On February 27, 2012, WikiLeaks begins publishing what it titles "The Global Intelligence Files" -- 5,543,061 emails stolen from private intelligence firm Stratfor by hacktivist Jeremy Hammond, working with Anonymous, in December 2011. The emails, spanning from July 2004 through December 2011, provide an unprecedented window into the inner workings of a private intelligence company, revealing surveillance of activist groups, paid informant networks, close relationships with government intelligence agencies, and corporate espionage operations conducted for major multinational corporations.
The leaked emails reveal that Stratfor, which publicly presents itself as a geopolitical analysis publisher, simultaneously provides confidential intelligence services to corporations including Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, as well as government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marines, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The dual identity -- public-facing publisher and private intelligence contractor -- exemplifies how private intelligence firms obscure the scope of their actual operations.
Among the most significant revelations: Dow Chemical hired Stratfor to monitor activists seeking compensation for victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, including surveillance of the Yes Men activist group. Coca-Cola engaged Stratfor to track protest plans by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Stratfor monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement and other protest groups. WikiLeaks also obtained Stratfor's list of informants and records of payoffs, including $1,200 monthly payments to a source codenamed "Geronimo" handled by Fred Burton, Stratfor's vice president for counterterrorism and a former State Department Diplomatic Security Service agent.
The emails also reveal Stratfor's internal culture, with employees discussing intelligence operations using the same tradecraft language and operational security practices as government agencies -- source compartmentalization, intelligence tasking, and collection management. Burton's emails frequently reference his government intelligence contacts and describe Stratfor's work in terms indistinguishable from government intelligence operations.
The Stratfor leak is a landmark in the intelligence privatization story because it provides documentary evidence of what critics had long alleged: that private intelligence firms conduct surveillance of lawful activist groups on behalf of corporate clients, maintain paid informant networks, coordinate closely with government intelligence agencies, and operate with virtually no oversight or accountability. Unlike government agencies, which are at least theoretically subject to congressional oversight, FOIA requests, and inspector general investigations, Stratfor's operations were accountable only to its corporate clients -- and might never have been exposed without the hack.
Jeremy Hammond was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for the hack. Stratfor continued operating but never fully recovered its reputation. George Friedman resigned as CEO in 2015 and founded Geopolitical Futures. The leaked emails remain publicly accessible through WikiLeaks as a permanent archive documenting the private intelligence industry's operations during a critical period of its growth.