WikiLeaks begins publishing emails from intelligence firm with B.R. ties

WikiLeaks says it has begun to expose email correspondence from global geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor—which got its start in Baton Rouge—detailing the work of the company for its clients. The New York Times reports WikiLeaks has not disclosed how it obtained the emails, but Stratfor acknowledged in December that its data servers were breached by a group of hackers known as Anonymous. The loose-knit group publicly supports WikiLeaks. Anonymous posted online the names, emails and credit card numbers of thousands of Stratfor subscribers. Now the contents of the emails are being exposed: five million pieces of correspondence in all, spanning seven years, WikiLeaks says. In 1997, a small company that would eventually grow into Stratfor—called Strategic Intelligence LLC—left Baton Rouge and LSU, where its founder George Friedman had been a professor. A 1999 profile in Texas Monthly said the company “couldn’t thrive” in Baton Rouge, and that’s why Friedman took it to Austin, where it blossomed into a global powerhouse. Stratfor says in a statement that some of the emails being published “may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic.” To read the full story on the emails being published, click here. (Registration required.)