A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks...

[Indi Guy]

Source: Washington Post



Just one major telecommunications company refused to participate in a legally dubious NSA surveillance program in 2001. A few years later, its CEO was indicted by federal prosecutors. He was convicted, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released this month. Prosecutors claim Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading, and that his prosecution had nothing to do with his refusal to allow spying on his customers without the permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But to this day, Nacchio insists that his prosecution was retaliation for refusing to break the law on the NSA's behalf.

After his release from custody Sept. 20, Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal that he feels "vindicated" by the content of the leaks that show that the agency was collecting American's phone records.

Nacchio was convicted of selling of Qwest stock in early 2001, not long before the company hit financial troubles. However, he claimed in court documents that he was optimistic about the firm's ability to win classified government contracts — something they'd succeeded at in the past. And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract. He reportedly refused because his lawyers believed such an action would be illegal and the NSA wouldn't go through the FISA Court. And then, he says, unrelated government contracts started to disappear.

His narrative matches with the warrantless surveillance program reported by USA Today in 2006 which noted Qwest as the lone holdout from the program, hounded by the agency with hints that their refusal "might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government." But Nacchio was prevented from bringing up any of this defense during his jury trial — the evidence needed to support it was deemed classified and the judge in his case refused his requests to use it. And he still believes his prosecution was retaliatory for refusing the NSA requests for bulk access to customers' phone records. Some other observers share that opinion, and it seems consistent with evidence that has been made public, including some of the redacted court filings unsealed after his conviction...



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/

[Tumbulu]

1. Wow, really sad

And scary.....I am glad that he is out of prison now and feels vindicated. Sounds pretty clear that they did go after him.

[marble falls]

2. While I am impressed by his integrity, I am disapointed no other CEO followed his lead.

[bananas]

4. They were probably blackmailed into it. nt

[msanthrope]

83. He was a 1%er who was found guilty of insider trading. No integrity. nt

[bananas]

3. Of course it was retaliation - they had to make an example of him to scare the others. nt

[villager]

5. Cue the apologist brigade here to explain how he "deserved" jail time...

n/t

[geek tragedy]

7. Because he committed securities fraud. You apparently think 1%ers should get away with

lying, cheating, insider trading, and criminal conduct if they feed you some sob story.

[delrem]

50. Look, fella - James Clapper outright lied to congress.

I'm fine with people defending the accused, whoever they are.
But this is getting pretty far out there - so I wonder what your game is.

[geek tragedy]

54. I'm saying people should go to jail for securities fraud.

Others who are ill-informed apparently disagree.

[GliderGuider]

56. Other opinions are well-enough informed to impugn your motivation on this issue.

Like this one:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=607548

[geek tragedy]

57. Nope, people supporting this fraudster are flat out wrong. nt

[GliderGuider]

58. Provide references, please.

They have. I think somebody here is indeed flat-out wrong, and I don't think it's them.

[geek tragedy]

59. Sure, the jury verdict carries much more weight than Internet

commenters who read an article or two and believe everything a corporate shark like Nacchio says because he uses their NSA bogeyman as an excuse.

[GliderGuider]

63. What about the possibility that it was a wrongful conviction?

People do get railroaded from time to time, don't they? Juries are not god, they only adjudicate the evidence presented. The management of what evidence gets presented and what does not can easily taint a jury's view of the case. The simple fact that a verdict was rendered is not enough to assure us that a miscarriage of justice did not occur - especially in a case like this.

[geek tragedy]

64. People who claim the verdict is bogus have no credibility unless they review the key documentary

evidence and testimony from the trial.

No one here proclaiming his innocence here can even say what false statements he was convicted for.

They see the words "NSA" and automatically assume the government must have done something evil.

[GliderGuider]

68. Have you reviewed the evidence?

If so, how did you obtain it, and are there links to it? And how do you know that important exculpatory evidence wasn't suppressed? That wouldn't show up in the trial records, would it?

I'm not saying he's Not Guilty, but I'm saying that governments have done worse things to better people in the past. I don't trust governments in general to be fully forthcoming about their motivations in highly-profile prosecutions. And before you ask, yes, even Skilling and Lay.

Take Mr. Siegelman, for example.

[geek tragedy]

69. Here's the related SEC complaint for a primer:

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2011/comp21825.pdf

Here's coverage of the prosecution witnesses:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/witnesses-nacchio-aware-qwest-wouldn-t-hit-2001-revenue-goals

Two former top-level Qwest executives testified in the Joe Nacchio insider trading trial on Tuesday, supporting the prosecution's assertion that the company's former CEO knew Qwest was not going to make its 2001 revenue goals.
Nacchio is accused of dumping more than $100 million worth of stock in 2001 based on nonpublic information that the company could be at financial risk and may not meet revenue targets.

Former Qwest CFO Robin Szeliga gave testimony for the second day Tuesday, saying that Nacchio made revenue goals his top priority despite repeated warnings from top executives and mid-level managers that the company might not meet its 2001 financial targets.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/money/nacchio-defense-attorneys-ask-for-mistrial

Prosecutors have lined up several lower-level managers and executives to testify about Nacchio's actions and beliefs when he sold $101 million in stock in 2001.

On Monday morning, former CFO Robin Szeliga took the stand. She testified that Nacchio reiterated the need for the company to hit the five-year growth rate, saying it was "very important" for Qwest to be considered a growth company by Wall Street.

The prosecution presented a DVD in which Nacchio is seen in a meeting with employees, saying, "It's grow or die. We'll grow, die or sell."

Szeliga said that in late 2000, several mid-level managers within the company presented concerns about not hitting the revenue projections for 2001. Szeliga said the managers were concerned budgeted growth could not meet target numbers.

At which point, Szeliga said, Nacchio consistently demanded the company hit those numbers, and even asked a mid-level manager to, "Go back, figure out a way to close the gap and meet the target numbers."

The "gap" refers to the discrepancy between internal target numbers and budgeted growth. In some instances, the "gap" was hundreds of millions of dollars short of the target goals.

Note, btw, that Nacchio's claim that there were secret agreements between him and the government are blatant lies, as such contracts have a lot of documentation and need sign-offs from inside the company by people other than the CEO. The government does not hand out contracts based on telephone conversations with CEOs.

[GliderGuider]

78. I guess there's no point continuing the discussion.

Naccio will stay convicted unless a whistleblower comes forward with new evidence.

[geek tragedy]

81. Let me rephrase: he will remain convicted because he was guilty nt

[GliderGuider]

82. He will remain convicted unless new evidence comes forward.

You believe he's guilty. That's a belief, not a fact. I'm open on the question. Though I suspect that the American government is involved in far shadier dealings, I have no evidence of that in this case.

The conviction will stand unless new evidence warrants a retrial.

[LanternWaste]

65. One wonders if that sentiment is applied consistently, and was given to Ken Lay in 2003.

"What about the possibility that it was a wrongful conviction?"

One wonders if that sentiment is applied consistently, and was given to Ken Lay in 2003; or if (and I find this more likely), our personal biases and prejudices interfere with a consistent application of rational thought...

[GliderGuider]

67. Well, I try to assume that every conviction has a non-0 probability of being wrongful.

History coughs up a lot of examples. For now Naccio's conviction stands, but to refuse to entertain the possibility that there might have been "dark actors playing games" seems to be a little unprogressive.

[Octafish]

70. You don't think the government trumped up a case against Nacchio?

Odd way to see things, considering the circumstances.

From 2010: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/537

Can't go to the OP anymore, but the links to WaPo still work.

[geek tragedy]

72. Qwest was part of the fraud ring with Enron and Global Crossing.

Those guys were crooks, pure and simple.

No I do not think it was trumped up. I know Nacchio was a fraudster.

[Octafish]

73. So, is Don Siegelman a crook in your eyes, too?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022073759

[geek tragedy]

74. Are Bernie Ebbers and Jeff Skilling innocent in yours? nt

[Octafish]

75. No. They're crooks. My point is the government railroads its enemies.

That includes Joseph Nacchio.

Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm

Qwest Feared NSA Plan Was Illegal, Filing Says

By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 13, 2007

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

SNIP...

In a May 25, 2007, order, U.S. District Judge Edward W. Nottingham wrote that Nacchio has asserted that "Qwest entered into two classified contracts valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, without a competitive bidding process and that in 2000 and 2001, he participated in discussion with high-ranking [redacted] representatives concerning the possibility of awarding additional contracts of a similar nature." He wrote, "Those discussions led him to believe that [redacted] would award Qwest contracts valued at amounts that would more than offset the negative warnings he was receiving about Qwest's financial prospects."

The newly released court documents say that, on Feb. 27, 2001, Nacchio and James Payne, then Qwest's senior vice president of government systems, met with NSA officials at Fort Meade, expecting to discuss "Groundbreaker," a project to outsource the NSA's non-mission-critical systems.

The men came out of the meeting "with optimism about the prospect for 2001 revenue from NSA," according to an April 9, 2007, court filing by Nacchio's lawyers that was disclosed this week.

But the filing also claims that Nacchio "refused" to participate in some unidentified program or activity because it was possibly illegal and that the NSA later "expressed disappointment" about Qwest's decision.

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485_pf.html

That's the way secret government operates.

[geek tragedy]

77. There's no reason to think he was targeted any more than Skilling and Lay were.

He was an obvious target after lying, running the company into the ground, and walking away with over $500 million in his own pockets.

[Octafish]

86. So, nothing to say about Nacchio's trial?

Note that the government wanted Qwest's cooperation in February, 2001.

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485_pf.html

Not that you read the article or anything.

[geek tragedy]

87. The trial showed he lied his ass off repeatedly to investors while selling his own

stock, thereby ripping them off in a criminal manner.

He didn't even mention the NSA until 2006. he was referred for prosecution in 2002.

The NSA is an excuse invoked by a slimy plutocrat, nothing more.

[Octafish]

88. You must've missed the part where the Gov refused Nacchio's defense even mentioning NSA...

...during the trial in 2002.

[geek tragedy]

92. His defense was he thought the company would score some government contracts.

Problem was, it was never awarded those government contracts, nor were they even advanced enough to take the form of a written term sheet.

Moreover, those government contracts were not related to his fraudulent statements about recurring vs one time sales.

Sorry, you're falling for a fraudster's lines on this one.

You never go wrong by assuming a plutocrat is lying.

[Octafish]

94. No, I assume traitors would go to any lengths to carry on treason.

Bush lied about 9-11, Iraq and NSA spying.

Nacchio, whatever his faults, is the only telco CEO who opposed Bush.

[geek tragedy]

98. Well, opposing Bush on the NSA in February 2001 doesn't give him a free pass on breaking the law nt

[Indi Guy]

90. I've given you two chances to answer my earlier question, so I'll ask once more...

What penalty is appropriate for a government agency that lies, cheats, defrauds & otherwise breaks the law?

[geek tragedy]

93. For individuals, they should be held accountable under existing criminal and civil laws.

The government can't fine or put itself in prison, obviously.

[Indi Guy]

95. So the government is totally unaccountable for its actions???...

...but any individual can be held liable???

Where is that in our Constitution???

[geek tragedy]

97. Sovereign immunity. A concept older than the United States itself.

People who have been harmed can sue the government, but the government can't punish itself. Similarly, officialsx who commit crimes can be punished, but the government can't throw itself in jail.

[Indi Guy]

9. (right on cue) n/t

[geek tragedy]

11. Knowing the facts makes us informed, not apologists.

The only apologists are those defending a crooked 1%er like Joe Nacchio.

Fact: he is a convicted fraudster.
Fact: he started dumping his stock in Qwest in January 2001, well before hearing from the NSA.

[villager]

13. Can't be part of the brigade, otherwise. "His narrative matches with the warrantless surveillance

"...program reported by USA Today in 2006 which noted Qwest as the lone holdout from the program, hounded by the agency with hints that their refusal "might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government." But Nacchio was prevented from bringing up any of this defense during his jury trial — the evidence needed to support it was deemed classified and the judge in his case refused his requests to use it. And he still believes his prosecution was retaliatory for refusing the NSA requests for bulk access to customers' phone records. Some other observers share that opinion, and it seems consistent with evidence that has been made public, including some of the redacted court filings unsealed after his conviction."

From the article the brigadiers didn't read.

[geek tragedy]

17. His own executives told him his numbers were false. He then went out

and lied to investors.

From the trial:

On the timeline jurors had written on the wall, one date stood out - April 24. It was the day Nacchio had told Wall Street he saw no reason to back away from double- digit growth projections. In the months preceding that day, his executives had warned him repeatedly that those numbers were unrealistic.

"I went in thinking he was innocent," Garduno said. But it was hard to escape the fact that Nacchio knew by the time he spoke in the April earnings call that Qwest was headed for trouble. Still, he sold his stock.

[villager]

19. Nacchio also thought they'd get the same government contracts they'd gotten before. Plus, why *this*

1%er, when none of the others have been prosecuted.

Quite "coincidental," eh?

[geek tragedy]

22. They had evidence of willful fraud on his part.

And, the stuff about those contracts? It probably should have occurred to you that he's lying about those.

[villager]

24. You mean the stuff the judge wouldn't allow brought to trial, so that actual jurors, and not

Geek Tragedy, could actually decide if he was lying?

[geek tragedy]

28. He lied about what the company's sales projections were. Flat out lied.

He then claimed he hoped to get more government contracts. That doesn't,t excuse lying about sales projections.

[sendero]

49. If you knew dick squat about business..

.. you'd know that what this guy did is done by thousands of CEOs every year, and yet only a handful get prosecuted. Keep your head firmly where it is pal.

[geek tragedy]

53. Actually, I'm a plaintiffs class action lawyer.

So I'm gonna say I know better than you on this one

[NCagainstMcCrony]

79. You just made his/her point

Sendero 1 geek tragedy 0

[cosmicone]

27. and they didn't have evidence

against all the crooks at Goldman Sachs? AIG? Washington Mutual? Countrywide? Bear Stearns?

Was Quest the only stock that went down after the CEO sold some shares?

[geek tragedy]

29. The only one that comes close out of those is Countrywide.

And even Mozilo wasn't this blatant.

[villager]

30. Yes, interesting indeed that of all those crooks, he was the only one who warranted prosecution

All coincidence, I'm sure.

[geek tragedy]

35. Except for all the others who got prosecuted at the same time like Skilling, Lay,

Ebbers etc.

[villager]

36. "All" the others. Yeah, just scads of 'em.

n/t

[geek tragedy]

6. He's a crook who's trying to hide behind the NSA story.

He lied, he cheated, he defrauded, he broke the law, he got caught.

[Indi Guy]

8. Are you speaking of the CEO or the NSA?

What's the penalty for government agencies that lie, cheat, defraud & otherwise break the law?

[geek tragedy]

10. The CEO. Paid himself $500 million while running the company into the ground and lying

to shareholders.

Knew that the company was losing money, went out and said it was doing great, and then secretly dumped $52 million of stock to unsuspecting chumps.

He is a crooked, lying, cheating rightwing 1%er.

[Indi Guy]

39. Even if your accusations are valid (which I'm not agreeing to), you haven't answered my question...

What is (or should be) the penalty for government agencies that lie, cheat, defraud & otherwise break the law?

[NCagainstMcCrony]

40. Heh

You big silly.
It's not lying when the gummint boyz do it. It's called giving the least untruthfull answer.

Sarcasm thingy and all that.

[Indi Guy]

62. Interesting that, given his verbosity here, geek tragedy still hasn't answered my question.

That's now twice that he's done so; but in all fairness -- maybe he just missed it the second time.

[NCagainstMcCrony]

80. Heh

Oh, He/she is a tragedy all right.

[cosmicone]

15. He did not lie.

1. He assumed Quest will continue to have the same or more revenue from government contracts.
2. He sold some of his stock. (All CEOs do this from time to time for liquidity)
3. The government pulled the contracts because he wouldn't cooperate.
4. The revenue decreased.
5. The price of Quest stock fell.
6. Government claimed he knew the price would fall and unloaded his stock -- a trumped up charge under circumstances created BY the government.
7. He was not allowed to present this evidence during his defense.

It was a purposeful setup. This needs to be evaluated by a special prosecutor.

[geek tragedy]

16. Those are not facts, those are claims he made that a jury rejected.

On the timeline jurors had written on the wall, one date stood out - April 24. It was the day Nacchio had told Wall Street he saw no reason to back away from double- digit growth projections. In the months preceding that day, his executives had warned him repeatedly that those numbers were unrealistic.

"I went in thinking he was innocent," Garduno said. But it was hard to escape the fact that Nacchio knew by the time he spoke in the April earnings call that Qwest was headed for trouble. Still, he sold his stock.

http://jurylaw.typepad.com/deliberations/2007/04/nacchio_trial.html

"We felt he had months of information," Dye said. "He had people telling him that those one-time sales were drying up. We felt in good conscience it wasn't possible that he didn't know, not a man of that intelligence. The fact is those one-timers were never divulged."

"Mr. Nacchio is a very bright man," McCanless said. "At some point he had to get it. The man did not fall off a turnip wagon and land in the Qwest boardroom. He had to know he was committing a crime. He was too smart to not conceive of that."

"[G]iven who he is and how competent he demonstrated himself to be,”Stoneman said, he had to be aware of the alleged insider information.

[villager]

20. Of course, jurors weren't allowed access to information that judge deemed "classified," so they

...couldn't hear his whole planned defense.

Just an "accident," I'm sure...

[geek tragedy]

23. Those contracts were never granted, and he never even tried to prove they were.

Moreover, he was convicted for failing to disclose information about company earnings that he used for his own profit.

[villager]

31. "Only I, geek tragedy, have the facts."

n/t

[geek tragedy]

33. The jury had the facts, and threw his crooked ass in jail.

He saw internal forecasts that told him that there would be a sales shortfall.

Upon receiving such information, he was legally obligated to either:

A) avoid trading in the company's stock; or
b) disclose the information to the public.

He did neither, ergo he broke the law.

[DeSwiss]

12. K&R

[struggle4progress]

14. Could be. Or it could be that Nacchio thought he could use the illegal activities of the Bush

administration as leverage to protect himself against prosecution for his own illegal activities

His defense did file motions in Dec 2005 for a defense requiring discussion of classified information

He appealed his conviction but dropped the appeal in Feb 2011

Qwest did forfeit $44 million which was distributed to victims of the claimed insider-trading fraud

[geek tragedy]

18. Amazingly enough, some of the same people who complain about a lack of

Wall Street prosecutions are now apologists for a convicted Wall Street crook.

[villager]

21. Odd that one of the only presumed crooks to get prosecuted was the one who stood up to the NSA?

But of course, it's our duty not to make those connections!

[geek tragedy]

25. Enron and Global Crossing got prosecuted. nt

[villager]

26. Care to list those who weren't prosecuted? A much much longer list, I assure you.

But, nice try.

[geek tragedy]

32. Sure, those who were arrogant and reckless enough to leave a paper trail of

incriminating evidence got prosecuted.

Companies learned from Enron, Global Crossing and Qwest how to hide their fraud behind corporate meetings and statistics, and began generating self-serving paper trails showing how they were supposedly convinced what they were saying is true.

[villager]

38. So you, geek tragedy, can confidently dismiss all the other observers quoted in the OP's article

...who say that the timeline the Qwest CEO talks about actually pans out, when matched up to information that came to light after the trial -- information that wasn't allowed at the time, due to it being classified?

I assume that all random(e) classification powers bestowed on the NSA are a.o.k. with you as well?

[geek tragedy]

55. The NSA and this guy's guilt are separate issues.

I can tell you;

1). He knew his company internally knew sales would be down;

2). He told investors the company expected sales to be way up

3). His mere hope of landing govt contracts is irrelevant to points 1 and 2.

The number of people jumping to this obvious crimjnal's defense shows how hard it is to prove fraud beyond a reasonable doubt, btw. Very teachable moment.

[treestar]

61. Guilty until proven innocent?

the guy committed insider trading and got convicted.

[struggle4progress]

37. Do you think Nacchio was the only person indicted in 2005 for insider trading?

[LanternWaste]

66. Post hoc ergo prompter hoc? nt

Post hoc ergo prompter hoc?

[struggle4progress]

34. It is somewhat curious that Nacchio seems not to have mentioned the NSA matter

until after the illegal spying story broke in 2006: Nacchio was indicted several months earlier, and not long before he was indicted the WSJ had been painting a rosy picture of Qwest's government contracts

I currently have no reason to doubt that Qwest properly refused to cooperate with illegal requests from the NSA. And it seems to me, of course, quite likely that Qwest lost NSA contracts if it refused to cooperate with NSA requests, no matter how illegal. But the complaint against Nacchio et al originated with the SEC, and it might also be natural to expect somebody at the SEC to complain if external pressure were improperly applied to the SEC for a complaint against Qwest executives for nonstandard reasons

Nacchio appears to have been properly convicted of insider trading

[NCagainstMcCrony]

41. HA!

The complaint originated with the SEC.
That same SEC that was literally married to the Madoff family.

Your post is disingenuous at best.
Your quote:
"It is somewhat curious that Nacchio seems not to have mentioned the NSA matter"

Next time try reading the article.
The judge barred him from using that defense so he certainly did mention the NSA matter.

Anymore least untruthful statements you want to offer?

[struggle4progress]

43. He didn't see fit to make it an issue until he thought he could use it for his defense

some years later

[truedelphi]

46. I feel like I woke up in Potterville

And that no matter how good anyone in our society is, they don't get their wings.

[silvershadow]

42. The key 3 words: "...six months before...". Besides all else that reeks in this story,

makes me think more about what really happened with 9/11 and the aftermath with all that we have become. They were wanting to do all of this spying before 9/11. Why? Why were they wanting to do this? And then, related or not, 9/11 happens. Then spying goes into effect, which we won't learn about for 12 years or so.

What's with all the spying? Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, has Nixon's ghost permeated all that exists?

And, look what they did to this man. I'm not defending him, I don't know anything about him but just what little I just read here, but really? I wouldn't have spied for them either, no way, no how. And I probably woulda gone to prison because of it.

Wow.

[villager]

76. Exactly some of the questions to be asked, and the connections to be made.

n/t

[AzDar]

44. K & R

[colorado_ufo]

45. True courage and a true patriot.

[msanthrope]

84. He stole 500 million from shareholders. He's a convicted criminal. nt

[dorktv]

47. I worked at US West and then Qwest

Nacchio's claims that the only possible reason that the government went after him and the other executives cooking the books was NSA?

Nope. He and the other people in charge were pulling the same stunts as Enron and Global Crossing were and were basically lying to people to make themselves buckets of money. They almost managed to destroy a really great company (US West) but luckily the replacement CEO was not a crook and staved it off.

Those of us working for Qwest could see how things were spiraling down from the inside and it had nothing, not one thing, to do with 9/11 or NSA. He was manipulating stock and he was not some "hero." He was a man who destroyed my former boss's chance to retire well after spending 30+ years of her life making that company great. He was the man who caused us to have to stop ordering supplies because it cost too much for the company to buy some freaking pens thanks to his mismanagement.

Most of us former employees thought he got off light after what he did. So a pox on him and he can just go bleep off.

[davidpdx]

51. I remember Qwest stock being down in the 20 cent range

They were my service provider and they sucked. I can't imagine being an employee through all that turmoil.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

48. Yay!

Now we support 1% Republicans who commit fraud!

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

[OnyxCollie]

52. I wrote about Joseph Nacchio six years ago.

In May 2006, USA TODAY reported that the three telecommunication carriers, AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth had cooperated with the National Security Agency to secretly amass a database of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans (Cauley, 2006). The information was then analyzed to detect calling patterns in an effort to thwart terrorism. Following the reporting of this story, Mr. Nacchio’s attorney, Herbert Swan, released a statement that said the government had approached Qwest Communications to turn over customers’ calling records:

Mr. Nacchio made inquiry as to whether a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request. When he learned that no such authority had been granted and that there was a disinclination on the part of authorities to use any legal process, including the Special Court which had been established to handle such matters, Mr. Nacchio concluded that these requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act. (Nakashima & Eggen, 2007).

Mr. Nacchio was convicted in April 2007 of 19 counts of insider trading, selling shares of Qwest stock before the value dropped.

In October 2007, The Rocky Mountain News, The Washington Post, and The New York Times reported that in court filings made by Mr. Naccio, the National Security Agency had approached Qwest Communications to turn over customer’s call records on February 27, 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks (Burnett & Smith, 2007, Nakashima & Eggen, 2007, Shane, 2007).

“’The Nacchio materials suggest that the NSA had sought telco cooperation even before 9/11 undermines the primary argument for letting the phone companies off the hook, which is the claim that they were simply acting in good faith after 9/11,’ said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.” (Vuong, 2007).

In return for cooperating, Mr. Naccio asserts, Qwest Communications would receive lucrative government contracts (Burnett & Smith, 2007, Nakashima & Eggen, 2007, Shane, 2007).

In a May 25, 2007 order, U.S. District Court Judge Edward W. Nottingham wrote that Nacchio has asserted that ‘Qwest entered into classified contracts valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, without a competitive bidding process and that in 2000 and 2001, he participated in discussion with high ranking representatives concerning the possibility of awarding additional contracts of a similar nature.’ He wrote, ‘Those discussions led him to believe that would award Qwest contracts valued at amounts that would more than offset the negative warnings he was receiving about Qwest’s financial prospects.’” Nakashima & Eggen, 2007.)

Mr. Naccio’s conviction, he contends, was retaliation for refusing to cooperate with the government (Burnett & Smith, 2007, Nakashima & Eggen, 2007, Shane, 2007).

U.S. District Judge Edward W. Nottingham would not permit the classified information about the contracts into the court, thereby sinking Mr. Nacchio’s retaliation defense (Burnett & Smith, 2007. In March 2008, a federal appeals court overturned the 19 insider trading convictions after concluding that the trial judge improperly excluded expert testimony that would have helped Mr. Nacchio advance his defense (Johnson, 2008)

[Octafish]

71. !

Nothing like a good DUer.

[Indi Guy]

101. Well done.

I think that pretty well synopsizes the relevant events and dynamics of the situation.

Anyone who thinks that it's foolish to believe that Nacchio was targeted because of his refusal to illegally cooperate with the NSA needs to read your post #52 OnyxCollie.

...And what's up with this?:

...the National Security Agency had approached Qwest Communications to turn over customer’s call records on February 27, 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks (Burnett & Smith, 2007, Nakashima & Eggen, 2007, Shane, 2007).

NSA director Michael Hayden had his finger in the pie long before the dreaded "post 9/11 world."

[Progressive dog]

60. A convicted 1% felon who stole

from the other stockholders uses Snowden lies as proof that he was wrongfully convicted. Of course he's innocent because NSA.

[OnyxCollie]

85. 2007 letter from Conyers to McConnell & Wainstein re: Qwest

October 15, 2007

The Honorable Michael "Mike" McConnell
Director of National Intelligence
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Washington, DC 20511

The Honorable Ken Wainstein
Asst. Attorney General for National Security
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530

I am writing because of disturbing revelations over the past several days about
warrantless Administration surveillance activities that allegedly occurred months before 9/11,
and about claims that a company that did not participate in potentially unlawful surveillance
activities may have been subject to retaliation by the Administration, including federal
prosecution. According to news reports and papers filed with a federal court in Denver, as early
as February, 2001, the NSA asked Qwest Communications and other telecommunications
companies for some form of warrantless access to records concerning Americans' private
communications. Although the precise nature and scope of the intercepted communications has
not been revealed, one report suggests that it may have involved "monitoring long distance calls
and Internet transmissions and other digital information." S. Shane, "Former Phone Chief Says
Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11," New York Times (Oct. 14,2007). Although
Qwest apparently refused the request, which a former Qwest executive claims led to retaliation
against him and his company, it is unknown what access to confidential customer information
was provided by other telecommunications companies.

I appreciated your testimony several weeks ago on behalf of the Administration in
connection with proposed improvements to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It
is crucial, however, that Congress be fully informed of all the Administration's surveillance
activities involving telecommunications companies, particularly in tight of the AdmInistration's
request that retroactive immunity from liability be provided to these companies and
Administration officials. Accordingly, I ask that you provide the Committee with an immediate
briefing on the facts behind these recent revelations, and that you then provide us with any
documents concerning the nature and scope of these pre-9/11 activities and the legal basis for
conducting them. (emphasis in original)

[Octafish]

91. ''Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11''

If we had an honest news media, they might've assigned a reporter or two to investigate this angle.

[OnyxCollie]

89. Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11

Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html?_r=2&ex=1350014400&en=d79ceb4f4ce279b1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin&

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings. The executive, Joseph P. Nacchio, also asserts in the filings that the agency retaliated by depriving Qwest of lucrative outsourcing contracts.

The filings were made as Mr. Nacchio fought charges of insider trading. He was ultimately convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading and has been sentenced to six years in prison. He remains free while appealing the conviction. Mr. Nacchio said last year that he had refused an N.S.A. request for customers’ call records in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, as the agency initiated domestic surveillance and data mining programs to monitor Al Qaeda communications.

But the documents unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Denver, first reported in The Rocky Mountain News on Thursday, claim for the first time that pressure on the company to participate in activities it saw as improper came as early as February, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks. The significance of the claim is hard to assess, because the court documents are heavily redacted and N.S.A. officials will not comment on the agency’s secret surveillance programs. Other government officials have said that the agency’s eavesdropping without warrants began only after Sept. 11, 2001, under an order from President Bush. But the court filings in Mr. Nacchio’s case illustrate what is well known inside the telecommunications industry but little appreciated by the public: that the N.S.A. has for some time worked closely with phone companies, whose networks carry the telephone and Internet traffic the agency seeks out for intercept.

Qwest: Another Political Prosecution?
http://harpers.org/blog/2007/10/qwest-another-political-prosecution/

Let’s put this in sharper focus. Nacchio discovered that the NSA was engaged in a project to gather warrantless surveillance data on millions of Americans. He took advice of counsel. His lawyers told him, correctly, that this was illegal. They probably also warned him that if Qwest participated in the program, it would be committing a felony. So Nacchio said, no, sorry, I can’t work with you on this. But I can help if you want to change the law. And the reaction of the NSA? It was, apparently, to cut Qwest out of a series of contract awards by way of retaliation. (If that charge sticks, it would probably be yet another felony.) And the second reaction? To try to build a criminal case against Nacchio as a means of retaliation against him. (And if that charge sticks, it would probably be yet a third felony–on the part of the Government officials who did it). We are seeing the Government engaging in a sweeping pattern of criminal dealings, and ultimately, one of the biggest crimes of all, abusing the criminal justice process to strike out at an individual who refused to play their crooked game. Oh, and by the way: who was heading the NSA when all of this transpired? Michael Hayden, the man who now runs the CIA, and is busily dismantling the CIA Inspector General’s office because it has apparently raised questions about potentially criminal conduct on his watch there, too.

Shane also explains why Nacchio’s role was so important and why his decision to hold out caused the Bush Administration such distress:

At the same meeting, N.S.A. officials made an additional proposal, whose exact nature is not made clear in the censored documents. “The court has prohibited Mr. Nacchio from eliciting testimony regarding what also occurred at that meeting,” one of the documents states. Another passage says: “The court has also refused to allow Mr. Nacchio to demonstrate that the agency retaliated for this refusal by denying the Groundbreaker and perhaps other work to Qwest.”

Another document, a transcript of an interview that the F.B.I. conducted with Mr. Payne in 2006, stated that the N.S.A. pressed its request for months afterward. “Nacchio said it was a legal issue and that they could not do something their general counsel told them not to do,” Mr. Payne told the F.B.I. “Nacchio projected that he might do it if they could find a way to do it legally.” Mr. Payne declined to comment.

In support of Mr. Nacchio’s accusations, his lawyers quoted from one of several lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies, accusing them of violating their customers’ privacy. That lawsuit, filed last year against several companies, asserts that seven months before the Sept. 11 attacks, at about the time of Mr. Nacchio’s meeting at the N.S.A., another phone company, AT&T, “began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and Internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the N.S.A.” The lawsuit contends that the center would “give the N.S.A. direct, unlimited, unrestricted and unfettered access” to phone call information and Internet traffic on AT&T’s network.

Nacchio conviction overturned
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_8603419

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the guilty verdict in the criminal insider trading case of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio and ordered a new trial before a different judge.

The 2-1 decision cited U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham's exclusion of expert testimony by Northwestern University law professor and private consultant Daniel Fischel.

Fischel was allowed to testify on Nacchio's behalf about the facts behind his stock sales, but was excluded from providing economic analysis.

"We conclude that on the record before him the district judge was wrong to prevent Professor Fischel from providing expert analysis, and that this error was not harmless," the majority decision from Judges Paul Kelly and Michael McConnell states. The judges also ruled that there was sufficient evidence to warrant a new trial without "violating the double jeopardy clause."

[Octafish]

99. Gosh. Why would the BFEE want to spy on We the People before 9-11?

Nacchio's account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485_pf.html

[OnyxCollie]

96. Edward Nottingham, the judge who convicted Nacchio

is an asshole.

Counsel investigating chief judge's past
http://www.9news.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=102682&catid=188

In September 2007, Jeanne Elliot told 9Wants to Know that Nottingham parked in a handicapped parking space. After she blocked his vehicle in the space with her wheelchair, Elliot said Nottingham put his car in reverse.

"I could tell from his back-up lights going on and I thought, 'Oh boy! He's going to back over me," Elliott told 9NEWS in October 2007.

Elliott also claims that Nottingham told her, "If you don't get out of my way, I'm a federal judge and I'm going to call the U.S. Marshals and have them arrest you."

In a written statement, Nottingham said he regrets parking in the space, "But respectfully disagrees with the remainder of Ms. Elliott's version of this incident."

Complaint still hangs over judge
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/23/complaint-still-hangs-over-judge/

A piece of U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham's legal troubles is still unresolved before a state ethics panel, despite his resignation from the bench.

Nottingham stepped down Tuesday amid allegations of judicial misconduct involving a prostitute. The allegations were being investigated by the 10th Circuit Court Judicial Council.

A Minnesota man who has tangled with Nottingham in a federal court case filed the same charges last April with the state's Attorney Regulation Council, which investigates ethical complaints against lawyers.

A negative ruling by that panel could be a roadblock if Nottingham decides to resume practicing law in Colorado.

Federal Judge Edward Nottingham Resigns Amid Misconduct Allegations
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/10/21/federal-judge-edward-nottingham-resigns-amid-misconduct-allegations/?

This just in, from the Rockies: Federal Judge Edward Nottingham, who oversaw the insider trading trial of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, has resigned, according to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

His resignation comes amid an investigation of complaints of judicial misconduct on the part of Nottingham (pictured), according to a statement from the appeals court. The complaints were lodged in August 2007, the court said, and since then “additional allegations developed and subsequent misconduct complaints were filed.” The court’s committees “conducted a thorough and extensive investigation, interviewed many witnesses, considered voluminous documentation, and conducted two hearings,” according to the statement.

Judge Nottingham so far has not returned a call to his chambers.

According to the Rocky Mountain News, the judge’s attorney issued this statement: “He is deeply remorseful for his actions. He is also embarrassed and ashamed for any loss of confidence caused by those actions and attendant publicity and sincerely apologies to the public and the judiciary.”

[WillyT]

100. K & R !!!