Qwest Punished by NSA for Non-Cooperation

nightcats writes "According to a story from the Rocky Mountain news, Qwest has received retaliatory action from the NSA for refusing to cooperate in the Bush administration's domestic data-mining activity (i.e., spying on Americans). 'The [just-released government] documents indicate that likely would have been at the heart of former CEO Joe Nacchio's so-called "classified information" defense at his insider trading trial, had he been allowed to present it. 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. '"

Re:Nonsense

[clodney]

I admit the summary is inflammatory, but strip away the hyperbole and the implication is there.

Nacchio is claiming that he expected to receive classified government contracts that would have prevented the revenue shortfall, and that therefore he was not guilty of insider trading because he believed the revenue forecasts to be accurate.

Nacchio is clearly not a disinterested party to this, so his assertions have to be examined carefully, but it is at least plausible that after Qwest declined to give the NSA access to their network, NSA decided to give the contract to someone else in retaliation.

I haven't followed the story closely enough to pretend to have an informed opinion on the merits of the argument. Of course, this is /., so I guess that doesn't matter here.

While story !=summary, it's onerous

[postbigbang]

If you RTFA, the implications are there. Play ball with the NSA, and life could go better with you. Cross-connect your new fiber infrastructure with the NSA and get nice secret benefits. Don't do it, and watch yourself go down, hard, at the hands of the non-secret branches of government.

Good conspiracy stuff. Kennebunkport and B-52s, anyone?

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you bother reading the PDF court filings which are listed on the article page?

It appears that (if Nacchio was telling the truth) the NSA offered projects worth a significant amount of money to Qwest -- then, when Nacchio refused a separate NSA request on the grounds that the request was illegal, the NSA withdrew the other projects.

If this isn't punishing Qwest for non-cooperation, what is?

From TFA:

[Anonymous Coward]

The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest.

The documents indicate that likely would have been at the heart of former CEO Joe Nacchio's so-called "classified information" defense at his insider trading trial, had he been allowed to present it.

When you said that, I thought you meant that the Slashdot summary did not agree with the story, but it sure appears to. Did you mean that the story itself does not cite these documents directly or make it clear how they relate to his defense?

Because that I'd grant you.

Don't like a story? Don't comment.

[Futurepower(R)]

Please don't read or comment on articles in which you have no interest.

Re:While story !=summary, it's onerous

[Kenrod]

The implication is coming from a guy trying to save his own ass - alleging something that the govt will not and can not acknowledge or deny. Clever and slimy.

Domestic spying

[CaptCrunk]

I realize that this is a sensitive issue, but why would it be assumed that this is "spying on Americans"? Given this kind of access, it's possible that it could occur, but given that the American telecom industry tends to have faster communications lines than those in countries known to harbor these groups, it's just as possible that they're monitoring those calls. It's a matter of call routing and the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. Just my $0.02.

Wait, WHEN did this happen?

[BobMcD]

I obviously need to do some research:

Nacchio planned to demonstrate at trial that he had a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., to discuss a $100 million project. According to the documents, another topic also was discussed at that meeting, one with which Nacchio refused to comply.

The NSA wanted to begin its wiretapping program PRIOR to the "unforeseeable" events of September 11th, 2001???

Either I'm out of touch, or this is a tad bit of a smoking gun...

Next up for me is trying to determine when the guys who went along got their start. Either way it doesn't look good.

Interesting stuff.

Re:Political Flamebait

[Soporific]

God forbid you filter it out...

~S

Re:Nonsense

[complexmath]

Nacchio is clearly not a disinterested party to this, so his assertions have to be examined carefully, but it is at least plausible that after Qwest declined to give the NSA access to their network, NSA decided to give the contract to someone else in retaliation.

This was my interpretation as well. Basically, the government was using lucrative contracts as an incentive for cooperation with various other less palatable projects. When Qwest declined to cooperate with those, the government pulled their other contracts and gave them to someone else who was presumably more willing to cooperate. Given this, I think a case could be made for the mis-estimation of future income by Qwest. Depending on where they were in negotiations, etc, it's reasonable to assume that there was grounds for considering these contracts as valid future revenue.

Re:Datamining=Spying?!!?

[doas777]

Data mining is all about finding patterns in large amounts of data (usually summary statistics). this is not spying in itself. the spying comes in when that data represents information that people are not willing to provide themselves, and must be attained through NSA letters with non-disclosure agreements and no court backing. since that data is used to track individual human's actions, with no notification or consent, that is clearly spying. it's not the tools, it's how you use them. To me, this program is domestic intelligence gathering, and thats spying however you look at it.

What makes you think that this "War on Terror"

[einhverfr]

began on 2001-09-11?

If you do some research, you will see that a lot of these programs had been ramped up considerably under Clinton (including both extraordinary rendition, and the attacks on free speech). There was also an increasing amount of information that Eschelon was underway at that time. Unfortunately this is not a matter of who is in office, but rather who is informing whoever is in office.

This means: career military top brass, it means career intelligence services (CIA, NSA, etc), and to a lesser extent it means private think tanks.

Re:Nonsense

[mabhatter654]

It is a fact that he had meetings discussing contracts with the NSA, the details are redacted but the meeting is there. The fact that the judge won't allow the redacted information in the trial is somewhat disturbing as they prove he didn't have intent to defraud investors. Along the same line, the nature of such contracts means that investor notification may not be entirely possible or even legal. If he said he would probably make numbers dependent on pending government work he should be in the clear. Numbers are just that, numbers, they have risk.. greater when working for secret agencies as Quest is an order of magnitude smaller than Verizon or AT&T.

Re:Nonsense

[mabhatter654]

but that retaliation messed up his numbers while he was telling investors big deals were almost done... oops now it went south, the check wasn't in the mail... and he can't talk about it because it's secret. Now he's charged with a crime for not talking about it when the stock did poorly without those contracts. One could almost argue that the prosecutor had cherry picked that time frame knowing he couldn't use the facts to defend himself.

Re:Nonsense

[terrymr]

I'm curious why the judge didn't allow him the argue this at trial - maybe the NSA visited the judge too.

Re:Datamining=Spying?!!?

[w3woody]

I think the Supremes ruled that when a computer looks at data, it cannot be spying: spying is when a human looks at data. Sadly the damages the government suffers from spying--that is, from having a human look at data you'd rather have hidden--is that without a warrant they can't use it in court, and if they embarrass you then you can sue for damages.

Reality is, however, there is a hell of a lot of private data floating out there that is being handled by lots and lots of strangers--things that we'd like to pretend are secret but are really not. The most fascinating part about all of these complaints about the NSA spying on us is that they show just how public our private data really is. While we may use the NSA as the boogyman in all of this, there is plenty of information that I'd rather have private (such as how much I paid last year in property taxes on my house) which can be found for free on web sites such as Zillow.com [zillow.com].

Re:Nonsense

[PopeRatzo]

The linked article does not support the sensationalist nonsense presented in the summary.

Actually, the assertion that Qwest was punished by the Bush Administration for refusing to let their facilities used for illegal wiretapping is certainly supported by the article.

If said wiretapping activities weren't illegal as Qwest (and most Americans) believe, then why is Bush asking Congress to give the telcos immunity from prosecution?

There's absolutely no reason that a warrant couldn't be obtained for each and every instance of wiretapping of a US Citizen without endangering a single American life. Even if they had to add a hundred clerks and attorneys to follow up and get these warrants from FISA judges (they can do so after the fucking fact by the way), it would be worth the few million dollars for the manpower. In fact, it would cost less than a single day of the Iraq War to pay for the entire additional staff for several years.

I think it's worth it to keep the whole thing legal, no? Anyway, the Bush Administration doesn't care about the little extra work it takes to get a warrant (remember, the warrants can be obtained AFTER THE FACT). No, they want to make sure there is no record of what they're doing.

I expect this type of behavior from the administration that brought us Dick Cheney. What disgusts me is that a single Democrat is willing to support it. It just goes to show exactly why the founding fathers did their best to make sure there was some accountability built in to our system. Unfortunately, they couldn't know the extent that greed and thirst for power, along with an unprecedented level of influence from the corporate sector, would corrupt the shallow people who get elected. I can't even say "..that WE elect", because I have about zero trust that the current system of elections has not been completely hijacked. Not after 2000.

In Serbia, in 1998, a group of students calling themselves "OTPOR!" ("resistance") organized to begin peaceful yet disruptive protests against the government of Slobodan Milosevic. With the help of a radio station (B96) and simple tactics like general strikes and symbolic protests (at 8pm, they'd have everyone in Belgrade turn off all the lights in their houses - it was an extremely dramatic display) they were able to bring down a bloody and ruthless dictator. No, they didn't need handguns, just enough truth to convince the still-decent members of the police and military that it was time for a change.

If it didn't mean that there might be a temporary disruption of the flow of iPods and XBox 360's, something like that could happen here in the US. Check with me again after the adjustments of all the sub-prime mortgages reaches a peak in March. Another half a million foreclosures might just do the trick.