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0 pointssnowwrestler12y ago0 comments

I can see two sides to this.

On one hand, the CEO of Qwest was convicted of insider trading, and he claims it was retaliation by the NSA because Qwest would not participate in warrantless wiretapping.

On the other hand, the federal government had a perfect excuse to prosecute Steve Jobs in 2006 with the options backdating scandal, but chose not to. Those would not have been baseless charges--Apple really did backdate those options. The government just concluded that Jobs was not personally culpable.

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sillysaurus12y ago

Well, PRISM seems to have been created in '07. Plus Apple didn't matter very much in '06 -- not in the same way Google mattered. Apple didn't have much user data for the government to be interested in, because iPhone didn't launch till June '07.

That's actually a perfect example of leverage that the government would have used against a technology company to pressure them into doing the government's bidding.

specialist12y ago

I remain astonished that Martha Stewart was targeted, convicted, and jailed. I don't care either way if she did some thing wrong. I care about the unequal application of justice.

In contrast, I can't imagine anyone targeting Oprah. She'd destroy (PR-wise) anyone challenging her. Recall that beef lobby's attacks.

Jobs is like Silicon Valley's Oprah.

astrodust12y ago

Maybe they were using it as leverage.

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