That's not the point of insider trading laws. The point is to prevent misappropriation of insider knowledge that you acquire as a course of fulfilling your job

That's not the point of insider trading laws. The point is to prevent misappropriation of insider knowledge that you acquire as a course of fulfilling your job responsibilities. If you have material information about a company that others don't, you're more than welcome to trade based on it. The profit incentivizes accurately pricing securities. If you know that some other company is concealing massive fraud, feel free to short the daylights out of it and write an exposé.