Nacchio and Qwest: Another Political Prosecution? Retaliation?

[L. Coyote]

The political odor of this legal case has never been proper.
The issue first arose on DU with the USA firings discussion.
* Justice Weighed Firing 1 in 4 - 26 Prosecutors Were Listed As Candidates
* http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2848874

Now, it's in mainstream press and serious legal blogs.

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Qwest: Another Political Prosecution?
BY Scott Horton - Oct 14, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001415

Last week, a career federal prosecutor friend told me, “Most of us have come to agree that there’s a real problem with political prosecutions on Bush’s watch, and that needs to be addressed, but you need to remind your readers that this is something truly exceptional and that the great mass of cases involve the normal functioning of the law enforcement system, with career professionals who are detached from political considerations.” For the record, I believe that’s true. I’m not sure how widespread the phenomenon of political prosecution is. I believe that it is no longer a question of “whether” such prosecutions have been brought—that’s now very well established. How widespread is this phenomenon? That’s an important question and the answers are unclear.

And this weekend more information has surfaced which would show the practice to be far more common that I first suspected. Last year, a Colorado lawyer told me that I should look at the insider trading litigation surrounding Qwest CEO Joseph P. Nacchio—there was strong evidence in that case of tawdry politics on the prosecution side. Of course, I knew that Nacchio was the only major telecom executive who refused to play ball with the administration on warrantless surveillance. But I did take a look at the case, and I didn’t see the evidence that was suggested.

But as of this morning, I have to admit that I misjudged the situation. It seems that the evidence was lacking because the trial judge suppressed it, not because it didn’t exist. There was a major account in yesterday’s Washington Post, and this morning in the New York Times. These accounts all stack up. Here’s Scott Shane’s summary for the Times:

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, ......

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Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm
Qwest Feared NSA Plan Was Illegal, Filing Says
By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Eggen - Oct 13, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485.html

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.

In the court filings disclosed this week, Nacchio suggests that Qwest's refusal to take part in that program led the government to cancel a separate, lucrative contract with the NSA in retribution. He is using the allegation to try to show why his stock sale should not have been considered improper. ...

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Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11 -
By SCOTT SHANE - Oct 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html?_r=2&ex=1350014400&en=d79ceb4f4ce279b1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, .....

The filings were made as Mr. Nacchio fought charges of insider trading. He was ultimately convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading and has been sentenced to six years in prison. He remains free while appealing the conviction.

Mr. Nacchio said last year that he had refused an N.S.A. request for customers’ call records in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, as the agency initiated domestic surveillance and data mining programs to monitor Al Qaeda communications.

But the documents unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Denver, first reported in The Rocky Mountain News on Thursday, claim for the first time that pressure on the company to participate in activities it saw as improper came as early as February, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks.

...............

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Joe Nacchio and SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance)
By J. Robert Brown, Jr., University of Denver Sturm College of Law, on Wednesday April 25, 2007 at 3:14 pm
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2007/04/25/joe-nacchio-and-sox/#more-98

I offer in this post some personal observations on the trial and conviction of Joe Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest Communications, as well as some thoughts about the impact of SOX. The Race to the Bottom has blogged the entire trial, with students or faculty attending all of the sessions. .....

...........had Nacchio had the benefits of SOX, it is unlikely that he would have been convicted of insider trading. Instead, he now faces as much as 15 years in prison for his offenses.

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Sarbanes-Oxley Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act

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Heading the NSA when tens of millions of Americans were admittedly spied on was Michael Hayden, the current CIA chief opposing the CIA Inspector General’s office for asking questions about criminals there too. Of course, what they actually did/do and what is currently admitted are not the same things!

My informant said they route ALL communications overseas to circumvent the law. Is the "cover story" of databasing
call info just that, the current fall-back cover story for a much larger crime, spying on everyone all the time?

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NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews. ..............

[soothsayer]

1. yes

[Supersedeas]

2. another one of the 'trial' slipping under the Media radar