Wikileaks leak more emails.

Today (27/2/2012)

Wikileaks have leaked yet more cables. There are 2 in which are very interesting for various different reasons

The first one is an exchange in which Carl Blidt believes that Sweden should be a world power

He talks about the sphere of Swedish influence being the Baltic regions. Blidt also talks about enlarging the EU to remove the "German-French" strangehold on the EU.

The second is about Chavez's health

The leak goes on about the Russians and Cubans having arguments about the diagnosis of his cancer and blame each other for fucking up. Then it goes on about a post-Chavez VZ and the four countries, Russia, Cuba, China and Iran disagreeing about how that should play out and they all choosing a different man to back. It also goes on about how the VZ private sector is being choked off.

That one is probably the most surprisingly because the power struggle in VZ could destabilise the entire region because the other leftist leaders in Latin America would be worried about the potential for refugees and Cuba would be without oil again which could lead to a revolution

edited 27th Feb '12 6:36:57 AM by whaleofyournightmare

I have no idea about what this Sweden as a world power is about, sounds kinda funny. Much like Canadian M Ps thinking of creating some kind of Canadian empire.

As for the Chavez talk, it looks mostly like analysis though I'm incredibly concerned about the way he is going on about the military elite. I hope US diplomats aren't thinking of backing yet another military dictatorship. From the sounds of it, the successor that Chavez chose is a moderate, is more open to friendlier relations and is backed by Russia/China, so is the most stable and probably a democratically winning choice as well.

Canadian Empire, lol wut.

I could see the US triggering yet another coup. After all, if we bother to depose a President in some insignificant backwater like the Maldives, then Venezuela definitely has no business being democratic.

But the Moderate hates Iran and Cuba which is very bad for Cuba as it loses its only oil friendly nation

Hate? I wouldn't say they hate Cuba, they just don't really care to do anything for free for them. It'll mean Cuba has to offer up something to maintain the oil trade.

Cuba has survived massive oil shortages once before, I think they could do so again. It would be rough, but they'll weather it.

Bonus: If they get cut off, what a wonderful opportunity to open up formal talks with them again. Maybe even work out loosening up trade embargos and get them some aid? I think we've been at odds with Cuba long enough. It's time to thaw relations.

edited 27th Feb '12 11:20:04 AM by pvtnum11

On the cuba thought, with Castro retired and his more pragmatic brother in charge, I'm not really seeing any value in continuing an embargo. The concept was that it would force them to accept capitalism, which has utterly failed, at this point, trading with them will do much more to introduce capitalism to the region than anything else.

So, for Blidt, does this mean the Swedish Empire is coming back?

They're also releasing emails obtained from Stratfor, which is a "global intelligence" company. The emails reveal a surprising amount, including stuff like Wells Fargo laundering money for drug cartels.

http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html

Finally, solid proof of what we've pretty much assumed was true.

God damnit, that really sucks for those guys. They didn't really do anything wrong that I can see, but giving up things like their sources and making their identities more accessible.. That'll be a real blow to their company. Information that they can give or withhold at will is essentially what makes them their daily bread.

I try to think of who would leak all that, since it would set the company into such a setback.. Either the email server got hacked, or an employee did it right before or after being fired.

edited 27th Feb '12 1:34:10 PM by Barkey

@Barkey: I think they were doing stuff that was wrong, considering that they were being employed by companies to spy on our own government.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure industrial espionage and government espionage is very illegal.

Meh, I consider it a grey area.

Long as they aren't hacking anybody I feel it's perfectly legal. Always had second thoughts about going into Police, looking back I wish I'd joined Intel.

Well I'm not likely to sift through the released emails myself, but I think they were doing more than just analysing companies and giving advice.

I've been sifting through everything that's been leaked so far. Most of it is pretty benign. Talk kicked back and forth between members discussing things in different areas. So far the things of note I've read are:

• Hawaiian singer at APEC dinner puts on OWS shirt and sings a Occupy related song in front of Harper, Obama, and the leaders of China and several other asian countries.

• Discussion about the best way to go about snatching up information regarding Osama Bin Ladens death, namely who knew about it within the ISI and the Pakistani Government, as well as a musing about trying to figure out what was up with that helicopter and working out a deal to get access to some of the media that was found in the hideout.

• Some guy from Wal Mart who wanted background information on some upper management candidates.

• The opportunity to fill the void in the CIA after they fired their chief analyst, the possibility of either privatizing the CIA's intelligence procedure via Stratfor or at least taking an even greater role in providing the CIA with information.

• Some idle discussion of Julian Assange and the impact of Wikileaks on the intelligence community, and general banter about business models that involve intelligence security and leakage.

• Discussion of how much or how little potential Twitter and Facebook have for their business as a tool for gathering information on individuals.

• Discussion of software in development by DARPA called "Cinder" which is supposed to be scripted to track suspicious activity that may be an inside attempt at a leak, and then alert the NSA or proper officials about it.(I.E. to prevent another Manning)

• One employee accidentally ate another ones lunch.

Seemed relatively legitimate to me, well, except that last one. Sean Nolan is a dick for eating that dudes lunch.

Those weren't the only things I've read so far, it's just that a lot of it is so benign it isn't worth mentioning because it's things you can find on other news outlets by now.

edited 27th Feb '12 2:20:52 PM by Barkey

And of course Wells Fargo will not get in ANY trouble...

I dont know why Wikileaks bothers. Nothing will come of it. All it will do is make people on the internet go "Grr darn those people in power!" and nothing happens.

^

Seems like a good deal of what Stratfor does as its most confidential level is just find out other peoples dirty laundry, such as the WF thing, and see if they can find anyone willing to pay for the information.

So in otherwords its for corporate warfare and not justice?

No, of course it isn't for justice. If they gave that information away, they wouldn't make any money, which defeats the entire purpose of them trying to find out about other peoples bullshit.

I.E. if they didn't find people willing to pay for that information and they just gave it all away for free, then they wouldn't be an organization because they couldn't pay their employees, contacts, or operational costs. If you want intelligence gathering with a positive moral reason behind it, you need to write letters to the NSA or CIA asking why they don't find this shit out(if they don't know) and why they don't do anything about it or talk about it(if they do know).

I don't know much about their people, but with the way they talk I would assume they are mostly military intel folks who retired or got out. Or feds who retired or got out.

edited 27th Feb '12 2:28:20 PM by Barkey

Awesome. Do they employ Runners as well? I love living in Cyberpunk without the cool parts.

Shoot, I'd work for them in a heartbeat if they said "Hey, you're moving to Belgium. Learn every single goddamn thing about the place and sniff out any scrap of activity for us. Thanks."

They're just people who watch shit. No need for Shadowrun-esque policy there. They aren't the ones with the dirty laundry, they're just the ones holding on to everybody elses.

edited 27th Feb '12 2:33:50 PM by Barkey

Still I'd like to think that the fact Wells Fargo is INVOLVED WITH THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS (Which is a HORRIBLE thing going on right now) should cause some...I dont know...outrage!?

The way that guy talked about the military elite is a very negative sign. Another coup is absolutely not in Latin America's interests.

This is what bothers me about it. If they were sniffing out and airing dirty laundry for the sake of public knowledge it'd be one thing, but it's just for the highest bidder in the same corporate backstabbing that's perpetuating the mess in the first place.

As for Wells Fargo, we kind of already knew that. (if the link messes up, look for a space in the URL to delete)

edited 27th Feb '12 3:30:22 PM by Pykrete

Well if you run your company honestly and don't do backroom dealings with drug cartels, then you don't have to worry about firms like this finding out about it and selling that information.