A Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to sharply limit the number of Americans who can invest in hedge funds has triggered a public backlash  and the latest controversy over the boomingprivate investment pools.
The agency has received hundreds of e-mails and letters since December, when it proposed raising the financial bar for hedge fund eligibility for the first time since 1982.
The vast majority of those writing have advised the SEC to back off. Some of the comments have an angry tone, unusual for matters of securities regulation.
“This has got to be unconstitutional if not communistic,” wrote M. Joan Conrad, a Naples, Fla., resident who said she has had money in hedge funds for the last decade.
