In an email from Dec 6 last year, Mr Friedman advised an analyst called Reva
Bhalla on how to deal with an Israeli intelligence informant providing
information on the medical condition of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan
president.
“You have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or
psychological control,” he wrote.
Among Stratfor’s major corporate subscribers, whose identity was previously
confidential, are Coca Cola, which was concerned about animal-rights
supporters disrupting the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
“To what extent will US-based PETA supporters travel to Canada to support
activism?” a Coca-Cola manager asked an analyst in a 2009 email.
The firm was also hired by Dow Chemical to spy on activists seeking redress
for the 1984 gas leak at its plant in Bhopal in India that killed 15,000
people and sparked a long-running legal battle.
One of the first emails released revealed that Stratfor bosses believed that
mid and senior level officials in Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence
agency were in regular contact with Osama bin Laden and were aware of his
Abbottabad compound.
In a statement, the company said that some emails had been stolen, but
suggested some placed on the internet by WikiLeaks may have been forged.
“We will not validate either. Nor will we explain the thinking that went
into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimised twice
by submitting to questioning about them,” the statement said.
Mr Assange labelled the company as a “private intelligence Enron”,
in reference to the energy giant that collapsed after a false accounting
scandal.
The Australian founder of WikiLeaks is appealing to the Supreme Court against
an extradition order to Sweden from Britain for questioning on sexual
harassment judges.
Meanwhile Spain arrested four suspected hackers on Tuesday associated with
Anonymous, accusing them of defacing websites and releasing personal data
about police officers and bodyguards protecting Spain’s royal family and the
prime minister.
The arrests in Madrid and Malaga were part of an international operation that
identified 10 more suspects in Argentina, six in Chile and five in Colombia,
Spain’s interior ministry said in a statement.
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