..for insider trading. You are implying that he went to prison because of the NSA. He went to prison because he sold $52 million in stock after the intelligence community said they would no longer consider Qwest for classified government contracts because of his refusal to cooperate with the NSA.
He went to prison because he sold stock based on insider information. Regardless of the reasons for his trade, it was still insider information.
That doesn't make sense based on the assumption that US telecom companies already cooperate extensively with US inteligence agencies.