- Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n
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The whistle blowing news organization WikiLeaks made waves once more this week as it began releasing selections from 5 million internal emails leaked from the global security think tank Stratfor. The emails are believed to have been passed on to Wikileaks by the hacker group Anonymous which was known to have broken into Stratfor’s servers in December. <\/p>\nStratfor is a small Texas-based company that sells itself as \u201ca subscription-based provider of geopolitical analysis.\u201d Its subscribers include Chevron, Dow Chemical, Hunt Oil, Henry Kissinger, Dan Quayle and branches of the U.S. military. The company refuses to answer questions about the emails and what they reveal. As before, WikiLeaks will publish the emails in small batches but has given 25 news outlets unlimited access to the entire trove of 5 million emails. <\/p>\n
One of the most explosives emails so far involves Wikileaks’ Founder Julian Assange who is the subject of an email attributed to a former State Department counter-terrorism official who claimed that, \u201cwe have a sealed grand jury indictment\u201d against Assange. Assange has not been formally charged in the US for his role involving past exposes of classified government documents. <\/p>\n
Another email released this week potentially upsetting international relations suggests that up to 12 Pakistani military officials were aware of Osama Bin Laden\u2019s presence in their country before the US Special Forces raid last year. Pakistani officials have denied that any officers had foreknowledge of Bin Laden\u2019s presence. Spokesman Athar Abbas called the allegations \u201cnonsense and not credible.\u201d The Christian Science Monitor reports, \u201cbecause Stratfor itself did not publish the data, [Pakistani officials] may have not deemed the intelligence report authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The emails published by Wikileaks also reveal that Stratfor, which Assange describes as a \u201cshadow CIA”, is in the business of monitoring journalists and activist groups, including the Occupy Wall Street movement. The emails also reveal that Stratfor was hired by Dow Chemical, to monitor activists working for justice for the victims of the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India that killed more than ten thousand people. Dow acquired Union Carbide in 2001 and has yet to properly compensate victims and their families. <\/p>\n
GUEST: Pratap Chatterjee, columnist for the Guardian, former Executive Director of Corpwatch<\/em><\/p>\n
Read Pratap Chatterjee’s article about Stratfor here: http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/view\/2012\/02\/28-10<\/a><\/p>\n