On Feb. 27, 2012, WikiLeaks began releasing emails from Stratfor, a private intelligence firm based in Texas, that indicate the company was monitoring the legal activities of political groups around the world. The emails reveal a pattern of conduct that is designed to intimidate and harass activists, thus effectively denying the rights to free speech and peaceful protest. This is the second release of previously confidential material exposed by Wikileaks. In September 2011, a searchable archive of over 250,000 unredacted U.S. State Department cables became available on the internet.
The range of subjects covered in the emails is extensive. They include reports of Osama bin Laden’s corpse being taken to Bethesda, Md to Stratfor employees applauding the Wikileaks exposure of State Department cables.
But the activities described in the emails also reveal a troubling trend in contemporary law enforcement and intelligence gathering circles- the expansive surveillance and tracking of political activists and groups for expressing their constitutionally protected rights. Clients like Coca-Cola and Dow Chemicals paid Strafor as much as $8000 per report to have them monitor and collect information about the legal activities of political activists.
The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011, and reveal the inner workings of a company that provides proprietary intelligence services to government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, and private corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.
Examples of Statfor’s targeting of activists exposed by Wikileaks include: