Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks on Monday started releasing the first group of emails from a bundle of over five million emails from Texas-headquartered security think tank Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting Inc), obtained from its servers.
The emails were linked to Anonymous hacking group, which targeted Stratfor earlier. The group confirmed it was the source of the WikiLeaks release on the Twitter account @AnonymousIRC.
“We promised you those mails and now they’ll finally be delivered. Five million (that’s 5,000,000) emails at your pleasure,” it said. There’s a treasure trove of nasty details in those emails. We think there’s something for everyone.”
Wikileaks said the first batch shows how Stratfor, a private intelligence outfit, works and “how they target individuals for corporate and government clients”.
Wikileaks also revealed Stratfor had given controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, a former ISI head, a complimentary membership. Wikileaks also released 68 files with details of Bhopal activists lobbying against Dow Chemical, and the monitoring of Indian and other media reports on the issue.
“Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists for Dow Chemical,” said Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, now battling to stall extradition to Sweden.
The tracking of activists by Dow Chemicals, according to 70-odd files released by Wikileaks, had details from Internet and media monitoring, with Stratfor sending Dow and Union Carbide lists of media coverage of the 27th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster and the growing pressure on the London Olympics OC to withdraw sponsorship by Dow.