Peeking into stock orders 'an unfair advantage'.

'The hallmarks of our markets are that they are open and above board, and the little guy has as much of a chance as the big guy.' - Senator Charles Schumer, Chairman of the Senate rules and administration committee. What is happening in Wall Street and many stock exchanges across the world where the hedge funds are operating is that they tapped into the main exchange operating system to peek into stock orders from other investors. This gives them a 0.03 sec lead time to compute and place their orders to take advantage of other investors with their powerful computers. According to the Tabb Group, it reported that these high frequency traders accounted for more than half of all the trades and pocketed 'about US$21 billion in profits last year. Who lost? Schumer wants a stop to such advantage against the small investors and wants to prohibit trading by high frequency traders. Well, the Americans have some decent man to call a thief a thief. There is conscience to do right and justice. Do we have such high frequency traders trading here and taking advantage of the small guys? If there are, what are we going to do about it? Or why did we allow this go on for so long? Fair game? Caveat emptor? This is worst than minibonds! Are we fair to the small investors? If billions have been lost by the small investors because of such malpractice, who is going to pay for it? No one is responsible for sure. Does anyone know what is happening?