14 DAY TRIAL // The plot thickens when it comes to the NSA saga that’s been going on for close to four months. The CEO of a major telecommunications company who refused to aid the NSA says he feels vindicated with the Snowden leaks.
While the prosecution claims Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading and his case has nothing to do with refusing to allow the NSA to spy on his customers without the input of the FISA court, the businessman believes everything was done in retaliation for refusing to break the law to aid the intelligence agency.
Nacchio was convicted several years after he refused to aid the NSA back in 2001, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released on September 20.
In an interview for the Wall Street Journal, the Qwest CEO says he feels vindicated by the content of the leaks showing the agency was collecting phone records of US citizens.
According to him, several months before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Nacchio was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers. He refused because his lawyers believed it would be illegal and the NSA didn’t want to go through the FISA Court.
While he may have sounded crazy before, his story holds nowadays when it’s been revealed that the NSA had been doing exactly that – conducting warrantless surveillance programs with the help of telecommunications companies.
Furthermore, he wasn’t even allowed to bring this up during his trial since the evidence needed to support his claims was deemed classified and the judge refused to let him use it.
Nacchio says he never broke the law and he never will. Whether he was really involved in insider trading or he was punished for not working with the NSA, we may never know.