121–130 of 193 posts
It's a weird feeling reading other people's email. I'm sad to see Wikileaks didn't at least do a quick regex pass to remove the credit cards (yup, found some) and the personal love notes. I'm generally a supporter of Wikileaks, but mass dumps like this aren't responsible and only give more ammunition to their detractors.
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On the ground human intelligence is power. And Barron's called Stratfor "the shadow CIA". I have limited experience in this but I've seen some egregious things with current intelligence employees and private contractors. I think you are underestimating outside ways these guys could profit and/or use their intelligence collection news company to encourage those profits.
Since intelligence is just a fancy word for news, I guess that means every journalist needs to be at the sharp end of the same mob justice
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It's just business. Conflict is extremely profitable. Unfortunately, 164 people is a drop in a bucket in an ocean.
That's not true! People who died in these five star hotels and their conference rooms were top notch entrepreneurs, executives AND ordinary people of India [1]. So 164 people who died is not just a drop in the ocean as you would like to believe here. [1] http://www.indianexpress.com/news/yes-bank-chairman-ashok-ka...
Oh, this is so classy: https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=8402 Quote: Oh, they have enough weapons. Now the serious game begins as Reva pointed out. The investigation of the attack is not interesting. I suspect the findings have already been reached before the first investigator got to work. Now the question is how India responds. God willing, the Indian response will make us a lot of money. This after…
This makes me sick to the stomach. I was in India when the Mumbai carnage took place. My classmate from IIT was killed the same day at the very same spot [1]. And here we have this class of a bitch thinking of making a "lot of money" off a probable war ['caged match' look at the audacity!]. No wonder they say karma is broken all over the place. On another story these same corrupt assholes have abused their power to s…
Sure, it's pretty crappy, tasteless behavior, but lets not go overboard here.
I'm a supporter of the idea of WikiLeaks, if not all of their decisions ... now here's what bugs me: why is it rare (or never) that we see mass dumps of Russian, Chinese, or Pakistani intelligence information? What, there's no corruption, profiteering, or otherwise bad vibes over there? The US has a monopoly on all that? Why does it always have to hurt US intelligence activities (yes: some deserve to be hurt, but jus…
whaaa? https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=10828
It's a weird feeling reading other people's email. I'm sad to see Wikileaks didn't at least do a quick regex pass to remove the credit cards (yup, found some) and the personal love notes. I'm generally a supporter of Wikileaks, but mass dumps like this aren't responsible and only give more ammunition to their detractors.
most of those cards should have expired by now I guess.
Stratefor supports the GWOT and thus supports the defense industry. They may have acted like amateurs but they were actively training people to turn intelligence sources both in the US and overseas and then trading this information with whoever they wanted. You'd think some of their activities would violate federal law.
I've known a fair number of intelligence employees and contractors. In one strange area of aerospace, I witnessed some unbelievable things. Some things involving fraud. A lot with ego and bravado, using their connections for business deals and other favors. In one instance, I reported these activities to an investigator at the ODNI.
My experience with this is limited but from what I've seen, these types of individuals can do what they want with little concern of scrutiny. They're on "our" side after all.
This is an old e-mail from Stratfor's CEO. However, I can't see how anyone could defend them as being a "news organization" after reading it. This is from George Friedman to Reva Bhalla (a young attractive woman) regarding an alleged Israeli intelligence source:
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"If this is a source you suspect may have value, you have to take control od him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control to the point where he would reveal his sourcing and be tasked. This is difficult to do when you are known to be affiliated with an intelligence organization.
The decision on approach would not come from you but from your handler. This is because you're position is too close to the source and your judgment by definition suspect. Each meeting would be planned between you and your handler and each meeting would have a specific goal not built around discussing the topic of interest which would ideally be hidden but in analyzing him personally and moving toward control.
The justification for the op would be specific classes of information and on gaining control the first step would be determining his access. If he failed the test contact would be terminated.
the problem of analysts in the field is that they tend to want to discuss the topic, which raises the targets awareness, rather than focus on establishing the control relationship.
So from a professional point of view this target knows your affiliation, understands your interests and you have not established any control which is defined as a high confidence in his obedience.
So washington is filled with gossip with people whose access is not established.
Just laying this out so you understand the core challenge. To be effective your goal is the person and not the subject. Otherwise its gossip which is information that you cannot definitively confirm.
This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase."
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These kinds of people need to be in prison, not the people exposing what they're doing.
What do you mean by "these kinds of people"? Greedy people? People who say things that are tasteless and mean? I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that. Please enlighten me re: the law they've broken, otherwise I hope you can see the inherent irony in your statement... edit: I'm not being ornery, I'm really actually curious what people think they should go to prison for. Tastelessness != criminality.
>I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that.
You're right, there is no law against it, yet.
There also didn't used to be laws against a ton of morally wrong things, but at some point, enough people thought it was wrong and a law was made.
We should be looking to make the world a better place, not saying "there's no law against that, they can do it". The status quo needs improvement.
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What do you mean by "these kinds of people"? Greedy people? People who say things that are tasteless and mean? I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that. Please enlighten me re: the law they've broken, otherwise I hope you can see the inherent irony in your statement... edit: I'm not being ornery, I'm really actually curious what people think they should go to prison for. Tastelessness != criminality.
Profiting from the deaths of others is morally wrong, and it should be illegal. Judging by the number of up votes my parent comment has, there are lots of people that agree. > I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that. You're right, there is no law against it, yet . There also didn't used to be laws against a ton of morally wrong things, but at some point, enough people thought it was wrong and a law was mad…