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"It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. " And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is som

"It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. " And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't.

danilocampos 15y ago
> And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't. Oh, thanks so much, jonhendry! I really appreciate your filling me in. Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened. The fact remains, the sort of person who is emailing high-level folk at Stratfor either knows things or wants to know things of geopolitical importance. A source with a compelling piece of data the public doesn't know about, perhaps. Or a business tycoon with a question that, knowing it was asked, completely invalidates the public narrative that company had spun. So if your mission is to get access to data about how people are running the world, a great place to start is a private global intelligence firm. No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing. Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."
- jonhendry 15y ago
  "Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened." If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved? The book apparently contradicts everything the neocons stood for. Cheney would probably prefer that Stratfor were shut down, so that he could control the flow of information. "No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing." Really? People are tossing around the word 'evil', but they should be allowed to keep doing it? "Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."" Ah, so you've gone from justifying it by saying they're evil and up to no good, to justifying it by saying they merely have interesting, secret shit to talk about. Lots of people have interesting, secret shit to talk about. So basically it's really just a voyeuristic thing for you and the moralizing is a pose.
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    > If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved? Nothing. Good luck finding anything where I say "Dick Cheney is involved with the operations of Stratfor." > Ah, so you've gone from justifying it by saying they're evil and up to no good, to justifying it by saying they merely have interesting, secret shit to talk about. When I say interesting in the context of "how people are running the world," I mean interesting as in "lied to the public about an issue of global importance." > So basically it's really just a voyeuristic thing for you and the moralizing is a pose. Nope. I doubt I'm going to read any of what's leaked. It's just my fervent hope that one of these days a leak can begin to remedy the sorts of injustice that only the well-moneyed and well-connected can perpetrate with impunity. Any entity that needs Stratfor's analysis of global events and decisions seems like a reasonable candidate to deliver an important payload in such a leak.
    - jonhendry 15y ago
      " I mean interesting as in "lied to the public about an issue of global importance."" It's so secret multiple HN readers have said they subscribed. It's so exclusive that anyone can subscribe for a yearly price that is cheaper than cable TV, let alone secret publications like "Science" or "Nature". You really seem to have the wrong end of the stick here, as in not-clear-on-the-concept of how Stratfor worked. If you want to know if someone has "lied to the public about an issue of global importance", and think Stratfor holds the answer, you would subscribe to Stratfor and compare what Stratfor reported to what the public figure claimed. You've bought into some kind of radical left fantasy of what Stratfor does, turning it into the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderbergers. "Any entity that needs Stratfor's analysis of global events and decisions seems like a reasonable candidate to deliver an important payload in such a leak." See above about the Bilderbergers. Say you're a company doing business with Turkey. Not a huge business, but you've got a lot riding on stability in Turkey. Maybe you import rugs. Maybe you do package tours of Istanbul. Maybe you have a team of developers there. Where do you go for good analysis of the situation there, given the history of military takeovers and whatnot? The newspapers only cover it occasionally, probably too late to do you much good. MSNBC won't cover it at all on a weekend. FOX News would be all "OMG, Turkish Muslims! Threat or Menace?" and be useless. Turkish media might cover it, but not provide good analysis, and you don't know if the coverage is biased there, or if so, how. So where do you turn? You could read the Economist, but that might not be good enough. Maybe you could buy some reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit, or Jane's. Or you could subscribe to Stratfor, which is probably cheaper.

danilocampos 15y ago

> And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't. Oh, thanks so much, jonhendry! I really appreciate your filling me in. Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened. The fact remains, the sort of person who is emailing high-level folk at Stratfor either knows things or wants to know things of geopolitical importance. A source with a compelling piece of data the public doesn't know about, perhaps. Or a business tycoon with a question that, knowing it was asked, completely invalidates the public narrative that company had spun. So if your mission is to get access to data about how people are running the world, a great place to start is a private global intelligence firm. No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing. Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."

jonhendry 15y ago
"Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened." If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved? The book apparently contradicts everything the neocons stood for. Cheney would probably prefer that Stratfor were shut down, so that he could control the flow of information. "No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing." Really? People are tossing around the word 'evil', but they should be allowed to keep doing it? "Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."" Ah, so you've gone from justifying it by saying they're evil and up to no good, to justifying it by saying they merely have interesting, secret shit to talk about. Lots of people have interesting, secret shit to talk about. So basically it's really just a voyeuristic thing for you and the moralizing is a pose.
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved? Nothing. Good luck finding anything where I say "Dick Cheney is involved with the operations of Stratfor." > Ah, so you've gone from justifying it by saying they're evil and up to no good, to justifying it by saying they merely have interesting, secret shit to talk about. When I say interesting in the context of "how people are running the world," I mean interesting as in "lied to the public about an issue of global importance." > So basically it's really just a voyeuristic thing for you and the moralizing is a pose. Nope. I doubt I'm going to read any of what's leaked. It's just my fervent hope that one of these days a leak can begin to remedy the sorts of injustice that only the well-moneyed and well-connected can perpetrate with impunity. Any entity that needs Stratfor's analysis of global events and decisions seems like a reasonable candidate to deliver an important payload in such a leak.
  - jonhendry 15y ago
    " I mean interesting as in "lied to the public about an issue of global importance."" It's so secret multiple HN readers have said they subscribed. It's so exclusive that anyone can subscribe for a yearly price that is cheaper than cable TV, let alone secret publications like "Science" or "Nature". You really seem to have the wrong end of the stick here, as in not-clear-on-the-concept of how Stratfor worked. If you want to know if someone has "lied to the public about an issue of global importance", and think Stratfor holds the answer, you would subscribe to Stratfor and compare what Stratfor reported to what the public figure claimed. You've bought into some kind of radical left fantasy of what Stratfor does, turning it into the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderbergers. "Any entity that needs Stratfor's analysis of global events and decisions seems like a reasonable candidate to deliver an important payload in such a leak." See above about the Bilderbergers. Say you're a company doing business with Turkey. Not a huge business, but you've got a lot riding on stability in Turkey. Maybe you import rugs. Maybe you do package tours of Istanbul. Maybe you have a team of developers there. Where do you go for good analysis of the situation there, given the history of military takeovers and whatnot? The newspapers only cover it occasionally, probably too late to do you much good. MSNBC won't cover it at all on a weekend. FOX News would be all "OMG, Turkish Muslims! Threat or Menace?" and be useless. Turkish media might cover it, but not provide good analysis, and you don't know if the coverage is biased there, or if so, how. So where do you turn? You could read the Economist, but that might not be good enough. Maybe you could buy some reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit, or Jane's. Or you could subscribe to Stratfor, which is probably cheaper.