Hacker News is supposed to be about ideas. Mark Cuban is a person who has ideas. Many (including the NYT) have suggested that the government is targeting Cuban because of his ideas. It's not entirely clear what's happening, but it seems like something that's worth following.
I think it's pretty obvious. Cuban is a majority owner in ShareSleuth.com, a website "aimed at exposing securities fraud and corporate chicanery":
http://sharesleuth.com/about.html
Cuban also funds bailoutsleuth.com which is supposed to track the government's use of the $700 billion.
You can't expect to put yourself in such a visible position of moral status and think that others won't try their hardest to bring you down. I'm sure Cuban knows that and hopefully he keeps his slate clean.
I'm not going to waste my time with any conspiracy theories, but I do think insider trading is kind of a bullshit crime in many cases. Only an idiot would fail to act on a tip that happens to be passed to him whether it is inside information or not. No one is going to sit idly and watch $750,000 dissolve. Of course, it's a totally different story when it's a deliberate attempt to acquire and profit from information unavailable to other investors.
If I remember correctly, they went after Martha Stewart because she was the CEO of a publicly traded company and also once had a stockbroker license. In other words, she definitely knew better and should have handled the situation differently. Is or was Mark Cuban ever an executive for a publicly traded company?
