General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIs Total Information Awareness making executives and analysts rich?
One intriguing question comes to mind when reading that the NSA is "worried" over what information Edward Snowden might have in his possession and might release to foreign governments. If the NSA's private contractor Booz Allen has such poor control over who accesses what information and when, how are Americans to know if the executives and other workers like Snowden are not using this information to enrich themselves. Is it a wild west show at Booz Allen where a 75K a year analyst can listen in on insider communication on Wall Street and invest accordingly?
In short, what controls are there over this vast information collection operation? Is it now true that the Carlyle Group has as much power as the NSA to use these tools to enrich and protect itself from any and all comers? Would that not now make them the most powerful company on Earth?
Cheers?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)By Ryan Villarreal: Subscribe to Ryan's RSS feed
IBTimes.com
February 27, 2012 6:26 PM EST
WikiLeaks released more than 5 million e-mails Monday hacked from U.S.-based global intelligence firm Strategy Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), revealing an alleged plan between the firm's CEO and a Goldman Sachs executive to set up an investment fund that would rely on inside information gathered by the company.
A September 2011 company-wide e-mail composed by Stratfor CEO George Friedman indicates that Goldman Sachs financial adviser and former Managing Director Shea Morenz was directly involved in the establishment of the investment fund StratCap.
"Shea Morenz provided us with two opportunities," wrote Friedman.
"First, he made an investment in Stratfor designed to give us the capital needed to build our staff and our marketing. Second, he proposed a new venture, StratCap, which would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue -- an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea."
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http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/305532/20120227/wikileaks-stratfor-stratcap-goldman-sachs-fund-julian.htm