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I spoke bluntly about what I had seen in a little over a year as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. To the apparent surprise of many in the room, I observed publicly that insider trading appeared to be rampant.

I'm not an ultra-libertarian who thinks there shouldn't be insider-trading laws at all.

If companies tell us more, insider trading will be worth less.

Insider trading is hard to prove. To be convicted, a person must have bought or sold a stock based on material information that is both unknown to the general public and likely to have had an important effect on a company's stock price.

Significant officials at publicly traded companies are casually and cavalierly engaged in insider trading. Because insider trading has as one of its elements communication, it doesn't take rocket science to realize it's nice to have the communication on tape.

Securities fraud generally and insider trading in particular should be eminently deterrable crimes.

Insider trading tells everybody at precisely the wrong time that everything is rigged, and only people who have a billion dollars and have access to and are best friends with people who are on boards of directors of major companies - they're the only ones who can make a true buck.

Tiptoeing on a tightrope past insider trading laws may be deft and clever, but it doesn't make it right.

Insider trading by hedge funds has a long and distinguished history, dating to the days when people didn't know that there was such a thing as a hedge fund.

Without the right tools, we can't police our markets from illegal trade.