While these plans used to be safe harbors for executives, the government has begun treating them as red flags for investigation. In a press release, the DOJ noted that the recent prosecution of Terren Peizer, the CEO and Executive Chairman of healthcare treatment company Ontrak, was not random, but rather the result of a targeted "data-driven initiative led by the Fraud Section to identify executive abuses of 10b5-1 trading plans." This is a stunning admission that the government was not just monitoring market activity but also actively targeting executives who were merely taking advantage of a statutory defense.