Phone Companies Muzzled On Eavesdropping, October 16, 2007
However, last week a Colorado court unsealed documents in the case of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, who was convicted of insider trading in April. Nacchio, who is appealing his conviction, maintains the National Security Agency asked Qwest to allow it to conduct electronic surveillance without a court order in February 2001, six months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
From
Glen Greenwald at
Salon:
October 15, 2007
Nacchio -- who was convicted earlier this year of insider trading for selling his Qwest shares with insider knowledge that the company was about to lose substantial value -- is attempting to prove that, at the time he sold his shares, he anticipated that Qwest would receive highly lucrative government contracts (for surveillance and other programs) that were being negotiated almost immediately upon Bush's inauguration in 2001 -- months before the 9/11 attacks (the bulk of those projects was ultimately awarded to AT&T, Verizon and others).
To prove that, Nacchio has submitted voluminous (and heavily redacted) documentation (.pdf) detailing the vast number of projects which the Bush administration (and, to a lesser extent, the Clinton administration) was pursuing in joint cooperation with the telecom industry. Those documents were released last week, and there are two critical points that become crystal clear from reviewing them:
.....
Nacchio's conviction was overturned in 2008. It looks like the Bush hacks weren't deterred by that:
Court Reinstates Conviction of Former Qwest CEO, February 25, 2009
DENVER (AP) -- A federal appeals court reinstated the insider trading conviction of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio on Wednesday and said he could be ordered to begin serving a 6-year prison sentence.
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had overturned the conviction last year, ruling that the trial judge improperly barred testimony from a defense witness.
But on a 5-4 vote, the full 10th Circuit said Wednesday the trial court was ''well within its discretion'' to keep the witness off the stand.
The four dissenting judges disagreed strongly. ''We have nagging doubts about the district judge's sense of fairness toward this defendant. If the decision here was not an abuse of discretion, we wonder what one would look like,'' they wrote.
.....
Acting U.S. Attorney David Gaouette said the ruling means ''justice has been served.''
Former U.S. Attorney Troy Eid, who helped oversee the government's case against Nacchio, said he never doubted the conviction would be reinstated.
''It's exactly as it should have been from the get-go,'' he said.
.....
Remember, this is
Troy "I don't have an Abramoff problem" Eid, a Bush-appointed
hack US Attorney, who
resigned one day before Obama was inaugurated.
Good riddance.
Hopefully, Nacchio will appeal his case, and we will hear more about the infinite scope of Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping.
Mr. President, the
now-remaining 50 Bush-installed US Attorneys at DOJ need to be jettisoned. Please do not wait much longer.