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Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

"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!

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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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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