This is pure politics with no substance. Fidelity can't be saying that some member of the president's entourage can't go on line in his London hotel and place a trade. If he can, then the same applies for an Iowan farmer who's been working on an Australian station for the past two years.
My bet is what's really happening is that Fidelity's trying to sweet talk the IRS out of some big hit to their corp taxes. A hefty Dem campaign donation will soon follow...
Fidelity sucks. I left their overpriced brokerage years ago. Scottrade has better research tools and reasonable rates. They got my 401(k) rollover portion when I found out the portion of my company 401(k) in money markets and other near liquid investments was taking fees which resulted in negative returns. Screw that!