Qwest Punished For Wiretap Resistance? Nacchio trial documents unsealed... by Karl Bode 06:55PM Thursday Oct 11 2007 Tipped by axus  Of the three baby bells, only Qwest refused to participate in the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program, which involved handing over customer Internet & voice data without a court order. According to the Rocky Mountain News, freshly unsealed documents from the trial of convicted former CEO Joe Nacchio document Nacchio's refusal to participate, and suggest the government then punished the telco by holding back lucrative government contracts. Nacchio apparently found $52 million in insider trading ok, but thought the government's wiretap program ethically and legally dubious. Nacchio's lawyers wanted to use the documents to suggest that Nacchio's optimism came from said contracts, including the $2 billion construction of "GovNet," a second Internet specifically dedicated to Uncle Sam. However, the confidential documents weren't allowed at trial: quote:
The secret contracts - worth hundreds of millions of dollars - made Nacchio optimistic about Qwest's future, even as his staff was warning him the company might not make its numbers, Nacchio's defense attorneys have maintained. But Nacchio didn't present that argument at trial.
We should note that the largest contract in government history ($20-$48 billion) this year was awarded to Verizon, AT&T and Qwest. So if the documents are correct (which is impossible to determine without seeing them), Uncle Sam either got over their wiretapping vendetta, or Qwest's subsequent management had a change of heart.
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  Anonymous_AnonymousPremium
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1
kudos:2 | Data For Sale 
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| dynodbPremium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN | Assuming Nacchio is telling the truth Considering the lies that SOB told for his own benefit, I wouldn't believe him if he told me that water is wet.
Nice legal ploy though- cite top secret documents that you know the government won't produce. Hopefully the legal system sees through it. | |
|  | | | Re: Assuming Nacchio is telling the truth Hes counting on negative publicity towards wiretapping to make make his own image look like that of a victim. What a splib!
Make him do time in general population, then he will truly know what victimization means.
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Burn a tire, but make sure you buy that carbon offset! | |
| | | | Considering Nacchio moved to Florida to build a huge house to hide assets, he might as well write a book--What If I Did It--and play golf with O.J.
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Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
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@charter.com | Privacy: Protection or Control. Privacy is a concept under siege. Between Schwartzenegger's passing of a law in California to invade smoker's privacy in their own cars, and wiretapping dsl connections I am at a loss to express which is worse.
All the recent erosions of privacy are founded on the basis that the government is only doing it to protect us.
For some reason my brain is not wrapping around that very willingly. Appears to me it's more about the power to control behavior. | |
| arnoldcPremium
join:2002-08-07
Kodak, TN | QWEST I believe that the government chose to go after this guy to make an example. I do not believe that the other CEO's of the major telecoms could not be found to violate SEC regulations if the government wanted to look hard at them. Also it is my personal belief that the FCC rushed the merger of AT&T and BellSouth to expedite the warrant less surveillance. It would be nice however to have all the information because otherwise we all just have opinions based on assumptions instead of facts. It is like Congress legislating without knowing the judicial opinions or the executive reasoning for wiretapping. How dumb is that? | |
| |  POBRes Firma Mitescere NescitPremium
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA
2 recommendations | Re: QWEST said by arnoldc: It is like Congress legislating without knowing the judicial opinions or the executive reasoning for wiretapping. How dumb is that? Executive reason for wiretapping was because Commander Bunnypants said so. The reason was sooooooooo super duper, double secret, el deluxe secret, that even Unckie Dick didn't know what it was.
Oh and BTW, Congress doesn't have clue one as to what goes on with anything. They just happily rubberstamp the laws their corporate masters want in place.
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The Toll
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 PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | Baby Bells? "Of the three baby bells..."
Can we even call them baby bells anymore? If no one has noticed, they've kind of grown up and started taking over again... it's only a matter of time before AT&T makes a bid for Qwest... | |
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1 recommendation | Re: Baby Bells? "b4"?
You sunk my battleship! | |
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 batterupI Can Not Tell A Lie.Premium
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ | Who else can do it? quote:
We should note that the largest contract in government history ($20-$48 billion) this year was awarded to Verizon, AT&T and Qwest.
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1 edit | Re: Who else can do it? said by batterup: quote:
We should note that the largest contract in government history ($20-$48 billion) this year was awarded to Verizon, AT&T and Qwest.
Qwest has not been awarded any contracts or made any money yet, only the ability to bid as a GSA approved contractor. | |
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| | Who do I trust less? This really comes down to who do I trust less -- the Nacho or Dubya and Darth Vader. The latter get my vote. They lie more than they tell the truth -- a lot more. Now, I still don't care for Nacchio, but his assertions simply corroborate testimony in current class-action lawsuits against SBCATTBELLSOUTH and Bell Atlantic, er.. Verizon. There are people more reputable than the Nacho whose sworn testimony is that this secret wiretapping program was started at the time the Nacho now says it was -- around March 2001.
So now why exactly is this program needed, again? Oh right, it's for our benefit!
I, for one, can rest easier now, knowing that those douche bags will be monitoring everyone's "unAmerican" behavior -- you know, any sort of behavior that doesn't involve shutting up and doing what you're told. | |
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