Know your BFEE: WikiLeaks Stratfor Dump Exposes Continued Secret Government Warmongering

[Octafish]

6. This information makes live tours of an 19th-century sausage factory seem fit for pre-schoolers.

New WikiLeaks stash: a frightening view of government intelligence

By Rachel Marsden
March 1, 2012

As promised in December, WikiLeaks has begun to release a stash of documents related to the modus operandi of the "private intelligence" sector, using Texas-based Stratfor as a case study. Claiming to have hacked Stratfor's system to obtain millions of private emails, WikiLeaks has just released the first batch -- and what it suggests about the American intelligence community makes me feel as secure as day-old pizza in a frat house.

SNIP...

Apparently the entities charged with keeping us safe now require full-blown lessons from the private sector in how to do their jobs. According to leaked email written by Stratfor's CEO, George Friedman: "We have also been asked to help the United States Marine Corps and other government intelligence organizations to teach them how Stratfor does what it does, and train them in becoming government Stratfors. We are beginning this project by preparing a three-year forecast for the Commandant of the Corps. This is a double honor for us."

Double honor for you; double horror for us! The fact that the commandant of the Marine Corps "and other government intelligence organizations" might require your expertise in learning how to do what they've historically been entrusted by the public to do does nothing for my sense of security.

Do you know how a lot of these outfits in the thriving private intelligence sector operate? The company CEO, usually a former agency employee who has maintained UMBRA or "Top Secret" clearance, meets with a private or state client to pitch his outfit's services, then passes off the analysis work to some book-smart/sidewalk-stupid naif who has just been dragged kicking and screaming into the real-world workforce after frittering away a good decade or so ringing up a party tour of Ivy League schools on mommy and daddy's AmEx black card. Kids work cheap -- especially trust-funders. With few exceptions, that's who's really doing the work in protecting America's interests.

CONTINUED...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-new-wikileaks-stash-a-frightening-view-of-government-intelligence-20120229,0,68318.story

Hey, jannyk! Remember the character Joe Pesci played in The Good Shepherd?