(If you know a way to reliably detect "honest" people, it'll make you enough money to stop caring about all this and probably win you a Nobel peace prize too.)
How to detect these crimes? By doing what the article describes: analyze the public officials' public disclosures and performance to see if "House members are outperforming market averages" or "house members followed trends far earlier" than the rest of the market. I would extend this analysis to family and known associates as well; if the politician's neighbor starts making really smart trades around the time the politician entered office, that's worth investigating.
I wonder about allowing any constituent to bring a suit against their politician if they believe they can prove insider trading. Judge/grand jury still has to rule (publicly!) that it's case-worthy before bothering the politician. If the politician loses the case, they're removed from office, must cover all legal fees, and must give the ill-gotten gains to the constituent who brought the suit as a bounty. If the suit fails, that suing constituent has to cover the legal fees.
We could also require (and might already for all I know) a written justification at time of each trade, which TV suggests is a thing hedge funds have to do, but that's basically just a fixed transaction cost since anyone with money could hire an "analyst" to write something plausible.
Another comment suggested that officials should have to announce trades in advance, though that might have the effect of banning trades altogether.
Fundamentally, I want my elected officials focused 100% on doing their job, not trying to get rich in their spare time. So barring them from all trading while in office would be fine by me.
Those are very good points. I actually always thought that I am good at detecting dishonesty, but after I fell for a narcicist/sociopath in my last job I am not claiming that any more.
It's probably (I don't work at the SEC) true that it's still difficult to catch all perpetrators. The SEC has limited resources and they probably have a way of prioritizing cases that they think have sufficient evidence. No system is perfect, but from my perspective the SEC is a respected organization whose authority is treated seriously. I have frequently been told that I will face serious jail time if I engage in insider trading and am later caught.
How about electing honest people, instead of constantly voting for the establishement (w. a few exceptions).