Yeah, as I understand it though, the SEC rules are to allow investigations (and "enforcement actions"/lawsuits) to happen quickly. I saw one of these "investigations" happening at one point and had no idea it was an investigation until I was casually informed that the strange people in the office were from the SEC and they had some questions about some trades, and that it happens all the time.

> the strange people in the office

What made them strange, other than the fact you didn't know who they were?

Yes, that is the definition of “strange”.

In a 100-person company full of T-shirt wearers, ~4 random men walking around the trading floor in the middle of the day (a big no-no for any sort of guest) in suits is strange.

When I was in a bank we were asked to dress up in times when BaFin (German SEC) was expected in the campus.

That probably happened the first dozen or so times, until staff got over it. ;)

Not if it was Deutsche: they actually have things to hide and an appearance to keep up.

As I understand it, the bankers and regulators who came around and knew the territory usually dressed down for the occasion (polos and slacks). Asking people to dress up would never have worked at this firm, and the SEC never went past the "investigation" phase anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. People who worked there were never told there were visitors - it apparently was actually a frequent occurrence, but they were using a different conference room that one day.

The guy who handled the regulators wore button-down shirts when they were around, and any traders/engineers who had to talk to them often were told to wear a button-down, but that was it.

People from "real Wall Street" who joined usually had a phase of dressing up before they adopted full casual dress. One person lasted months before showing up in a t-shirt. I kind of assumed that they were all buying new wardrobes during that period, but there may have been a culture shock of sorts.

The fact that they were strangers is what makes them strange…

For some reason this question is geeking me out, what sort of answer were you expecting?

I knew it was Matt Levine before clicking on the link. His column is always a pleasurable read.

Today, we use instant messaging like we use voice conversation - especially for people who work remotely. Banning the use of ephemeral IM is sort of like saying “you need to record all of your discussions, no matter how trivial”.

Levine’s article makes a great point:

“It really is wild that the SEC’s official position is now that it is illegal to “use unofficial communications to do things like cut deals, win clients or make trades.” “Conduct their communications about business matters within only official channels”! Imagine if that was really the rule! You can’t have lunch with a client and talk about business, or have beers with your colleagues and gripe about work, because that does not create a searchable archive for the SEC to review.”

There’s a difference between avoiding discovery by tacitly moving conversations offline versus saying that you are doing so, in writing, in a discoverable channel, specifically to avoid discovery.

The spirit of the latter crosses a line of showing deliberate contempt for the legal process. Doing it in writing seems just as ill advised as discussing sensitive information in writing.

It just shows how problematic all this "surveillance" (voluntary and involuntary) has become. And it will become even worse. We now have cameras/door cameras at almost every private home/apartment and every street corner. We have cars who record audio and image/video inside and outside of the vehicle. There is almost no real privacy anymore. Everything can be used against you.

Honestly, it's getting a bit insane I think.

If we cannot communicate digitally in private and we cannot communicate physically in close vicinity to a car or a building, the only place left is in a remote forest.

As we have seen with Tesla engineers having access to videos inside cars (how can this even be legal) and we saw the 21 year old who leaked the secret Pentagon data, it's not that there has to be a decision by lawyers or government agencies that the data has to be provided. Any devops or admin can access this kind of data and spread as they like.

And how come Tesla and the Pentagon has no precautions in place to stop this kind if abuse?

It's really quite crazy on many levels.

Levine is using a lot of hyperbole there.

To me it looks like a clearly-defined line between text and real-time voice/video. What the user experiences, not the technical background.

Ie it would have been perfectly fine for google to ban text chats, and just use calls/meetings; even with the same software. As inefficient and unpleasant as it would be.