I'm pretty certain this is bad news for everyone outside the financial sector

[unixronin]

"SEC Says New FinReg Law Exempts It From Public Disclosure"

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities."  Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say.  Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.

That argument comes despite the President saying that one of the cornerstones of the sweeping new legislation was more transparent financial markets.  Indeed, in touting the new law, Obama specifically said it would “increase transparency in financial dealings."

Well, yes.  Obama also declared that his administration would practise "historic levels of openness".  Instead, it has practiced historic levels of furtiveness.  So, the declaration appears to be entirely in keeping with the Obama administration's record thus far.

As far as I can see, no-one outside the SEC and Congress benefits from this provision.  As noted in the article, it allows the SEC to deny public access to virtually all SEC records, make its own rules about records disclosure without needing OMB approval, refuse to cooperate with ongoing investigations, and cover up its failures.

This is yet another reason why Congress should not be allowed to pass these monster two-thousand-page bills such as H.R. 4173.  It makes it WAY too easy to bury landmines like this a thousand or fifteen hundred pages in.

At what point do We, The People as a whole wake up and realize that our own government is at war against us?

Comments

[ithildae]

There are always the courts. The biggest problem with unjust laws is enforcement. Look at the number of speeders when the speed limit was reduced to 55 mph across the country. Look at what happened during prohibition. If you create unloved laws, the rule of law is diminished. How long until we pass the point of no return?

[unixronin]

One could almost speculate that the laws passed over the last few decades were intended to instill contempt for the law.

[ithildae]

That thought has crossed my mind...

[glitch25.livejournal.com]

At what point do We, The People as a whole wake up and realize that our own government is at war against us?

And what would that awakening look like exactly? Changes in voting? Protests? Writing our congressmen?

It's gonna take a whole hell of a lot more than Starbucks to wake the slumbering beast.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Voting out the Democrats would be a nice start. The Republicans are at least marginally better on this sort of thing.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think voting for independents and write-ins across the board would be a good start. Vote out ALL of the Democrats and ALL of the Republicans.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

multi-party system not unlike Oz? votes are +1, or -1; and they STILL have to get 2/3s or something to win... you can actively remove ALL contestants with the right vote. roughly.

obama has shown his heart. if he wins the next election, many people are going to fall "fishy" i'd suspect.

but hey, at least he's done great things for the gun industry :)

#

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Definitely need a true multi-party, proportional-representation system, with no winner-takes all and with a binding "None of the above" option. Preferably with some form of ranking, too.

I have a thought about this, which I will post separately because it is too long to fit in this margin.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

It was a typo.

histaminic

Plainly they meant to say they were allergic to openness.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

It does appear that Obama is fufilling his pledge for histic levels of openness. Unfortunately he didn't clarify that they will be historically low levels of openness.