Private intelligence firm Stratfor ... sells what clients and subscribers consider some of the best geopolitical analysis that money can buy. Now the Texas-based think tank is the latest target of WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange, who says his anti-secrecy group has more than 5 million of Stratfor's emails and is promising to release damaging material in the coming weeks. The first, small batch published [on February 27] revealed clients that Stratfor has long safeguarded and refused to disclose. They range from local universities to megacorporations like Coca-Cola. An initial examination of the emails turned up a mix of the innocuous and the embarrassing. But Assange has accused Stratfor of serious deeds, such as funneling money to informants through offshore tax havens, monitoring activist groups on behalf of big corporations and making investments based on its secret intelligence. What we have discovered is a company that is a private intelligence Enron," Assange told London's Frontline Club, referring to the Texas energy giant whose spectacular bankruptcy turned it into a byword for corporate malfeasance. In December, Stratfor founder George Friedman gave advice on handling sources to one of his analysts gathering information on the health of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. "If this is a source you suspect may have value, you have to take control (of) him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control to the point where he would reveal his sourcing and be tasked," the email read.
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