I’m not normally on the side of overpaid chief executives, but Joe Nacchio is the exception.^*

Nacchio was convicted of insider trading, but this has ju
st been overturned by the appellate court, and remanded back to the lower court, with a the old judge being removed from the case.

This is noteworthy, because much of the financial problems resulted from Qwest refusing to execute surveillance against the American public when requested to do so in February 2001, a full 7 months before the attacks on the Pentagon and WTC.

Basically, the judge excluded a number of arguments improperly, and he got seriously reamed out by the appellate court.

I believe that the prosecution was intended as a warning shot to other Telco executives by Bush and His Evil Minions^™, “You do whatever we tell you, and f%$# the law, or you sleep with the Fishes.

It was 2-1 decision, with one ultraconservative Bush II appointee, Jerome Holmes, siding with a Bush I appointee who dropped 3 grand at a strip club one night, and may have patronized an “adult dating service”. He also parks in handicapped parking, and threatens people who complains.

We really are going to have to “debushify” our government when this is all over.

^*Full disclosure, Qwest is my long distance carrier. I dumped AT&T and signed on with them about a year ago, specifically on the illegal surveillance issue.