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>jailed for not complying with the illegal requests of the surveillance state From the wiki page: >On March 15, 2005, Nacchio and six other former Qwest execu

>jailed for not complying with the illegal requests of the surveillance state From the wiki page: >On March 15, 2005, Nacchio and six other former Qwest executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They were accused of a $3 billion financial fraud between 1999 and 2002 and of benefiting from an inflated stock price.

gowld 5y ago
> In its case, the government stated that Nacchio continued to tell Wall Street that Qwest would be able to achieve aggressive revenue targets long after he knew that they could not be achieved. Interesting that Nacchio was prosecuted for this but almost no one else is.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  The very same article states that he was found to have produced false accounting records and talked up the company's outlook despite knowing it was losing business and selling his own shares. He got caught on the insider trading. There's nothing noteworthy here.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    It was well known why Google got rid of their "don't be evil" tagline... except now nowhere on the internet seems to have a record of the exact reason either... These kinds of stories get 'forgotten' very quickly.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      what on earth is this trying to imply? That google bleached the internet? Google got rid of the don't be evil tagline because it didn't fit with their corporate mission anymore, which was objectively more boring and more profit driven.
      - ranger_danger 5y ago
        they're probably implying it was a sort of warrant canary or that they did not comply with overreaching government wiretap requests (the assumption being that now they do).
        spywaregorilla 5y ago
        I find that to be a pretty charming belief. It's probably correlated timeline wise with when such things did change on that, but I highly doubt it was the reason for the mission statement change.
  - ikiris 5y ago
    It was well known in telecom at the time this was due to the nsa situation. Don't always take things at face value.
    - dapids 5y ago
      > Don't always take things at face value. You are literally presenting an opinion at face value ...
      - ikiris 5y ago
        Something is not an opinion just because you don't believe it.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      He could easily have just acknowledged what happened and not sold all of his stocks to avoid insider trading while the nsa situation still happened. It's nice that he refused the nsa. Doesn't absolve him of other fraud.
      - the-dude 5y ago
        Wasn't there a gag order involved?
        spywaregorilla 5y ago
        That does not prohibit you from being honest in your public statements about the financial health of the company, nor does it prevent you from following the same insider trading rules as everybody else.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    As I understand it, the explanation of the "false accounting records" and "losing business" had to do with expected government contracts vanishing because of refusing to cooperate about the NSA surveillance.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      Losing a contract with the NSA because they didn't play with the NSA certainly sounds like a real thing. Telling the markets that they would continue to see national security contracts when he knew they would not is another. Presenting false accounting records is entirely unrelated and just banal fraud. Selling your own shares while doing these things is even worse.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - r00fus 5y ago
      This really closes the loop. If the Feds cancelled contracts because of Nacchio's refusal to do business and then indicted him on fraud because he probably could not tell others that those contracts were cancelled (as with other similar wiretap/NSL requests)... That seems like a colossal Catch-22.
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        That's ridiculous. There's no NDA in the world that prevents you from disclosing the true financials of your company. You don't need to specify who you're serving. His charge of insider trading is because he blatantly lied about the company doing well to inflate the price while selling his shares knowing it was not.
        r00fus 5y ago
        That's exactly the kind of wording that NSLs require. It's why the idea of a "warrant canary" [1] came into existence. As to the selling of shares - prima facie, that's likely criminal (insider selling) but I don't know the details of his case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
swarnie 5y ago
Who signs your cheques, out of interest?

gowld 5y ago

> In its case, the government stated that Nacchio continued to tell Wall Street that Qwest would be able to achieve aggressive revenue targets long after he knew that they could not be achieved. Interesting that Nacchio was prosecuted for this but almost no one else is.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
The very same article states that he was found to have produced false accounting records and talked up the company's outlook despite knowing it was losing business and selling his own shares. He got caught on the insider trading. There's nothing noteworthy here.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  It was well known why Google got rid of their "don't be evil" tagline... except now nowhere on the internet seems to have a record of the exact reason either... These kinds of stories get 'forgotten' very quickly.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    what on earth is this trying to imply? That google bleached the internet? Google got rid of the don't be evil tagline because it didn't fit with their corporate mission anymore, which was objectively more boring and more profit driven.
    - ranger_danger 5y ago
      they're probably implying it was a sort of warrant canary or that they did not comply with overreaching government wiretap requests (the assumption being that now they do).
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        I find that to be a pretty charming belief. It's probably correlated timeline wise with when such things did change on that, but I highly doubt it was the reason for the mission statement change.
- ikiris 5y ago
  It was well known in telecom at the time this was due to the nsa situation. Don't always take things at face value.
  - dapids 5y ago
    > Don't always take things at face value. You are literally presenting an opinion at face value ...
    - ikiris 5y ago
      Something is not an opinion just because you don't believe it.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    He could easily have just acknowledged what happened and not sold all of his stocks to avoid insider trading while the nsa situation still happened. It's nice that he refused the nsa. Doesn't absolve him of other fraud.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      Wasn't there a gag order involved?
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        That does not prohibit you from being honest in your public statements about the financial health of the company, nor does it prevent you from following the same insider trading rules as everybody else.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  As I understand it, the explanation of the "false accounting records" and "losing business" had to do with expected government contracts vanishing because of refusing to cooperate about the NSA surveillance.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Losing a contract with the NSA because they didn't play with the NSA certainly sounds like a real thing. Telling the markets that they would continue to see national security contracts when he knew they would not is another. Presenting false accounting records is entirely unrelated and just banal fraud. Selling your own shares while doing these things is even worse.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - r00fus 5y ago
    This really closes the loop. If the Feds cancelled contracts because of Nacchio's refusal to do business and then indicted him on fraud because he probably could not tell others that those contracts were cancelled (as with other similar wiretap/NSL requests)... That seems like a colossal Catch-22.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      That's ridiculous. There's no NDA in the world that prevents you from disclosing the true financials of your company. You don't need to specify who you're serving. His charge of insider trading is because he blatantly lied about the company doing well to inflate the price while selling his shares knowing it was not.
      - r00fus 5y ago
        That's exactly the kind of wording that NSLs require. It's why the idea of a "warrant canary" [1] came into existence. As to the selling of shares - prima facie, that's likely criminal (insider selling) but I don't know the details of his case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

swarnie 5y ago

Who signs your cheques, out of interest?