From: Lawrence Chernoff [lchernoff@netidea.com]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:45 PM
To: rule-comments@sec.gov
Subject: File No. S7-23-03

Regarding this issue of naked shorting, It's about time this has been addressed! 
I am amazed that a country such as the USA, who boasts such moral superiority in 
so many arenas, has turned a blind eye to such blatent and obvious corruption in 
it's securities markets for so long. Many companies have tried and some successfully, 
to conteract short selling with spinning off dividends to trigger liability and 
hopefully "short" covering. It is sad that so many good and upcoming junior 
companies have been destroyed by such unscrupulous manipulation of the market. I 
applaud the new intiative, however, it is also imperative to examine the colusion 
and corruption between these organizations who engage in market manipulation and 
SEC officials in their pockets who have turned a blind eye and even assisted them 
in this activity. An example of this is a company called PCBM OTC bulletin board. 
For many years, I have been following the activities of the company, and timely 
suspension action by the SEC to thwart a spin off of a company within, and 
considerable stalling and delaying tactics to allow the company to resume normal 
business activity. All the while giving ample time for there friends to hopefully 
cover their short positions a .0001 cents. This is criminal !!!!! There must be 
more government intervention to identify the problem within the SEC as well. Why 
should they be immune from investigatiion!!!!!

So much for a FREE America, with equal opportunity for all !!! 

 I happen to be a Canadian ! Lawrence Chernoff, South Slocan, British Columbia