The photograph is of Darren Saunders who spent most of his shortened adult life trying to end abusive naked short selling of stocks in the US. Darren died of cancer around 2009/2010. This petition is dedicated to his memory. Rest In Peace. 

The DTCC has enabled abusive naked short selling of stocks and other securities for decades. This has led to the introduction of billions of phantom shares into the settlement system. The phantom securities are hidden by obscure exemptions that are abused by market makers, authorised participants, brokers and the DTCC themselves. Failure to deliver events are ignored and carry no consequence. A Failure to Deliver event occurs when a naked short seller - who has not borrowed the stock before selling it short - is called to account. Called to ‘deliver’. To be clear, short selling per se is perfectly legal, and a part of a healthy market structure: legal short selling involves BORROWING the stock or security BEFORE short selling the same instrument. It is abusive NAKED short selling that is illegal. Incomprehensible. Naked short selling is akin to selling a car you do not own to multiple buyers to whom you have given counterfeited pink slips. Eventually, you will be found out! 
Even FTDs themselves are serially ‘reset’ by abusive use of options on securities. The can is kicked down the road. So FTDs have become an industry joke, not the serious fraud they are and should be vigorously prosecuted. 

"He who sells what isn't his'n, must buy it back or go to pris'n."

Daniel Drew. 

The effect has been to cause the collapse of hundreds of US companies over the years by the combination of abusive naked short selling diluting the stock, depressing the share price, combined with carefully planted negative financial press stories or analysis. On occasion, corrupt company officers are bribed or otherwise induced to leak confidential company information or take steps damaging to the interest of the companies shareholders. Dummy shareholders, specially selected and briefed, are induced or coached to make spurious legal claims against the company, adding to the sense of crisis and negativity. These spurious lawsuits are then used as the basis for complaints to the SEC, asking for ‘an investigation’. The news of an SEC investigation is used to sow more doubt and reinforce the sense of crisis at the target company. The SEC serially investigates the victims, not the rapists! The term ‘death spiral financing’ describes the foregoing and the progressive difficulty the company experiences raising funding. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. 

The aim of abusive naked short sellers is to cause the company to eventually file for bankruptcy. At this point, the naked short stock need never be delivered and the short seller can pocket the proceeds of the scheme. The way this is structured means the naked short seller is not even taxed on the profits. 

Mechanisms to prevent the above sequence have been available for decades but the DTCC has steadfastly refused to introduce them. Something as simple as issuing every share or security with an electronic serial number - like banknotes - would suffice. This could be done tomorrow. 

The DTCC has an unresolvable internal conflict of interest in this regard: it is owned by the very same market participants who profit the most from abusive naked short selling. THE GAMEKEEPERS ARE EMPLOYED BY THE POACHERS. The DTCC is described as ‘self regulating’. This is an absurd and preposterous notion. The DTCC cannot be relied on to take effective disciplinary action against it’s own shareholders. The most effective public relations and psychological campaign ever waged in US financial history is to deflect attention from the DTCC to the SEC. The pretence that the latter is the originator of the opaque stock and securities settlement system. That the DTCC is merely an innocent bystander. Whereas in fact, it is the DTCC itself which proposes rules and imposes procedures, NOT the SEC. This forces the SEC into a REACTIVE role as supervisor of the DTCC, not a PROACTIVE role stopping loopholes before they appear. There is overwhelming evidence that the SEC itself has been captured by the financial services industry, with lobbyists having far too much influence.

The DTCC needs to be stripped of this unresolvable conflict of interest by removing it from private ownership and making it a Statutory Body and a division of the SEC, which itself must be guarded from financial services industry influence.