In light of current revelations, the stock market needs to be completely reconfigured.

Pension and retirement fund managers stand no chance against traders who have access to ALL information.

It now seems certain that the capacity to record all phone calls (for selective later use), log all emails, texts and attachments is real and that thousands of government analysts and contractors have access to this information. Privacy and the 4th amendment concerns have been discussed but an equal, perhaps more immediate abuse of this power is the use of this information access to trade stocks.

An analyst/agent could go through communications between for example, Pfizer and the labs testing new drugs and know before other traders about any news that would move the stock price in a significant way. Every public traded company I can think of has some similar dynamic. Major contract negotiations, real estate purchases have a similar delay and rely on private negotiation between one seller and multiple buyers. But what is suggested by PRISM is something like the microphones that car dealerships have in the little room where you and your wife sit while the salesman takes 'your offer to his boss' (they actually just sit in the other room and listen to you two talk about the most you would pay btw).

It seems highly likely that some are trading on the most inside of inside information. The potential profits are likely irresistible and as the integrity of financial 'gambling' (the stock market) is undermined, the entire economy stands to suffer. There is an old joke which asks: Why do people rob banks? A: Because that is where the money is. Well, in the financial markets there is a lot of money in pension and retirement funds which can (and perhaps, is) being sucked out of them by those trading on the most inside of inside information.

The current value of stocks is maintained by a steady supply of new money. The willingness to put money at risk in these markets is based on trust that the markets are relatively fair (as fair to all parties as they can be), and that insider trading is controlled and/or punished. Such an assumption is fundamentally undermined by the current revelations and that is bad news for those with money invested because the supply of buyers may be greatly diminished as the news sinks in.

It is essential that the financial markets begin a transition to a system which can restore fairness before lack of trust in that fairness destroys market capitalization.

Who would sit down to a game of poker against someone who can see through all the cards ?