Did the NSA retaliate against Qwest?

October 11, 2007

It’s been a long while, so let’s quickly review. USA Today reported over a year ago that the NSA had created a massive database with records of nearly every phone call made in the United States. Qwest did not cooperate with the program, but acknowledged that the NSA asked the company to turn over the records and pressured Qwest pretty hard.

The Rocky Mountain News picks up the story today, reporting that the NSA not only leaned on Qwest, but retaliated against the company for refusing the agency’s requests. (via Atrios)

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 that 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 previously-sealed documents appear to paint quite a story.

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.

Nacchio has been talking about retaliation for a while, but we haven’t seen details like this before.

It’s a good time to be talking about telecom amnesty, isn’t it?

Obviously, the cowards who succumbed to White House demands should get immunity. The prison is already full of all the innocent people who didn’t comply.

Dan Rather was framed!

  • If the almighty Commander Guy has a direct line to God like he says he does, why does he need an agency like the NSA to help him spy?

  • Most interesting point, pacato!

    The meetings took place in February, 2001. If the program was in place prior to 9/11, which it appears that it was, why didn’t it result in the NSA stopping the attacks?

  • The reality is that Nachio’s back was against the wall in his insider trading case and he realized this sort of argument might ruffle enough feathers in the Government, perhaps enough to get him some leniency. If you look at the testimony, he was using fraudulent network swap arrangements for years to inflate Qwest’s reported revenue and earnings yet did not disclose them to Wall St. This in turn would boost his stock price while at the same time he unloaded it. If he was so bullish on the company’s prospects, why was he selling stock?

    So CB, tell me why does this convict have any credibility?

  • pacato said:

    Why was the NSA putting in place this program prior to September 11?

    Nacchio doesn’t actually make the claim that NSA asked for billing records before Sept. 11. CB is making an inference that, with all due respect, over-reaches the article.

    There WAS a program being implemented before 9/11 that was approved by the Clinton administration in 1999 or so. I’ve been racking my brains trying to remember some of the details. It was NOT a surveillance program, but it could very well be the program that Nacchio cutely refuses to talk about.

    I’m with JRS Jr. Nacchio was previously implicated in the Global Crossings fiasco – he’s not an ethical man, and this may be nothing but theatre.

  • I’m with Picato and Gridlock, the Feb 2001 date jumped out at me as well. I sure would like to know more about that.

  • http://www.slate.com/id/2133564/

    The New York Times reported in December [2005] that since 9/11, leading telecommunications companies “have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.” Citing current and former government and corporate officials, the Times reported that the companies have granted the NSA access to their all-important switches, the hubs through which colossal volumes of voice calls and data transmissions move every second. A former telecom executive told us that efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president’s now celebrated secret executive order. The source, who asked not to be identified so as not to out his former company, reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a “data-mining” operation, which might eventually cull “millions” of individual calls and e-mails.

    It’s entirely possible that the “former telecom executive” in the story is Nacchio himself.

    Now, what was that implementation I remember?

  • Seems that both parties lack credibility — Nacchio and the NSA. I suspect both are guilty, but only one stood trial.

    As for the telco amnesty… it’s a poor excuse for a corrupt government.

  • Re #6:

    Nacchio doesn’t actually make the claim that NSA asked for billing records before Sept. 11. CB is making an inference that, with all due respect, over-reaches the article.

    In Steve’s defense, the original article does argue that “The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program”. And it says the retaliation occured in 2001; that’s when the contracts under discussion were awarded to other companies. This can only mean that the NSA asked for, and was refused, calling records well before 9/11 .

    Maybe this is not true. But if so, the over-reaching is byThe Rocky Mountain News, not CBR.

  • I somehow recall that there was a program the Administration wanted to implement that had something to do with accumulating records that was headed by a General that supposedly got deep-sixed due to privacy concerns and didn’t really disappear, just became cloaked in another agency…help me remember…senior moments are hell…

  • The program that Always hopeful is thinking about is the Total Information Awareness. It was headed up by Iran-Contra figure Admiral John Poindexter. You can find more information, perhaps not total information, about it at EPIC.

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