This morning WikiLeaks began publishing 5 million Stratfor emails as the Global Intelligence Files. Death and Taxes perused a few of the emails, and came across several that would be rather amusing if not for the stench of paranoia contained therein.
Death and Taxes is going to dedicate a series to the various absurd and humorous email exchanges amongst Stratfor employees, all for your reading pleasure. Stratfor isn’t necessarily to blame for the laugh-ability index here. It seems that they do what is asked of them by clients—their very paranoid clients. It’s all very Pynchonian and very enlightening.
The first entry is an email exchange regarding Coca-Cola, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, PETA, “anarchists,” and Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Naturally, names and email addresses have been redacted. Death and Taxes isn’t in the business of humiliation.
The thread that connects a sugar-water company and radicals
In June of 2009, a good seven months before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, a few emails were exchanged by Stratfor employees. It seems that the Coca-Cola corporation, a sponsor of the Olympic games, was concerned with radical elements in Vancouver.
Coca-Cola, ever image conscious, sent an email requesting intelligence on the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) threat in the greater Vancouver area. Stratfor obliged. A list of Coca-Cola’s concerns were then forwarded to another Stratfor employee, which reads as folows:
Questions—
– How many PETA supporters are there in Canada?
– How many of these are inclined toward activism?
– To what extent will US-based PETA supporters travel to Canada to
support activism?
– What is PETA’s methodology for planning and executing activism?
(Understanding this better would certainly help us to recognize
indicators should they appear.)
– To what extent is PETA in Canada linked to PETA in the US or
elsewhere?
– To what extent are the actions of PETA in one country controlled by
an oversight board/governing body?
– To what extent could non-PETA hangers-on (such as anarchists or ALF supporters) get involved in any protest activity?
Judging Coca-Cola’s intentions purely on the questions, it seems as if the corporation were interested in critical mass: too many activists in Canada and Coca-Cola would refuse to sponsor the games. What else could Coca-Cola do with this intelligence aside from initiate its own covert operation to subvert PETA or keep them at home? One might suppose that the soda corporation would look for the activist “methodology,” as they call it, and report it to Vancouver Police.
Also interesting is Coca-Cola’s idiotic question: “How many of these [PETA supporters] are inclined toward activism?” PETA is an activist group—wouldn’t most of its supporters be rather inclined toward activism?
As if this corporate paranoia and idiocy were not enough, Coca-Cola asks Stratfor to gather intelligence on PETA’s interactions with the dread “anarchists” and ALF. If, indeed, Coca-Cola’s concerns were followed-up by Stratfor—and there is no reason to suggest that they were not—it necessarily follows that Coca-Cola asked Stratfor to spy on PETA, “anarchists,” ALF, and any other activists in the region.
At this point, readers might be asking why Coca-Cola would be interested in a PETA presence at the Vancouver Olympics. It’s rather simple: PETA had become a thorn in the side of Coca-Cola on the issue of animal testing. Coca-Cola, along with PepsiCo, had funded research into taste pathways by cutting open chimpanzees and lab rats. The testing was defended as essential for health research.
In 2007, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo both announced that they would cease funding research on lab animals to develop their products. Why would Coca-Cola still be concerned about PETA two years later? Perhaps they didn’t, in fact, quit funding research on lab animals.
Whatever the case, this is hardly grounds for Coca-Cola to initiate espionage against the free speech and assembly of American and Canadian citizens.
EDIT: As pointed out by a reader, the Stratfor email refers to ALF, not ELF, as supposed by the author. He is an idiot apparently. Edits were made where needed.
February 28, 2012 at 2:03 am, Ben Sercombe said:
Haha, you all made a serious blunder. They spelled it ALF because they mean ALF. The Animal Liberation Front, which is a radical sect of animal rights activists who take part in freeing animals and damaging animal testing labs and fur farms. The ELF (Earth Liberation Front) are a radical group of environmental rights activist who try to protect the environment by any means necessary.
Come on DJ, you're willing to spend hours looking into emails but can't look up an acronym?
February 28, 2012 at 2:14 am, Michiel DeRoos said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CCbnpMCdds
February 28, 2012 at 2:02 pm, The Stratfor Files: How a Goldman Sachs advisor invested in espionage | Death and Taxes said:
[...] 1 min agoYesterday, we took a look at WikiLeaks’ Global Intelligence Files; specifically, Coca-Cola’s request to have Stratfor spy on PETA, “anarchists,” ALF and other Canadian and American [...]
February 29, 2012 at 3:48 am, Larry Cook said:
I guess this is the "real thing".