Remember R. Foster Winans? He was the “Heard on the Street” columnist for the Wall Street Journal from 1982 to 1984 who was convicted of insider trading on his own writing. Then-US Attorney’s Rudolf Guliani’s career-boosting crackdown on insider trading was in full swing, so Guiliani went after Winans for violating insider trading laws by leaking advance word of the contents of his columns to a Kidder, Peabody & Co., trader and receiving $31,000 in return. Winans admitted that his conduct was unethical but not criminal, which made no difference to the jury that ultimately convicted him, for which he served a year in prison. He then went on to a career of writing books and being a media pundit with regard to business crime cases such as the Martha Stewart case, yet his case remains controversial because it was the first time that insider trading laws had been extended to cover a columnist writing about companies with which he had no formal connection. The US Supreme Court ultimately deadlocked on whether the insider trading laws covered Winans’ actions.
With that backdrop, it’s not surprising that Winans has concluded that insider trading laws should be abolished (HT DealBreaker):

People invest in the market precisely because they think they know things others don’t. It could be as innocent as the belief that Apple will sell more iPods next year, or as questionable as a tip that a private equity group is going to make an offer for a utility.
In between are shipping clerks, accountants, taxi drivers, therapists, corporate officers and anyone else who acquires a bit of information and buys or sells stock hoping to gain an advantage.
Being against insider trading is like being against sin, the libertarian Harry Browne once observed. Like most sins, it principally offends those who don’t or can’t indulge; like most sins, it shouldn’t be a crime.

Winans’ article is O.K., but if you really want the goods on this topic, check out both Stephen Bainbridge and Larry Ribstein on the folly of criminalizing insider trading. Thom Lambert weighs in here, too.