Qwest Punished by NSA for Non-Cooperation 170
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. '"
Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
But when you're talking about people correlation is often causation. Especially when you're talking about people who've already demonstrated a lack of ethics. In this case I have no doubt that retaliation was the motive for pulling the contracts.
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It only supports the allegations if you make unwarranted assumptions. There's nothing in the article that supports the allegations but the CEO's own allegations.
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not cooperate, and Redmond is in that territory, that future
events hatched in Redmond will not be linked.
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Really? Qwest's accountants are considering non-existent contracts as future earnings for financial statements? The SEC will be happy to know that, why don't you suggest that over there?
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The chances of getting said contract and the likely impact on future earnings, however, can be estimated. Whether or not this estimate should be taken into account in any public, official, or other announcements of estimated future profits depends on particular laws of the country the corporation in
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No it's worse, this occurred before 9/11 which makes the white house claim of breaking the law to fight 9/11 terrorism a lie.
It's a good thing Bush has expanded the use of making things secret or else we might have enough evidence to impeach.
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It isn't the bush bashing that gets me, it is all the changing accusations that when they don't work seem to get dates changes and so on in order to inflame people. So seriously, what are you claiming happened before 9/11. And please be nice with some creditably links.
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Now of course if he has any evidence of the criminal activities of the NSA in other countries he c
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Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
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The implication seemed to be that somewhere along the like the gubment pulled the "state secrets" card out of their deck, again.
They sure do seem to have a lot of those. Isn't there some sort of tournament rule about having your deck be all one card?
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So If you sue the government - they win because they play the state secrets card.
The government comes after you - they play the state secrets card and win.
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"...documents released Wednesday suggest."
Reading comprehension FTW.
The SEC is an independent regulatory agency! (Score:2)
But hey, it's an anti-Bush allegation, so let's greenlight it!
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Executive branch independent agencies are not part of a fourth branch of government; they are part of the executive branch
And they list the CIA as an example Independent Agency. The President certainly has the authority to order the CIA around.
Idiot (Score:2)
The SEC consists of five p
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Nothing involving people is apolitical. Everyone brings their viewpoint and interpretation to the job.
I have no idea whether Bush was involved in any of this, but to say that it's impossible is naive.
Even if Bush couldn't fire Cox directly, to say that crossi
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Christopher Cox is the current chairman of the SEC. He was appointed by President George W. Bush.
Right. Non-political. Sure. Like the Justice Department.
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The SEC is NOT an independent regulatory agency! (Score:2)
See http://www.sec.gov/about/commissioner.shtml [sec.gov]
Much like the FTC, the SEC can and will refuse to investigate or take action on politically sensitive.
Bush could appoint a commissioner who could not only flush his toilet but clean it with a tooth brush and more...
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The US Attorneys issue is pretty well-known. Here is a regulatory body that supposedly depends on its objectivism to enforce the law throughout the USA, yet was systematically purged of members who did not prosecute or avoid prosecution when told by political operatives, in many states.
White House political operatives - Rove and his st
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And apart from the fact that one document wasn't the official document even though the person who typed the original official document has stated that the words on the document (you know the actual important element) were accurate, he was right. The story was true and nobody has yet stepped up with an
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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And we have no way of knowing if the other big telcomm companies got similiar offers.
It's an assumption based on the testimony of someone with a pretty big agenda item (avoiding prison). It is not a fact.
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the opening paragraph of the linked article indicates that they thought it did mean that.
Although, I don't think it's the domestic spying program that's been in the news. The article seems to infer that he had refused to participate in some unnamed program (which predated 9/11) which he said would be "was both inappropriate and illegal".
I think the summary seems valid (as it's largely direct quotes from the article).
It seems to be the article which is drawing the conclusion that there was some secret/illegal program (possibly a precursor to the current one) involving the phone system, and that Nacchio's refusal to go along with it.
If I understand it, they're saying that had he been able to cite these secret contracts with the government as to why he thought they'd do well (but couldn't release the info to shareholders) he might have had a defense against his insider trading clauses -- because he would have been prohibited by law from divulging them.
Now, as to how much you can attribute the actions of the NSA et all to retaliation for not participating in the now infamous domestic spying program -- that seems like speculation in the article. It seems like the summary is merely conflating "a" phone spying program with "the" phone spying program. The poster of the article doesn't seem to have so much sensationalized, as slightly mis-interpreted.
Cheers
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Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
No, the summary correctly says "According to a story from the Rocky Mountain news
Now, as to how much of the things implied in the actual article can actually be considered fact, that's an entirely different matter. Some of the argument seems a little specious and vague to me. They're conclusions drawn by someone who has read a document I've never seen. It's not even really clear on who drew the conclusions.
I'm defending neither the article, nor its conclusions. But, I will say that I don't think that the person who posted the summary made it any more sensationalist than the actual article was, give or take a slight mis-interpretation of which (alleged) illegal spying program was at issue here. The summary merely treats it as fact that the Rocky Mountain news did, in fact, make assertions which are in line with the summary. Having RTFA, I can only determine that the poster didn't draw his own sensationalist conclusion, he slightly botched someone else's sensational conclusions.
All other aspects about the truthiness of the article are outside of the scope of anything I've said or plan to say, since it's all hearsay by the time we read it.
Cheers
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Check the article yourself if you doubt it. Look at the sidebar "RELATED LINKS" and click on the "CIPA 9" objection. It's a poorly scanned black-and-white document, but you can see a redacted section on the first page. This presumably mentions the NSA's illegal request. After that, you can read, "the agency retaliated for this refusal by denying the Groundbreaker and perhaps other work to Qwest."
Other people
Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
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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
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The administration has done enough bad things - but that doesn't stop the brainless ones. They have to make shit up ("Iraq was attacked in retaliation for 9/11, the President said so") and, in this case, ignore the differences between fact and implication and between correlation and cau
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While story !=summary, it's onerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Good conspiracy stuff. Kennebunkport and B-52s, anyone?
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Re:While story !=summary, it's onerous (Score:4, Interesting)
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Is this two wrongs making a 'right' (e.g. personal profit with knowledge that cannot legally be revealed) or is it good old American profiteering, nice and smarmy and probably legal?
Or is this just another snake eating its tail....
In my judgment, the NSA illegally monitors and coopts the telcos. He bucks the trend, and then it's uh
huh? (Score:4, Funny)
What? That didn't make any sense in the summary, or in TFA. I didn't bring my bad grammar decoder ring to work today, can someone translate?
Re:huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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According to Nacchio, he was expecting to get some secret government contracts which would have allowed Qwest to make its sales projections. This he would not have been lying when, 8 months (or something like that) before the Qwest debacle, he sold (dumped?) a bunch of stock.
He's probably right in that he was prosecuted because he turned up his nose at the NSA. If he hadn't the justice department probably would have looked away from his "little transgressions".
Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)
The assertion is that when he was CEO he had been told by the government he would be getting big, huge contracts. He used that as a basis to express positive earnings potential. When he declined to participate in a program he felt would have been illegal, they pulled those contracts.
They seem to be implying that, had he been allowed to at is insider trading trial, he would have referenced said contracts in his defense. But, he was prevented, possibly by the government or the judge. They refer to a heavily redacted document to support the belief that he wasn't doing anything illegal, but legitimately had a reason to believe the company had good things coming in the future, and therefore wasn't doing illegal insider trading. (ie. There really was a secret program he was being courted to help with, after he refused, they hung him out to dry).
Another implication, is that before 9/11, the White House was looking at implementing a program involving phones, and the NSA, and that the individual in question felt that it would have been illegal. By inference, this is related to the now well-known but not acknowledged (but still illegal) domestic spying program. There's little evidence offered to support this link.
At least, that's my best understanding of it.
Cheers
Where are the grammer police when you need them? (Score:2)
Domestic spying (Score:2, Insightful)
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Analyzing data, like calling patterns, in which you have no reasonable expectation of privacy requires no warrant either. Like pen registers, the government does not need a warrant for this type of monitoring.
Telcos need immunity to prevent frivolous strike suits by people like you that think "these guys were doing something illegal."
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BTW, what makes you think that call patterns don't fall under a "reasonable expectation of privacy"? I'm guessing you and those like you who love to give the government the benefit of the doubt are in a distinct minority.
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Immunity allows the defendant telcos to get an immediate dismissal of the suit on a motion to dismiss. One filing, a hearing, and the suit is out the door, saving millions defending frivolous lawsuits.
BTW, what makes you think that call patterns don't fall under a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?
The Supreme Court of the United States says so.
I'm guessing you and those like you who
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"We doubt that people in general entertain any actual expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial," Justice Harry Blackmun wrote. He noted the court had said "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties."
That is IMHO an incorrect reading of American's expectations, and the foundation of the quote is dangerous: In the age of digital transmission, the entire phone conversation is turned ove
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2. If what is being done is not illegal, there would be no need to try and grant the telcom companies retroactive immunity for their non-crimes.
3. Since the Bush administration is trying to push retroactive immunity, what is being done is illegal, i.e. spying on Americans.
Moreover, attempts to hide illegal activity of this type would be consistent with Bush administrati
Wait, WHEN did this happen? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
What makes you think that this "War on Terror" (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:What makes you think that this "War on Terror" (Score:5, Interesting)
Also see the European Parliament's report on ECHELON, from July of 2001. Note that the investigation that lead to the report began in the year 2000.
The tools of this "war on terror" were being deployed well in advance of 9/11. If we are to give the government the benefit of the doubt, one would suggest it started with the 1993 bombings of US embessies, and a genuine fear that it would escallate. To be more cynical, one might think that it is about certain government agecies trying to maintain their own value after the fall of Communism. Human nature being what it is, both positions are probably true at the same time.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON [wikipedia.org]
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(just a small selection)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/10/18/1419245 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/06/04/1915248 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/05/1044228 [slashdot.org]
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/09/30/1429227 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/03/1258257 [slashdot.org]
I seem to remember there being quite the uproar back then...
Not so fast... (Score:4, Interesting)
IMHO, Qwest's motives are suspect, and this article with its sensationalist flavor reads almost like it came from Qwest's PR office.
As is usual with opinions, YMMV.
QWEST - not my favorite (Score:2)
God for Qwest...but what now? (Score:2)
The topic itself is redacted each time it appears in the hundreds of pages of documents, but there is mention of Nacchio believing the request was both inappropriate and illegal, and repeatedly refusing to go along with it.
The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest.
I'm glad Qwest did the right thing. But my next question is, who did those contracts go to, and what illegal thing is THAT company doing right now? Unfortunately, the documents that would indicate this are sealed. There might be the makings of another EFF/ACLU -vs- AT&T case hiding amongst those documents.
Bribe (Score:2)
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And In Soviet Russia .... (Score:2)
(( Sigh. Some things just never change. ))
Bush is a vindictive SOB! (Score:2)
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The timeline doesn't match up! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/inaugural-address.html [whitehouse.gov]
and since it was not presented at trial (Score:2)
Joey Nachos is a vanquished robbing tyrant, and his lawyer is an idiot.
Don't like a story? Don't comment. (Score:5, Insightful)
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~S
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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
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Data mining *your own data* isn't spying. The phone companies data mining the phone records of their own customers isn't spying. The federal government data mining the phone records of tens of millions of US citizens is spying
No. The government can look at pen register information, which is nothing more than data mining call connection information, all it wants and no warrant is required, for example. It isn't spying. So sayeth the Supreme Court. Analyzing national calling patterns is as much spying as
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No, obtaining information about people without their knowledge or consent is spying. Data mining is what you do with the information after you've collected it.
So tell me, how do we get the data I need without manually searching each and every record? (replace "data I need" with terrorist and "every record" with citizen)
Maybe you don't.
Your right to find a potential criminal does not outweigh the rights of millions of people to have their personal affairs remain their personal affairs.
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One could also say
But it's also worth noting that limiting government powers provide no guarantee against abuse, while increasing its powers *is* an effective protection against crime.
An example would be a traffic cop does a better job at enforcing speed limits on the Interstate in a Crown Vic than he would on a bicycle.
The police stand a much better chance of finding a stolen car if they are allowed to run license plates against a database (in other words, datamine)
Police stand a much better chance of serv
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Also power is not directly related to the tools used. A car is more
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In short, gov contracts are either competitively bid, or they are single sourced. In the former case, if you're the low bidder and will deliver the products, then you "win". They can't give it to someone else without negatin
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Explain to me how the NSA is not simultaneously spying on the Americans?
Do they only hear the foreign side of the conversation?
Thought so. You got nuthin.
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No, you're getting two separate programs confused.
The warrantless wiretapping is only for international calls (with origin either inside or outside the United States, but at least one party has to be outside).
The data mining does not include listening to any content of the phone calls, just calle
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But I'd say Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul would do a far better job. Al Gore certainly would have done a better job.
New! (Score:2)
Now, the people who brought you borderless Libertarianism bring you this exciting new product...
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