Joseph Nacchio
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
"We know what happened in the case of QWest before 9/11. They contacted the CEO/Chairman asking to wiretap all the customers. After he consulted with Legal, he refused. As a result, NSA canceled a bunch of unrelated billion dollar contracts that QWest was the top bidder for. And then the DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and put him in prison for insider trading -- on the theory that he knew of anticipated income from secret programs that QWest was planning for the government, while the public didn't because it was classified and he couldn't legally tell them, and then he bought or sold QWest stock knowing those things.
This CEO's name is Joseph P. Nacchio and TODAY he's still serving a trumped-up 6-year federal prison sentence today for quietly refusing an NSA demand to massively wiretap his customers."
[1] https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-J...
They will lean on you and they will absolutely try to ruin your life because you inconvenienced them. Did you know lying to an FBI agent is a federal offense[1]? Did you know it's status quo to try to trick people they're interviewing into presenting a lie or obscuring the facts? They do this so they can present you with the option of either A. Doing everything they demand or B. Become a felon and face time in prison with rapists and murderers.
I can absolutely guarantee Nacchio went to prison over not helping the NSA.
[1]http://www.fbi.gov/stlouis/press-releases/2010/sl101210.htm
(A nitpick but) no, you can't. Everyone getting carried away with hyperbole is rarely useful in situations like these. It is definitely an issue worth investigating, but you can't guarantee the outcome before such an investigation.
Holy fuck that's terrifying. I had no idea.
Time for a re-watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Paul's later accusation (of lying) depends on his ability to remember with perfect accuracy all of his discussions with Alice and Bob; and if anything confuses him he might take it as grounds for the accusation. This leads to fragility: Paul's use of lies will likely create a situation where he himself is more likely to be misled, which he could then pin on Alice and Bob.
He could also put people in a stressful situation hoping to coax out the truth, only to coax out a lie. Paul can tell Alice that he thinks Bob is guilty, but that Bob has just put all of the blame on Alice and made her look awful. Paul says, "I'm going to have to put you in jail, Alice, if you can't give me something to incriminate Bob." She doesn't have anything to incriminate Bob so she lies; he might later discover the lie and bust her for it.
For that matter, Paul can stick to subject matters which Alice and Bob find embarrassing, and thus (advertently or inadvertently) stress them out into lying to him. Paul can suggest that even if his allegations are untrue, he will bring them to public light and their peers will judge them based on those allegations. (The example here would look like: Paul is pursuing a child porn ring which has nothing to do with Alice and Bob, but he thinks they're central to it. He tells them that if they don't immediately help him out, he's going to have to put them on public trial and then all of their neighbours and business associates will judge them for it. Then he starts asking questions about the other people in the ring, and they lie about it.)
This only gets compounded if he is allowed to lie to them on procedural matters. For example, Paul informs them "You're allowed to lie to me." Or, Paul informs them, "I'm allowed to imprison you if you say anything which I disagree with." It can be subtler and less coercive: suppose he says that their best option to protect themselves is to apologize for a related act to some appropriate third-party, Carol. So the think that they're lying to Carol (legally allowed) but Paul thinks they're lying to him (a federal offense).
And finally, even if Alice and Bob tell the absolute truth to Paul, it might be the case that Carol -- whether lying or honest does not matter -- contradicts their story and is otherwise trustworthy as a witness. Perhaps she really thinks she saw Bob that day, but in fact it wasn't him. Now both Alice and Bob have said that he was not there, but Paul interprets those as lies and prosecutes them for it.
I asked another commenter below for an example of someone being convicted of making false statements when they did not know they were speaking to a federal agent, I would like to see one as the lying in the example above was during a formal interview process.
I also find that a lot of these sorts of scenarios assume that the courts are incompetent, that the burden of proof does not still apply. The judiciary has a duty to apply the law in a reasonable way that complies with its intent - I doubt any judge would regard the intent of the false statements law to be to allow an FBI agent to tell someone to lie to them so they can then catch them lying and convict them. (This of course is why if you undermine the courts you undermine democracy.)
That being said they can do all of these things legally in the furtherance of their duties (your "delimited circumstances") as law enforcement officers. This is precisely why it is silly to speak of "a double standard," law enforcement officers are different from civilians. How would a society enforce the rule of law if we were equals?
We are supposedly equals, and those from cops to the president are our employees, not our masters, though I'd agree that in the U.S. reality has gotten way off the model. Anyway, re enforcement among equals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth
The second bit is just a knee jerk jab at the US and a link to a wikipedia article with very little context.
The article outlines law enforcement without cops. You asked how this was possible.
If we care about the truth as a moral and cultural foundation, it seems reasonable we demand it on both sides of the playing field.
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2007/0307...
Obviously, the indictment has nothing to do with wiretaps, and concerns itself instead with the millions of dollars Nacchio made selling his stock while demonstrably in possession of material nonpublic information.
But of course, it's hard disprove a negative, so the idea that this conviction alone among hundreds of similar convictions across corporate America at the time is in fact retaliation... well, it'll never die.
I'm not convinced Nacchio was railroaded (I don't know enough about it yet), but it's definitely the modus operandi of powerhouse intelligence services around the world. So it's entirely possible Nacchio was set up, or at the least, that the some member of the US intelligence community was behind the prosecution.
1) He is tried for insider trading, and convicted.
2) He appeals this because the trial excluded a key witness that supported his innocence .
3) He WINS this appeal, and is granted another trial.
4) He is tried again, this time not in front of a jury. The circuit court of appeals, where this is tried (stressing: without a jury this time) convicts him 5-4.
This isn't nearly as clear cut as some of the people in this thread are making it, and it does arouse some suspicion.
This timeline does not make sense.
Regardless, he was never rightfully convicted by a jury. The trial in which he was found guilty by a jury was found to have denied him a proper defense (by an appeals court).
1. He is tried (in district court, with a jury) for insider trading, and convicted.
2. He appeals to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
3. A 3-judge panel of the 10th Circuit holds that the exclusion of a witness prejudiced his trial, and sets aside his conviction, ordering a new trial.
4. The prosecution appeals that holding to the en banc 10th Circuit.
5. The full 9-judge 10th Circuit re-hears the appeal, and sets aside the panel's decision (by a narrow 5-4 vote), reinstating the original conviction.
6. He petitions the Supreme Court to hear the case and overturn the en banc 10th Circuit's decision, arguing that the panel's decision overturning the conviction had been correct.
7. The Supreme Court declines to hear the case, which ends the series of appeals and leaves the original conviction in place.
The article argues the 'insider trading' charge was related to the gag order.
If that's a legit summary, the retaliatory removal of contracts his company was in-line for --- doesn't seem very far stretched.
Let's keep in mind that congresspeople legally commit insider trading all the time, and surely many of their DC friends and allies do so illegally, but without punishment. Or, let's remember how successful former public servants are at earning a big salary on the basis of their connections+access (at best) or as reward for their corruption (at worst).
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22918125/former-qw...