Wikileaks claims – and it's important to note up-front that it's not verified – that it has emails from Stratfor showing "privileged information about the US government's attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor's own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks," among other less-than-savory practices:
Early Monday morning (GMT), Wikileaks started publishing the first of "more than five million emails" from Strafor . The company, a "subscription-based provider of geopolitical analysis" by its own description, is (according to Wikileaks) also a provider of "confidential intelligence services" to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and several governmental agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world. The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men", for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.
So far, Wikileaks has only released 167 files. Some of the documents released already include what is supposedly a forwarded email from Fred Burton about "The Dems & Dirty Tricks" following the last presidential election, dated November 7th, 2008. The email, which wouldn't win any awards for political correctness, claims "the black Dems were caught stuffing the ballot boxes in Philly and Ohio as reported the night of the election and Sen. McCain chose not to fight" and goes on to speculate about "sleezy Russian money [funneled] into O-mans coffers. A smoking gun has already been found."
Wikileaks also claims that the emails show that Stratfor was using its intelligence to "start up a captive strategic investment fund" of "questionable legality."
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." The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach's Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4 million and joined Stratfor's board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff: "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012.
The email in question is titled "Labor Day Review of Where We Are."
Other emails released show monitoring of The Yes Men for Dow Chemical, among other monitoring of Bhopal activists.
There's a lot to dig through already, and there is meant to be a lot more to follow. The group says that it is working with more than 25 media organizations to make the body of documents public. "The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents."
Given that Wikileaks has released fewer than 200 documents out of what it says is more than 5 million, we'll be covering a lot more in the near future.
Julian Assange, el creador de WikiLeaks, en CIJ Summer School. 

La organización mediática WikiLeaks comenzó hoy la publicación de cinco millones de correos electrónicos de la red de espionaje STRATFOR. Los correos datan de entre julio de 2004 y finales de diciembre de 2011, y revelan el funcionamiento interno de la organización. STRATFOR ofrece servicios confidenciales de inteligencia a empresas como Dow Chemical Company, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon y a agencias gubernamentales de los Estados Unidos, tales como el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, el Cuerpo de Marines y la Agencia de Inteligencia de la Defensa.

“Tienes control sobre él. Control significa significa control financiero, sexual o psicológico ... Con ello se pretende iniciar nuestra conversación sobre tu siguiente fase”, dijo George Friedman, director ejecutivo de STRATFOR, a un informante sobre cómo explotar una información de inteligencia israelí sobre la salud de Hugo Chávez, el Presidente de Venezuela, según se reveló en uno de los correos filtrados.

El material contiene más de cuatro mil correos que tratan sobre los ataques del gobierno de los Estados Unidos contra Julian Assange, el creador de WikiLeaks, y los propios intentos de STRATFOR para subvertir a WikiLeaks. Estos correos también muestran cómo STRATFOR ha reclutado a una red mundial de informantes, incluyendo empleados públicos, personal de embajadas y periodistas de todo el mundo.



Las filtraciones revelan que STRATFOR es una empresa que cultiva relaciones estrechas con las agencias gubernamentales de los Estados Unidos y que emplea a ex funcionarios de ese gobierno. Fred Burton, el vicepresidente de Inteligencia de STRATFOR, era antes un agente especial del Servicio de Seguridad Diplomática de los Estados Unidos y que fue su jefe adjunto de la División de Contraterrorismo. A pesar de los lazos gubernamentales, STRATFOR funciona en absoluto secreto, sin control político ni rendición de cuentas.



WikiLeaks ha creado una asociación de investigación con más de 25 organizaciones de medios y activistas para informar al público acerca de estos documentos, conformada, entre otras, por ''Al Akhbar'' (Líbano), ''Al-masry Al-youm'' (Egipto), ''Bivol'' (Bulgaria), CIPER (Chile), ''Dawn Media Group'' (Pakistán), ''L'Espresso'' y ''La Repubblica'' (Italia), ''La Jornada'' (México), ''La Nación'' (Costa Rica), ''Malaysia Today'' (Malasia), ''The McClatchy Company'' y ''Rolling Stone'' (Estados Unidos), ''Nawaat'' (Túnez), NRD/ARD (Alemania), ''Owni'' (Francia), ''Página/12'' (Argentina), ''Plaza Pública'' (Guatemala), ''Público'' (España), ''Russia Reporter'' (Rusia), ''Ta Nea'' (Grecia), ''Taraf'' (Turquía), ''The Hindu'' y ''The Yes Men'' (India), y ''The New Zealand Herald'' (Nueva Zelanda).

La asociación tuvo acceso a una sofisticada base de datos de investigación desarrollada por WikiLeaks y en conjunto con WikiLeaks está llevando a cabo las evaluaciones periodísticas de estos correos electrónicos. Las revelaciones importantes descubiertas por este sistema aparecerán en los medios de comunicación en las próximas semanas, junto con la publicación gradual de los documentos originales.

=== Declaración de STRATFOR ===
A continuación se muestra la declaración de STRATFOR sobre la publicación de estos correos:



Las computadoras de STRATFOR fueron haqueadas al menos dos veces en diciembre, y en Internet se publicó los detalles de más de 30 mil suscriptores de las publicaciones de STRATFOR, incluyendo los del ex secretario de estado de los Estados Unidos Henry Kissinger y del ex vicepresidente Dan Quayle.

=== Situación actual de Julian Assange ===
Assange se encuentra actualmente en Reino Unido luchando contra su extradición a Suecia donde es buscado para ser interrogado sobre unas acusaciones de violación y agresión sexual. WikiLeaks ha expresado desde hace mucho su preocupación de que si es enviado a Suecia, ese gobierno rápidamente le enviaría a los Estados Unidos, donde se le busca por la publicación de cientos de miles de archivos diplomáticos clasificados de ese gobierno.