Qwest Refused to Participate with Some Aspects of NSA Surveillance Program
October 11th, 2007Again, there’s something else that we’re not aware of yet. Something besides the run-of-the-mill surveillance. From the article about Qwest article below:
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 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.
This is almost certainly referring to the same issues about which former NSA officer Russell Tice said:
“In my case, there’s no way the programs I want to talk to Congress about should be public ever, unless maybe in 200 years they want to declassify them. You should never learn about it; no one at the Times should ever learn about these things.”
Full text follows.
Via: Rocky Mountain News:
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 what 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.
The documents suggest U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham refused to allow Nacchio to present the argument about retaliation. Nottingham also said Nacchio would have to take the stand to raise the classified defense.
Prosecutors have said they were prepared to poke holes in Nacchio’s classified defense.
Nacchio was convicted last spring on 19 counts of insider trading for $52 million of stock sales in April and May 2001, and sentenced to six years in prison. He’s free pending appeal.
The partially redacted documents were filed under seal before, during and after Nacchio’s trial. They were released Wednesday.
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 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.
USA Today reported in May 2006 that Qwest, unlike AT&T and Verizon, balked at helping the NSA track phone calling patterns that may have indicated terrorist organizational activities. Nacchio’s attorney, Herbert Stern, confirmed that Nacchio refused to turn over customer telephone records because he didn’t think the NSA program had legal standing.
In the documents, Nacchio also asserts Qwest was in line to build a $2 billion private government network called GovNet and do other government business, including a network between the U.S. and South America.
The documents maintain that Nacchio met with top government officials, including President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice in 2000 and early 2001 to discuss how to protect the government’s communications network.
They portray U.S. government officials, even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, worried about a “Pearl Harbor” type of attack on the Internet. As early as 1997, a three-star general talked to Nacchio about using Qwest’s new fiber-optic network for government purposes, according to the defense.
One key meeting with a government official was held at Qwest founder Phil Anschutz’s ranch near Greeley, with former Chief Financial Officer Robin Szeliga prevented from attending presumably because she lacked security clearance.
Nacchio was on a Bush-appointed national security telecommunications advisory panel. In March 2001, then-counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke asked the panel if it would be possible to build a private network for the government to protect it from cyberwarfare.
Nacchio piped up: “I already built this network twice” for other government agencies. The defense asserts Nacchio believed Qwest would be asked to build the network and that it could do so in six months.
But the contract didn’t materialize.
Related: NSA, AT&T and the NarusInsight Intercept Suite
Related: Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation
I’ve written before that I pulled all monies under my control in 2006 out of the stock market. And the reason for doing so?
That Bush wrote an Executive Order that allowed then Negroponte to allow ATT and Verizon to NOT REPORT on their books the cost of colluding with Bush on spying on Americans. Imagine, two mega giant telecommunciations providers, with publicly held stock, given the proviso, by the POTUS, visa vie Executive Order, to LIE to their stockholders on their balance sheets. I heard this driving home one day in my car, on Marketplace.org.
I figured that the day that anyone or anything, be it a company (read Enron) is given license to lie about their costs, expenses, WHATEVER is is the day I want out of it all.
I regret I don’t have the links to the reading material, but the Bushites have done their best to destroy Nachio since the day he resisted spying on Americans. Yes indeed.
ATT and Verizon can merge, surge and devour telecommunication companies like sharks feeding on minnows at leisure under the FCC: but Nacchio, he’s had his balls busted by the FCC, the CIA or whatever. You know what I mean. This administration is on a KILL regime when it comes to Nacchio. And if he doesn’t commit suicide by himself any day soon, be sure that we will soon read it in the news that he did.
Bush is now all out for protecting ATT and Verizon RETROACTIVELY against lawsuits filed against them for participating in the Bush- totally illegal, totally illegal, totally illegal spying program. George, ATT and Verizon – do you hear me now?
YOU SUCK.
I don’t think its alright by me to destroy Nachio who upheld the law, but then give the free pass to suck asses like ATT & Verizon and then allow them to suck up all the little guys, but then hammer Nachio who only had integrity, wanted a little piece of the cake, and then had his balls busted when he recognized revenue just too soon for the Nazi’s who laid the trap for him.
Unlike Tenet, Bremer, and the other numbnut sellouts that received a worthless medal from this worthless piece who doles out worthless medals for their parts in creating worthless world war without end with any peoples in the world with oil under their soil, NACCHIO has BALLS and HE SHOULD RECIEVE THE MEDAL FOR COMMON SENSE and INTEGRITY.
I for one think Nacchio has balls of steel to resist the lure of power, the promise of money, a feigned allegiance to DAS BUSH.
If I had any CASH I’d be buying stock in his company regardless of its worth or value as an investment. Now that I think of it, I have a stock broker that once was my landlord and recommened Quest years ago.
I think I’ll make a protest stock purchase tommorrow. Even if I buy 1 share and pay the commission, Wall Street and NANCY PELOSI, HILARY CLINTON, THE ENTIRE BUSH CULT AND ALL OF THE NEOCONS AND THE CULT OF FOX, THINK TANKS ETC THAT ARE THE HEMMORhOID’S OF THIS WORLD need some kind of hard reaming up their petunia’s that there is REAL VALUE in a company and a CEO THAT DOESN’T GO WITH THE PROGRAM OF LYING, CHEATING, STEALING, and SPYING.
I won’t apologize. The crusade against Nacchio really chaps my ass.
Find a way to read about Nachio and what Bush and his cronies have done to destroy him. I can’t tonight. Wish I could.
Apparently I’ve fallen for the scam eileen. According to many, Nacchio has chapped many asses himself. Not arguing, but what is it you see in him that makes him a “hero”? Links, explanations, anything would help. I find your line of reasoning intriguing. Very intriguing. And not in a potential flame war sort of way. Just intriguing in a way I’ve never ever considered.
I will hazard a guess and say some unknown technology is at work here.
I pretty much presume these days that all communication significantly greater than whispering in someone’s ear is monitored, saved, cateloged and indexed these days (the fine point is that they don’t have the analysts to even attempt to comb through it -now-). I base this mostly on my own knowledge of the surveillance technology available during the 80’s. Interestingly enough, the technology back then is fairly close to what they ADMIT to having now. This of course is absurd. Between that time and now, two full epoch in computer time has passed. Back then, they snooped on what they COULD, now they CAN snoop on everything and therefore they almost certainly do.
Now, for the sake of argument, assuming I’m right and they are snooping on pretty much all electronic forms for communication… that STILL would not warrant keeping such a thing secret from the public for 200 years! There’s got to me more to it than that IMO. I hessitate to go even further into speculation-land, but I’m thinking along the lines of monitoring being done even when electronic communication devices are not (actively) being used… like the cell phone stuff Kevin previously reported on perhaps, but not limited to cell phones.
tsoldrin, you need to read this article kevin wrote regarding those possibilities you mention. https://cryptogon.com/?p=956