The SEC

Ross · 08-19-2011, 06:02 AM

The SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes

Extract ..

Quote:

A whistle-blower claims that over the past two decades, the agency has destroyed records of thousands of investigations, whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals..........

Extract

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.....according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst .......

Source of extracts and full article
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...rimes-20110817

Samen · 08-19-2011, 06:33 AM

But the SEC, using history-altering practices that for once actually deserve the overused and usually hysterical term "Orwellian," devised an elaborate and possibly illegal system under which staffers were directed to dispose of the documents from any preliminary inquiry that did not receive approval from senior staff to become a full-blown, formal investigation.

Memory Hole

Kassy · 08-19-2011, 04:48 PM

The merry-go-round...

It's preposterous really.

Sysiphus · 08-19-2011, 05:21 PM

The SEC and agencies like it exist primarily to give the big banks and companies a regulatory regime to hide behind. I read the SEC Enforcement Bulletin every day (I am a securities lawyer, after all) - 99% of the time, they only go after the little guys. This makes it look like they are really doing something, and it is easier to push around the small-time fraudsters.

Kassy · 08-19-2011, 05:43 PM

I always wondered how Bernie Madoff got away with it.
That also has some 'marry-go-round'.

Is anyone supposed to regulate the SEC?

Sysiphus · 08-19-2011, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Is anyone supposed to regulate the SEC?

Ostensibly, it is independent. I have a few law school friends who got so fed up with things they left. You would not believe the internal politics and the level of pettiness. Half of the agency staff are incompetent crusaders who get their jollies bullying small bucket shops and day trading operations that rip off grandma and grandpa (not saying such folks should not be prosecuted, it's just a question of priorities). The other half are competent. They have the ability to go after the big boys, but instead are apologists for large financial institutions and big businesses who couldn't care less about investors. The Commissioners are similarly split. Thus it falls largely to the states to go after anyone big, which is pretty much what we have seen for the past 15 years.

Ought Six · 08-19-2011, 06:42 PM

Just to play the devil's advocate for a moment....

The cases in question were investigations that petered out and had been inactive for years, or closed cases. If you, as a stock broker or manager, had been the subject of an investigation that found nothing whatsoever, would you want whatever they dug up on you sitting around in a government file cabinet for years, or even decades? Because if the government decided for whatever reason to go after you again, they could pull that old file, and whatever was in it, whether relevant or not, could be used as leverage to squeeze you. Would you not think that having the fedgov destroy files years after investigations are over is in fact a necessary and desirable thing to protect the rights of those who were investigated? Or because they work on Wall Street, screw their rights, they do not deserve the protections we would have for ourselves, and let us just lynch the bastards?

/

Sysiphus · 08-19-2011, 07:04 PM

Cases peter out for a variety of reasons. It could be that there is no evidence, it could be there was no wrongdoing. But, it is often because the agency simply does not have the resources to pursue the case or because the agency has other priorities. It is with the latter that I have problems when they destroy the records.

Ought Six · 08-20-2011, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sysiphus

Cases peter out for a variety of reasons. It could be that there is no evidence, it could be there was no wrongdoing. But, it is often because the agency simply does not have the resources to pursue the case or because the agency has other priorities. It is with the latter that I have problems when they destroy the records.

So people should be left with a sword hanging over their head for years, not knowing when that old investigation might be reactivated, because a federal agency "has other priorities"? That hardly seems fair. If that was done to you, I think that you would be outraged.

Ross · 08-20-2011, 06:42 AM

There is abundant and overwhelming evidence showing gross
dereliction of duty by the SEC . So much so that to my mind
the only credible explanation is corruption .

Sysiphus · 08-22-2011, 02:20 PM

Quote:

So people should be left with a sword hanging over their head for years, not knowing when that old investigation might be reactivated, because a federal agency "has other priorities"?

In a word, yes.

Ought Six · 08-22-2011, 02:26 PM

In two words, "HELL, NO!" If you have a case, make it. If you do not, tough shit. At the very least we should have a law requiring the shredding of case files for inactive cases after the statute of limitations has expired. And that statute of limitations should be a reasonably short period.

Kassy · 08-22-2011, 04:48 PM

The stuff was deleted/shredded/destroyed before the legal limit.

Ought Six · 08-22-2011, 05:01 PM

The statute of limitations is, what, seven years? Too long.

The government collects more and more information on people. 'Suspicion' has become enough for you to be treated like a criminal for years. Being a suspect does not mean you forfeit your rights. If prosecutors have made the decision that they are not going to further pursue the case, they should be required by law to shred the files then and there. Government collecting, collating and keeping information on its citizens to use against them later should be an outrageous and totally unacceptable concept to any freedom-loving individual. The law should not allow keeping information other than records of criminal convictions and information needed for active investigations. As I said, murder is the exception, as it already is in the laws of almost all nations.

Dietrich · 08-22-2011, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ought Six

The statute of limitations is, what, seven years?

It depends on the crime.

Malcolm · 08-22-2011, 07:39 PM

People have little faith that "the right people" are in charge of things these day.
I stumbled on a job vacancy last week and have a feeling it has some-thing last weeks Stock Market Crash. A.S.I.C. stands for Australian Security Investments Commision.
To have a job like this become vacant in the middle of a Stock Market Crash is "suspicious"...........I applied for it and sent my resume as a "Forklift Driver" and told them I could do the job...........ha ha ha cheque out the link
http://jobsearch.gov.au/findajob/job...chresults.aspx