Here’s a really interesting story that many people may not be familiar with. By now, we all know that every single major telecom CEO bent over submissively the minute the NSA came calling for data. Except one. A forgotten man in the entire NSA spy scandal is Joseph Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest, who actually refused to participate in the NSA’s illegal activities when they first propositioned him in 2001. Several years later, he was convicted of insider trading.
Perhaps I’m just a conspiracy theorist, but I find it quite coincidental that a country which lets Jon Corzine off the hook, a country where not a single CEO or executive of a financial institution was indicted with regard to the 2008 crisis, a country where James Clapper lies to Congress about the NSA and face zero repercussions; that in such a country the only major corporate CEO to go to jail for financial crimes is the one that refused to play ball with the NSA.
Well it seems the man himself shares such sentiments, and he continues to express them. Mr Nacchio was released from his four and a half year sentence on September 20th. More from the Washington Post:
Just one major telecommunications company refused to participate in a legally dubious NSA surveillance program in 2001. A few years later, its CEO was indicted by federal prosecutors. He was convicted, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released this month.
Prosecutors claim Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading, and that his prosecution had nothing to do with his refusal to allow spying on his customers without the permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But to this day, Nacchio insists that his prosecution was retaliation for refusing to break the law on the NSA’s behalf.
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