4 ms·

It helped that Nacchio was actually blatantly guilty of insider trading and all sorts of super shady behavior. It's unlikely his prosecution even had anything

by cdr 12y ago

It helped that Nacchio was actually blatantly guilty of insider trading and all sorts of super shady behavior. It's unlikely his prosecution even had anything to do with the NSA, as much as he likes to tell that story. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25488178/past-qwest-govt-chief-disputes-nacchios-claim-nsa http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25488178/past-qwest-go...

Istof 12y ago
That might be true, but law enforcement agencies are trained to reconstruct evidence via a process called "parallel construction" to avoid revealing their sources (NSA for example) so you might never know the whole thruth: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140203/11143926078/parallel-construction-revealed-how-dea-is-trained-to-launder-classified-surveillance-info.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140203/11143926078/parall...
insuffi 12y ago
I don't know if I would call it blatant guilt. The prosecution of insider trading in this case seemed to be very selective. How often do CEOs go to jail for that?
joe_the_user 12y ago
Your link isn't even an account of the trial or the details of the charges, it's just one guy disputing one version of the Nacchio story. The "fraud" involved an overly optimistic assessment of Qwest's future. That might indeed legally be fraud but it's hardly blatant in the sense one might argue it's a fairly common occurrence and most instances of such behavior go to civil, not criminal court. "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. This helped it buy up regional phone rival US West, the government alleges." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio#Insider_trading.2C_fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio#Insider_trading....
CamperBob2 12y ago
Interesting, but if Nacchio's so shady and unethical, I wonder why he didn't just do the easy, obvious thing, and play ball with the NSA?
healingplasma 12y ago
If politicians in DC can trade on inside information [1], I don't see what makes it such a crime. The amount of hypocrisy in this country is just mind boggling. It's teaching the public horrible lessons. It seems like anyone can break the law in very public fashion these days so long as they haven't angered the wrong people, nobody cares. It's selective enforcement of laws and often times the selective enforcement is unjustifiable. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3DZh1109W8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3DZh1109W8
hagbardgroup 12y ago
With enough budget and motivation, it'd be easy to paint even you -- regardless of who you are and what you have done -- as a villain, especially with the cooperation of the press.
throwaway2048 12y ago
Selective prosecution is a key tool of an oppressive government, reposting one of my comments here, which was related to a politician seemingly getting a similar treatment: The problem with your post is exactly why selective prosecution is the very embodiment of an oppressive regime. After all they DID break the law, and they SHOULD be punished right? Who could argue with that. Meanwhile half of Washington is doing the same thing, with the full knowledge of people like the NSA, and the facts are sure to come out if they take a meaningful stand against their agenda. The example of the soviet election is also an excellent one. They knew every bit of information about every candidate, and merely had to expose the ones that didn't toe the line properly as the criminals or terrible people they were. Just like every single other person ever, they did something illegal or unsavory at some point in their life. Make no aspersions, the kind of information the NSA holds is complete and total political power. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068 You an absolutely be sure that at the bare minimum a large minority of CEOs of large company are in or have been in a similar situation. Laws on insider trading are very all encompassing and are broken on a regular basis by practices that are considered normal. It may have been fraud, and it may have been illegal, but that dosen't make it any less of a leveraging tool for people like the NSA.

by cdr 12y ago

Istof 12y ago

That might be true, but law enforcement agencies are trained to reconstruct evidence via a process called "parallel construction" to avoid revealing their sources (NSA for example) so you might never know the whole thruth: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140203/11143926078/parallel-construction-revealed-how-dea-is-trained-to-launder-classified-surveillance-info.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140203/11143926078/parall...

insuffi 12y ago

I don't know if I would call it blatant guilt. The prosecution of insider trading in this case seemed to be very selective. How often do CEOs go to jail for that?

joe_the_user 12y ago

Your link isn't even an account of the trial or the details of the charges, it's just one guy disputing one version of the Nacchio story. The "fraud" involved an overly optimistic assessment of Qwest's future. That might indeed legally be fraud but it's hardly blatant in the sense one might argue it's a fairly common occurrence and most instances of such behavior go to civil, not criminal court. "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. This helped it buy up regional phone rival US West, the government alleges." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio#Insider_trading.2C_fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio#Insider_trading....

CamperBob2 12y ago

Interesting, but if Nacchio's so shady and unethical, I wonder why he didn't just do the easy, obvious thing, and play ball with the NSA?

healingplasma 12y ago

If politicians in DC can trade on inside information [1], I don't see what makes it such a crime. The amount of hypocrisy in this country is just mind boggling. It's teaching the public horrible lessons. It seems like anyone can break the law in very public fashion these days so long as they haven't angered the wrong people, nobody cares. It's selective enforcement of laws and often times the selective enforcement is unjustifiable. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3DZh1109W8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3DZh1109W8

hagbardgroup 12y ago

With enough budget and motivation, it'd be easy to paint even you -- regardless of who you are and what you have done -- as a villain, especially with the cooperation of the press.

throwaway2048 12y ago

Selective prosecution is a key tool of an oppressive government, reposting one of my comments here, which was related to a politician seemingly getting a similar treatment: The problem with your post is exactly why selective prosecution is the very embodiment of an oppressive regime. After all they DID break the law, and they SHOULD be punished right? Who could argue with that. Meanwhile half of Washington is doing the same thing, with the full knowledge of people like the NSA, and the facts are sure to come out if they take a meaningful stand against their agenda. The example of the soviet election is also an excellent one. They knew every bit of information about every candidate, and merely had to expose the ones that didn't toe the line properly as the criminals or terrible people they were. Just like every single other person ever, they did something illegal or unsavory at some point in their life. Make no aspersions, the kind of information the NSA holds is complete and total political power. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068 You an absolutely be sure that at the bare minimum a large minority of CEOs of large company are in or have been in a similar situation. Laws on insider trading are very all encompassing and are broken on a regular basis by practices that are considered normal. It may have been fraud, and it may have been illegal, but that dosen't make it any less of a leveraging tool for people like the NSA.