sagn in Cosmos --- science is not a perfect tool, but its the best one we have.

Re:epistemology

[lennier]

its a good question and one that we have been struggling with since the dawn of human civilization. how do we know we are all not imaginary, or in a dream, or someone elses dream, or a computer like the Matrix?/quote>

If the simulation is sufficiently detailed and keeps running long enough, does it matter?

How does anyone digest 5 million emails?

[cvtan]

Any clue how anyone would deal with 5 million documents? How could anyone read them to draw some conclusion about evildoing? The infamous Wikileaks pile from the US govt. was "only" 300000 or so.

Re:How does anyone digest 5 million emails?

[Anonymous Coward]

(My first Anonymous post. I hate having to do this.)

If it wouldn't get me fired for misusing resources, I would pull them into one of the many tools that we use for reviewing emails and other electronic discovery data. For this case I would probably use Relativity. Once the documents were ingested, I would run a tool like Content Analyst (http://contentanalyst.com/) against the data set. Content Analyst will bundle the emails into groups based on the content and context of the discussions. It is a pretty amazing tool for finding patterns and relationships in large, unstructured data sets.

For what is worth, 5 million emails is nothing in the context of electronic discovery and large scale litigation.

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody. The company died off and Dow picked at its corpse.

If you don't understand this, you know nothing about corporate law.

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[PPH]

The company died off and Dow picked at its corpse.

Citation needed.

For a company to 'die off' and be released of its accumulated liabilities, it would have to declare bankruptcy and be relieved of those obligations in court. When did UCC declare bankruptcy?

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[khallow]

If DOW continues to operate dangerous assets in the same way they were run under the previous administration, the purchase is nothing more than a name change.

You haven't established that DOW was doing so or that there was a problem with the way those assets were being run then or now. Union Carbide ran its developed world assets much differently than the plant in India. And DOW would have wanted to make sure it wasn't walking into another Bhopal accident.

Out of curiosity...

[JoeRobe]

I haven't read the leaks, but if they do prove that Stratfor had done or is doing something illegal, would the U.S. government take legal action? Given the fact that the government has been so anti-wikileaks, would it be wise for them to use wikileaks as a source to prosecute people in Stratfor?

On a related note, what if the information wikileaks had released was obtained completely illegally? I'm not saying that's the case here, but hypothetically speaking, if information was obtained by illegal hacking or trespassing, would the government be able to take any legal action against the company?

Re:Out of curiosity...

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends. Since the police and government didn't ask or having anything to do with Wikileaks obtaining the information, it could very well still be admissible in court, even if Wikileaks did break the law.

That's probably irrelevant, however, because even if it wasn't admissible, the police/government could still use it as basis for beginning their own investigations and gathering their own evidence. Most cases won't risk using evidence that might not be admissible when they can just go get their own that will be admissible.

Re:Union Carbide== DOW

[mcgrew]

This is wrong. A corporation is not a car, it is a person. If you buy a corporation...

Isn't buying persons called "slavery"?

Bayesian classification

[Colin Smith]

Or better.

Tag them evil or not evil.
 

The "leaders" have always been the enemy.

[Colin Smith]

All that changes is their methods of delivering their propaganda.

obligatory logic

[Anonymous Coward]

They are making money. That means that they are beyond reproach.

Stratfor Building?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the Chase building? 22 story office building that has everything from real estate to lawyers and restaurants in it?

Isn't that like saying the Perfumania building rather than the Empire State building?

You've missed what they are there to do

[dbIII]

What they do is there in the name FFS. If you've got something to leak you send it to them. Of course they didn't do the original information gathering in Kenya, I know it, Amnesty International know it, and I'm sure you know it but just want to stir up trouble with an emotive distraction.

Goatse???

[dalias]

Am I the first one to notice they chose the goatse man as their mascot for this release? WTF is with that? Are they trying to hurt their credibility even more, or get "street cred" with the skript kiddie crowd? Please...