Qwest news stories on Newser

Biggest Convention Donors Usually Need Favors

Nick McMaster — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:13:00 CDT

Major donors to the Democratic and GOP conventions this year either have business pending with politicians or have recently received a favorable ruling, the Los Angeles Times reports. From cable companies to a government union to an electric utility, millions of dollars have flowed into party coffers—but both sides...

Ex-Qwest CEO's Conviction Overturned

Nick McMaster — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:35:00 CDT

A federal appeals court overturned Joe Nacchio’s guilty verdict today and ordered a new trial for the ex-Qwest CEO before a different judge, the Denver Post reports. The court ruled that the district judge who presided over Nacchio's trial on insider trading charges erred in excluding testimony from an expert...

NSA Deepens Tense Alliance with Telecoms

Wesley Oliver — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:33:08 CST

The telecom industry will be all ears to proceedings beginning tomorrow on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers will decide if companies helping the government’s warrantless surveillance program should receive immunity. President Bush personally lobbied Congress to further the NSA’s tenuous alliance with the industry, whose members are increasingly resistant to phone...

Verizon Gave Up Hundreds of Phone Records

Nick McMaster — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:47:13 CDT

Verizon gave consumer phone records to the feds without court orders more than 700 times in the past 2 years, the telecom giant has told House investigators. In response to emergency requests, the company also passed along IP addresses, shedding light on the scope of telecom companies' cooperation with federal...

Ex-Qwest CEO Claims Spy Effort Began Before 9/11

Katherine Thompson — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:34:55 CDT

Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest Communications, claims that the National Security Agency asked his company in February, 2001, to participate in a potentially illegal surveillance program—and when he declined, punished the company by dropping a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, reports the Washington Post . The...

Ex-Qwest CEO Didn't Foresee Trouble Ahead

Jonas Oransky — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:54:07 CDT

Former Qwest chief Joseph Nacchio yesterday appealed an insider-trading conviction, claiming he couldn’t have known the telecommunications company was in dire straits when he sold $52 million in stock in 2001. Rebutting a federal court’s guilty finding on 19 counts, the brief asserts Nacchio “believed more than anyone else in...

Top Telecom Exec Takes Over As Qwest CEO

Peter Fearon — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:24:04 CDT

A top telecom veteran has been named CEO of struggling Qwest. Edward Mueller, 60-year-old former chief executive of Ameritech and Williams-Sonoma, takes the reins from Dick Notebaert, who ran the company for five years, the Wall Street Journal reports. The country's fourth-largest telephone company, Qwest faces increased pressure from competitors...

Ex-Qwest CEO Gets 6 Years

Sam Biddle — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:43:38 CDT

Qwest's former CEO was sentenced to 6 years in prison today for engaging in insider trading while the company's stock plummeted. Joseph Nacchio committed "crimes of overarching greed,'' a federal judge in Denver said as he fined him $19 million in addition to the $52 million he must forfeit,...