Wikileaks Release Suggests Stratfor Inside Info Plan with Goldman Sachs Exec
Here's what really bugs the Powerful: when the Little People discover how the Powerful use their office and privilege for personal benefit, including lying American into wars without end for profits without cease. Hence, their hatred for Wikileaks and journalists.
Wikileaks Release Suggests Stratfor Inside Info Plan with Goldman Sachs Exec
By Ryan Villarreal: Subscribe to Ryan's RSS feed
IBTimes.com
February 27, 2012 6:26 PM EST
WikiLeaks released more than 5 million e-mails Monday hacked from U.S.-based global intelligence firm Strategy Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), revealing an alleged plan between the firm's CEO and a Goldman Sachs executive to set up an investment fund that would rely on inside information gathered by the company.
A September 2011 company-wide e-mail composed by Stratfor CEO George Friedman indicates that Goldman Sachs financial adviser and former Managing Director Shea Morenz was directly involved in the establishment of the investment fund StratCap.
"Shea Morenz provided us with two opportunities," wrote Friedman.
"First, he made an investment in Stratfor designed to give us the capital needed to build our staff and our marketing. Second, he proposed a new venture, StratCap, which would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue -- an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea."
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http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/305532/20120227/wikileaks-stratfor-stratcap-goldman-sachs-fund-julian.htm
These so-and-sos would get away with all this, were it not for a few brave souls.
WikiLeaks' Stratfor Dump Lifts Lid on Intelligence-Industrial Complex
WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering
by Pratap Chatterjee
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by The Guardian/UK
What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.
The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.
SNIP...
Assange notes that Stratfor is also seeking to profit directly from this information by partnering in an apparent hedge-fund venture with Shea Morenz, a former Goldman Sachs managing director. He points to an August 2011 document, marked "DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS", from Stratfor CEO George Friedman, which says:
"What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like."
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-10?print
How much more real can it get than members of the secret team using inside information for personal gain?
WikiLeaks Goes Inside Corporate America's Wannabe CIA
What do Coke, Goldman, the Marines, and the Knights of Columbus have in common? They all paid Stratfor to act as their own private intelligence agency.
—By Adam Weinstein | Mother Jones, Mon Feb. 27, 2012 1:42 PM PST
EXCERPT...
Few companies seemed as concerned about threats from activists as Archer Daniels Midland, the "Goliath of world food production" Mother Jones once described as equally concerned with "possible price-fixing in Bulgaria" and "influence-peddling in Washington." Shortly after Stratfor started its Global Vantage service, Rich Ryan of ADM's "investigative unit" began to hit them up for intel on political enemies:
• On July 24, 2006: "Rich called to ask a few more questions about activist campaigns to pass to other business divisions. Watching for more information."
• Two days later: "Talked with Rich several times about activist campaign against the company."
• On November 9, 2006: "Received email from Rich regarding some animal rights protesters. Setting up a meeting while he and Mark are in DC next week."
• Five days later: "Rich came into the office for a brief discussion about animal rights as it relates to their new facilty in Decatur. He seems very happy with the service, and happy with our information and assistance."
CONTINUED...
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/wikileaks-strafor-leak-corporate-intelligence
How about OWNING the system whereby the government gathers "intelligence"?
Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group
Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American; June 13, 2013
According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.
For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”
And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.
Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: " got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience." (Emphasis added.)
For instance, James Clapper had a stint at BAH before becoming the current Director of National Intelligence; George Little consulted with BAH before taking a position at the Central Intelligence Agency; John McConnell, now vice chairman at BAH, was director of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the ‘90s before moving up to director of national intelligence in 2007; Todd Park began his career with BAH and now serves as the country's chief technology officer; James Woolsey, currently a senior vice president at BAH, served in the past as director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and so on.
BAH has had more than a little problem with self-dealing and conflicts of interest over the years. For instance in 2006 the European Commission asked the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Privacy International (PI) to investigate BAH’s involvement with President George Bush’s SWIFT surveillance program, which was viewed by that administration as “just another tool” in its so-called “War on Terror.” The only problem is that it was illegal, as it violated U.S., Belgian, and European privacy laws. BAH was right in the middle of it. According to the ACLU/PI report,
Though Booz Allen’s role is to verify that the access to the SWIFT data is not abused, its relationship with the U.S. Government calls its objectivity significantly into question. (Emphasis added.)
Among Booz Allen’s senior consulting staff are several former members of the intelligence community, including a former Director of the CIA and a former director of the NSA.
As noted by Barry Steinhardt, an ACLU director, “It’s bad enough that the administration is trying to hold out a private company as a substitute for genuine checks and balances on its surveillance activities. But of all companies to perform audits on a secret surveillance program, it would be difficult to find one less objective and more intertwined with the U.S. government security establishment.” (Emphasis added.)
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http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group
Wikileaks and the associated leakers and journalists brave enough to "go there" are proof-positive that "money trumps peace" for government insiders and their rich cronies and political sponsors. It's no wonder so much is classified Top Secret.
= new reply since forum marked as read
As usual, I find many of your posts to e very informative... even though what I read in them makes me feel ill... because what I read confirms what I was suspecting all along.
As I was reading this and a few posts in DU recently along with what I saw in the few seconds of the Senate activity last night, I came to the conclusion that not only do we "little people" - a phrase coined by Denny Hastert - need to stop making purchases, we also need to invent - it seems - a new language or code to keep these oligarchs from being able to interpret so that when they do spy on us, they can't figure out what we're saying. And/or create a new system of communication so we can all be connected outside of the corporate network.
Don't know how to do that but it's becoming evident, to me at least, that such measures will become necessary and soon.
It's almost an ENIGMA, what the rich and powerful say. It's to hide what they do.
Case in point: One Neil Mallon Pierce Bush, son of then-president George Herbert Walker Bush and caught with his hand in a billion-dollar S&L cookie jar called Silverado Savings & Loan. Here's what Poppy did for his Number 3 Son:
How the Elite Talk in Code
EXCERPT...
A perfect example of code talk comes from a true master insider, George H.W. Bush, when his son, Neil, was caught red handed in the middle of the S&L crisis as a director of Sliverado Bank.
Did Bush lay out his cards and call in his operatives and say pull some strings, get my son out of this investigation (Remember Bush was president at the time.) No. Bush is too smooth. In his published collection of letters, All The Best, George Bush, he shows us how the heat is delicately taken off Neil. On page 449, there is this letter to Thomas Ludlow Ashley.
Ashley is a Yale University grad, and member of the secret society Skull and Bones along with Bush. Here's the letter:
The Honorable Thomas Ludlow Ashley
Association of Bank Holding Companies
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Lud,
Thank you for your good memo December 8th.
I would appreciate any help you can give Neil. He tells me he never had any insider dealings. He got off the Board early--long before I was elected President. The Denver paper apparently ran a very nice editorial about him on that. He is an outside director, and thus I guess has liability, but I can't believe his name would appear in the paper if it was Jones not Bush. In any event, I know that the guy is totally honest. I saw him in Denver and I think he is worried about the publicity and the "shame". I tell him not to worry about that but any advice you can give as this matter unfolds would be greatly appreciated by me. If it turns out there has been some marginal call, or he has done something wrong, needless to say there will be no intervention from his dad. But, I'm quite confident this is not true...
Warm regards,
George
Notice how smooth. No talk about getting Ashley anything for taking care of the matter. The nice touch about if Neil "has done something wrong", but the clear finish, he didn't.
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http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/how-elite-talk-in-code.html
When it comes to money and power, it really is a small world. We'd hear it more often, if only we were privy to the conversation.
I just got back from seeing "The Imitation Game." It's a bio-pic of Alan Turing and how he led the team that cracked the ENIGMA code used by the NAZIs. First-rate film, in every way, great story, acting, history, back stories, yada the whole yada. Turing had a hard time when confronted with lies. And that's the only way the spymasters could stay ahead of the codebreaker.
The public discovering the kinds of treason and corruptions these characters are perpetrating frightens the crooks like nothing else. Thanks for grokking, 2naSalit: That's what I recommend for us and all DU -- just the Truth.
a time (just months prior to the exposure of the Silverado thing) when an acquaintance tried to talk my spouse and I into getting involved in a scheme that turned out to be directly involved in the debacle. We were looking for funding for our business, totally unrelated to real estate. This acquaintance, an old school chum of my spouse's, was trying to steer us into some sideways deal involving skyscrapers in Houston. Odd since we were in Chicago at the time,,, but they referred us to some connections "downtown" to see if we could get in on the deal which would, allegedly, help us gain funds for our unrelated business. I'd have to sit down and go into a deep memory cache to recall most of the details but I remember how my spouse and I were thankful we didn't bite the bait when the S&L fecal material hit the fan. We lost our business anyway due to a bad policy that kind of started the ball rolling for the nightmare we live in now but I will never forget how close we came to being involved in that S&L mess... we could easily have become some of the little fish who ended up getting in big trouble.
So where's Niel now? Last I heard he was collecting taxpayer funds by being a secretive lobbyist for some BS that probably has to do with screwing up the entire US public school system or something to that effect... but that was during this brother's regime. I'm sure he's up to something equally as evil and ugly nowadays... and we're probably picking up the tab, as usual.
Never, ever let these bastards back in office, they are dangerous enough outside of it.
I also recommend that some form of fighting back, not necessarily in the streets where they can inflict bodily harm but at their own game. Not sure where to start or how to recruit support but if OWS was able to make them sweat, I can imagine that something more advanced could formulate as well.
One can hope for such change.
Carry on Octafish, your info dumps are great. Even if I don't always comment, I almost always read what you put out here for us to read.
Eye-fucking opening blatant criminality.
