Uh, McCain's hearings on steroids in baseball was far more important than this.
I really don't know what to make of this. But I've seen instances where the daily trading volume of a stock will be a large percentage of, or in some cases exceed the float.
I trade with Scottrade and they require that they have a "cover" if you want to short a stock. Also, they give no short interest rebate if you short, which reduces the incentive to short.
The only reason that I give these "naked shorting" arguments any consideration is that unless you specifically "take delivery" of shares you purchase they are held in a "street name", ie., by the brokerage and can be lent to short sellers without your explicit knowledge. Since it is not uncommon for me to make up to 4 or 5 trades a day, taking delivery of shares is not reasonable, in addition to the fact that if I did request a delivery it would probably place considerable restrictions on my margin account(in that I would have to wait for the trade to clear, typically three days, before the funds of a stock sale could be used to purchase another equity--not realistic for a daytrader). This whole thing is a real murky area, and I damn sure don't think our "elected representatives" are either honest enough or smart enough to protect us.