New Details Show Broader NSA Surveillance Reach | Hacker News Reader

New Details Show Broader NSA Surveillance Reach

online.wsj.com

"For the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, officials say, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA arranged with Qwest Communications International Inc. to use intercept equipment for a period of less than six months around the time of the event. It monitored the content of all email and text communications in the Salt Lake City area."

So that would be clearly illegal mass wiretapping, and we're being told it has only gotten worse since then. Oh, fantastic! No wonder Qwest's CEO had a falling out with the NSA that ended with him behind bars!

But everyone loves to rationalize how he's behind bars by his own wrong doing. And then people wonder why other CEOs don't stand up to the NSA. What's the point? If the general population doesn't care, why go to jail for them?

You can almost see the scene.

A CEO of an important contractor in a room with two NSA henchmen. "Larry, it has come to our attention that you don't really feel good about the way in which we make America safer." - "We have heard that you have some important concerns that you feel you should voice to the public." - "Now, of course we understand that and respect your concerns. It's just... we would just like to remind you that Josy Nacchio also had very important details to share." - "Yeah, what a shame that he had to go behind bars for that fraud thing before we could have a proper and open public discussion." - "Oooh, yeah, hmm, that was bad" - "Phew, 6 years, that's a long time. Locked in a cell, see your wife every other week." - "Well, it was pretty serious stuff with that insider trading." - "Oh yeah, well he was under a lot of pressure at the time, but that doesn't excuse being a criminal!" - "Poor guy." - "Poor guy."

Plus! The CEO now knows if there's any dirt on him they'll find it. They already have all his communication and location data.

Guys, nacchio was a more run-of-the-mill-crook, tho.

Not a spy , etc. so was the guy that ran worldcom. they were (in bed) with the NSA because of their role as backbone providers (ie, only incidentally). they both went to jail because they took on too much debt in the telecom boom laying fiber, not because the NSA framed them. the stupid stuff they did predates (in nacchio's case) the involvement with the uswest. the poor economics of qwest--which was trying to hide--was the reason he bought uswest. us west was a cash cow and able to service his debts.

The NSA dispute post-dates the stock market/telco imposion, and also both his acquisition of uswest and the start his insider selling, and cirucmstantially seems like a desperate bid to gain leverage in his criminal case (ie, his credibility is lacking, as the allegations are self-serving).

In 1996, reports appearing in The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News revealed that CLECs had lodged complaints with the FCC against US West, including multiple complaints from Qwest Communications International, Inc. The complaints alleged US West neglected or seriously delayed release of "bundled loops" as required by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, making it difficult for competitors to provide local telephone service to their customers. Other competitors began following suit, and charged US West with monopoly-like or anti-trust type behavior.[citation needed]

During the winter of 1999–2000, US West announced that it had received an unsolicited purchase offer from Qwest Communications International, Inc. At the time, US West had been attempting to merge with Global Crossing, but for months this deal had been stalled through the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). US West management publicly refused Qwest's offer. Qwest eventually purchased enough US West stock to enable Qwest to take control of the Board of Directors in March 2000.

On June 30, 2000, US West, Inc. and Qwest Communications International, Inc. combined via merger. US West, Inc. was merged into Qwest Communications International, Inc. with all of US West's direct subsidiaries becoming direct subsidiaries of Qwest.

[edits for clarity]

Where are you getting that? Nacchio was convicted for insider trading in 2007. Unless I am mistaken, your italicised text has nothing to do with that.

While nacchio was convicted of "insider trading", the trades were of the stock in <his own company>.

He was, in essence, convicted of not disseminating <honest> information to the public. The information that he was basically hiding, related to pre-merger qwest assets.

The purchase of US west provided a tactical means to merge a loss making entity with a profitable entity, and blend the accounting.

________________________________________

In 2000, during Nacchio's tenure as Qwest CEO, the company acquired its regional rival US West. In 2002, Qwest admitted to false accounting during the time of the merger.[7]

The company was also involved in accounting scandals... [deals in] question were a series of deals from 1999 to 2001 with Enron's broadband division which may have helped Enron conceal losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest

He was convicted in 2007, but insider trading was alleged to have taken place much earlier (1999-2002), long before his relationship with the NSA supposedly went south.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

"Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, convicted of insider trading in April 2007, alleged in appeal documents that the NSA requested that Qwest participate in its wiretapping program more than six months before September 11, 2001. Nacchio recalls the meeting as occurring on February 27, 2001. Nacchio further claims that the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest as a result of Qwest's refusal to participate in the wiretapping program." [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveilla...

Nacchio started selling stock earlier (see op cit) than that meeting. But its sort of beside the point. The information <he was hiding from the public> was information that long predated all of this. He was convicted of basically lying in the earlier SEC reports which is why he had <insider> information. It was harder to convict him on witholding material information, so they went after him (and won) for insider trading.

Unfortunately, his allegations about NSA are sort of irrelevant to wether or not he was guilty or not. His credibilty as a witness is shot not only by his conflict of interest (ie, he's trying to get out of jail) but also because he was convicted of a crime of fundamental dishonesty.

I don;t think there is much doubt that his general business tenure as CEO was sketchy at best in terms of integrity. That doesn;t make the NSA innocent, but it makes the Nacchio link much less interesting as a discussion piece. Nacchio is not any kind of hero figure or champion of integrity.

Thanks for your comment, it explains how your initial comment relates to his conviction. This article helped too. [1]

The basis of his conviction is that he made a prediction that the court found to be false, and the court found that he should have known it would be false.

If it's for say, predicting 2001/2002 revenue, he was convicted as lying to the SEC, it's possible that losing NSA/government contracts contributed.

I don't know the dates and so don't know for which year(s) he was convicted for making a false prediction. If it was earlier than 2002 it is probably as you say, run of the mill lying to the SEC.

His allegations are of retaliation, that he was given cruel and unusual attention because he refused to comply. As regards whether it was retaliation, his credibility is shot.

I don't doubt that the meetings occurred, that qwest refused and that contracts were cancelled. In that regard even though he may be a liar, he did better than the CEO's of the other companies. I am sure if you subject any CEO to enough scrutiny you can convict them of something. Put it this way, I'd take a CEO who makes unrealistic predictions about revenue over one that silently allows warrantless wiretapping.

[1] http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635163326/Ex-Qwest-CEO-pl...

There's no way losing a couple NSA contacts sends a RBOC generating $4B of cash a year into a $2 stock and near bankruptcy. The way you do that, is you merge a massively unprofitable business into a blue chip one and pay the latter with massively inflated stock (viz: '99 internet bubble). After the bubble bursts, market wakes up, and the assets are found to be dogs. The $4B cash is now going to pay down the massive debts the combined entity took to finance the operating losses of the crappy side of the merger, but there is no growth in the supposedly high-growth part. The high-growth part was not a NSA/gov't driven biz plan, though. That would not have made sense or been credible plan on which to merge or raise capital (before 9/11 in particular).

Much easier explanation. According to the SEC/Jury/SupremeCourt etc.

Hope that helps.

I would suggest reading to the end of the article. What I wrote is not in contradiction to that, though I might note he asserted quite different defenses at trial.

I replied because the way your sentence was structured, it implied his NSA relationship went south nearer 2007 than it did 1999.

Oh sorry, I didn't realize it would come across that way.

The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say.

> The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic

And of course, this is a work-in-progress number.

> 75%

Wow, they're so accurate. Perhaps 100% didn't sound so good?

I think the news is out and all know the facts and fabricated facts too.

I think its time for the govt., and the president to come out and say "Yes", We Spy on you for your safety and we assure and ensure you don't get penalised for wrong reasons and systemic errors.

More than privacy people are scared of the ramifications of the surveillance by organisations that lost the trust.

He's not going to do that. He knows it's unconstitutional.

What you're saying is kind of like saying: "Look, torture works, and we're doing it anyway - therefore let's just do it with medical oversight to ensure the torture doesn't go as far as organ failure. They will do it for our safety against the enemy, and with good oversight - so it's all good. It's for our safety!".

They shouldn't be doing it at all. The "oversight" gets corrupted over time, too, and then what?

Infuriatingly, John Yoo makes this exact argument.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130817/22391824220/guy-wh...

Trouble is that data from NSA leaks to other organizations and then used in number of nefarious of ways to sustain illegal and unconstitutional practices. As it happened wit DEA doing "parallel construction". Whatever the heck that means - means perjury and obstruction of justice to me.

my 2c.

Precisely. If we ignore the 4th for a moment, the NSA doing this kind of surveillance wouldn't be an issue if it was only ever used to catch bad guys within the constraints of the law. But, as the DEA story shows, once this power is in the hands of corruptible people, they will take shortcuts, subvert the rules, and bypass procedure to get what they want. In their minds, the end justifies the means, and our legal system is specifically set up to thwart that temptation specifically because people are imperfect and corruptible, and will misuse the power they're given.

There is nothing so laughable as the people in government saying "We won't abuse this power, trust us" as if to excuse the fact that they got caught abusing their power, and demonstrating that they absolutely cannot be trusted.

More magical word redefinitions, this time 'minimize':

Another Snowden document describes the procedures NSA uses to protect American information that is retained. Any such information is "minimized," meaning that it is destroyed. The document highlights several exceptions, including encrypted communications and information of foreign intelligence significance.

...

Officials acknowledged some purely domestic communications are incidentally swept into the system. "We don't keep track of numbers of U.S. persons," a U.S. official says. "What we try to do is minimize any exposure."

You have to question their definition of each word, each time they use it, because they are probably playing fancy word games.

One of the greatest abuses being carried out here is of the English language

I think by now it's very naive to still assume they do it just to stop terrorism. But the good thing about this whole mess is that a new generation of people realises that politicians are liars and are not to be trusted, ever.

> The NSA's filtering, carried out with telecom companies, is designed to look for communications that either originate or end abroad, or are entirely foreign but happen to be passing through the U.S.

This will have a "Great Firewall of China"-Effect:

- Americans will cut data exchange (and communication) with the outside

- The rest of the World will cut data exchange (and communication) with Americans (obviously, this will include the use of IT-related US products/services)

I don't think so. It's not like this is the first spy scandal of this type and previous ones (Echelon etc.) don't seem to have any long-term effect on commercial or communications traffic.

How would you tell? In an environment with such a high rate of growth, would we detect a lower-than-"control", but still high, growth rate as a change?

What's the best resource for what we do / don't know about NSA surveillance / Snowden affair?

> We want high-grade ore

Always enjoy listening to criminals giving their pathetic excuses. Communism was a joke and so, unfortunately, is the Obama administration.

I'm very interested in this 25% they can't reach. Can we route our services and communications through it?

The person who framed this propaganda piece was skillful enough that I think s/he could get paid more working for the Louvre.

I'm curious, what about this article makes it a propaganda piece? Who is it propaganda for?

Apparently a couple of people are unhappy at my suggestion that WSJ is sometimes a propaganda arm of the USG.

I just wanted to re-interate that suggestion, and invite those people to learn some history. But only if they're interested more in facts than fantasy.

I got my definition of what Propaganda is from Ed Bernays. You might do the same.

You would do better to lay out the specific points you feel were distorting the truth. That would be more persuasive than name-calling.

If it's propaganda, I don't feel it's very effective as it reports serious wrong-doing within the government, and directly contradicts the president saying the NSA isn't “actually abusing” their powers. That's quite a serious allegation and not at all supporting the government position, which is that there's nothing to see here and no abuses have occurred.

I find it more likely it was written by a journalist with some sympathy to the government position and comfortable in their post at the wsj, who thus doesn't want to rock the boat too much, rather than one paid to distort the truth in the service of the government. I can't agree with lots of the conclusions and feel it is far too soft on the NSA, but it's hardly one-side propaganda beating the drum for the government.

I agree. When I read it I started getting a flashing sysops sign in my head.

The piece reads initially as an exposé of government spying. However as it progresses it's real intent becomes clear. It seeks to justify the government actions. The characterizations of those supporting the operations are of rational protectors. The one dissenting voice is "an Oregon Democrat". It's pure News Corp. Pandering to the military-spying-industrial complex and subtly injecting an editorial viewpoint into a supposed news piece.

Exactly. Which is probably only apparent to people who RTFA.

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