Post date: Feb 27, 2012 5:23:35 PM
LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (FEBRUARY 27, 2012) (REUTERS) - The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing on Monday (February 27) more than five million emails from a U.S.-based global security analysis company that has been likened to a shadow CIA.
Julian Assange announces WikiLeaks' publication of more than five million emails from an American global intelligence company, likened to a shadow CIA.
The emails, snatched by hackers, could unmask sensitive sources and throw light on the murky world of intelligence-gathering by the company known as Stratfor, which counts Fortune 500 companies among its subscribers.
WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, announced the haul during a news conference in London.
"Today, WikiLeaks begins its release of 5,000 emails documenting the private lives, the private lies of private spies," he said.
Stratfor in a statement said the release of its stolen emails was an attempt to silence and intimidate it.
It said some of the emails being published "may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic," the company statement said.
WikiLeaks did not say how it had acquired access to the vast haul of internal and external correspondence of the Texas company.
Hackers linked to the loosely organized Anonymous hackers group said at the beginning of the year they had stolen the email correspondence of some 100 of the firm's employees. The group said it planned to publish the data so the public would know the "truth" about Stratfor operations.
Stratfor describes itself as a subscription-based publisher of geopolitical analysis with an intelligence-based approach to gathering information.
WikiLeaks and Anonymous maintain the emails will expose dark secrets about the company.
In December, hackers broke into Stratfor's data systems and stole a large number of company emails.
Assange said Stratfor had been collecting information on activist groups, including the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), anti-Dow Chemical campaigners fighting for victims of the Bhopal disaster and on WikiLeaks itself.
Assange said it was alarming that the private intelligence firm, relying on paid-for informants or foreign intelligence agencies, some with questionable reputations, is being used to target activists.
"This is an organisation that does not just collect information, collecting information through bribes through insiders, it is also an organisation that acts on that information, to subvert particular groups, including WikiLeaks," Assange said.
It was not immediately clear what impact the release of the emails might have on Stratfor, its employees, clients and information sources.
Australian-born Assange, 40, is currently under house arrest in Britain and fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes.