August 12, 2010
The Commission's consolidated audit trail concept is despicable, a Big Brother/Total Information Awareness program for financial transactions. If made effective, this vile scheme would invade the privacy of every American transacting in U.S. securities markets. It would constitute a permanent and ever-growing tax on trading, as the volume of data forcibly extracted from consumers grows inexorably in storage ad surveillance systems. It would erect anti-competitive barriers to entry into exchange and related businesses, insulating incumbents and retarding innovation in the process. It is difficult to conceive of a more monstrous, arrogant, destructive proposal from an agency with a rich tradition of monstrous, arrogant, and destructive proposals. Shame on you for promulgating this trash. Do your fellow Americans a favor and resign in shame. That's what you should have done months ago for your complicity in the massive financial frauds of Madoff and the large investment banks.