You live in a Banana Republic

by Kagro X

Thu Oct 11, 2007 at 05:00:54 PM PDT

This is a huge and wide-ranging story. Let me see if I can draw upon some of what's already been written about it to compress it into a manageable narrative.

OK, first there's this:

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.

Surprised? Of course not. Nor should you be.