The seven law student volunteers (dubbed "Nader's Raiders" by the Washington press corps) began their evaluation of the FTC in June 1968, and published a revised and expanded version of the report as a book in January 1969.
[1] The main arguments of the Nader Report were: Seven law students embedded themselves at the FTC during the summer of 1968, and conducted their study first-hand.
Some examples are of aggressive marketing of credit lines or financing to poor families, pyramid schemes, fruitless "get rich quick" schemes that involve an expensive buy-in (such as buying chinchillas to breed, expecting to sell their fur at a great profit, only to have the animals die or ultimately be unable to sell the fur at the promised rates), and the aggressive marketing of expensive home-improvement material to poor families (wherein the contract includes a confiscation clause, resulting in a large financial penalty or even loss of the home).
For example, the authors suggest that "there must be alert and extensive monitoring operations with pre-screening by expert engineers, doctors and other professionals" in order to discover deception in TV commercials.
[citation needed] Voluntary enforcement methods are criticized as ineffective due to the lack of incentive for a business to comply.
The authors assert that without harsh penalty for subsequent violations, or a strong altruistic nature in businessmen, this method is ineffective.
[citation needed] The authors also argue that the FTC must most importantly deter businessmen from attempting fraud, rather than merely creating consumer awareness programs and punishing businesses after they have broken the law.
[citation needed] The report asserts that the FTC made false claims about effective detection, efficient enforcement, and its priority policies.
In defending its secrecy, the FTC cited protection of trade secrets (giving as an example the prolonged struggle with Professor Kenneth Davis from the University of Chicago), "internal communications", and investigatory files under FOIA.
[16] Since at least the publication of the Nader's Raiders' 'expose' and the American Bar Association's critique, the 1960s has been regarded by many as a decade of trivial pursuits for the Federal Trade Commission.
The Commission's reputation for chasing small-time con artists, challenging inconsequential business practices, turning a blind eye to politically connected corporations, and doing it all with a lethargy that exemplified popular notions of bureaucratic inertia, earned it the ridicule of
[17]Following the ABA's report, Nixon revitalized the agency and sent it on a path of vigorous consumer protection and antitrust enforcement for the rest of the 1970s.