Congress Quietly Repeals Congressional Insider Trading Ban

http://nyulocal.com/national/2013/04/15/congress-quietly-repeals-congressional-insider-trading-ban/

by uptown • 13 years ago

114 23 13 years ago

rtpg• 13 years ago

Isn't it just modifying the disclosure aspects(you're still supposed to disclose, but it removes the obligation to have a searchable online database of the records. The records are still there, but in more of a highway-going-through-Arthur-Dent's-hosue sense)

ajtaylor• 13 years ago

Every time I think congressional officials can't get more arrogant, they surprise me again.

The headline is a bit off though - according to the article only the disclosure portion of the law was repealed - though IMHO this is the most important part of the law. The argument stated that the disclosure required could open individuals to identity theft and creates a potential security risk. This may actually be true. But by not bring it up for debate and talking about it in public, all it will do is make people suspicious. I may be interpreting the changes [1] in correctly, however it sounds like it will still be recorded in a database, albeit one that is not publicly accessible.

[1] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c113:3:./temp/~c113rT6...:

jbattle• 13 years ago

Would this prevent a third party from digitizing the records and putting them into a online searchable database?

msandford2• 13 years ago

Actually getting the records. It's not as though you can march in somewhere with a FOIA and get a copy five minutes later. Expect years of heel-dragging with "we weren't given the resources!" to be the excuse for the delay. It's law-breaking to be sure but who's going to prosecute someone for it?

gpcz• 13 years ago

Since it seems that the voting record is the only transparency we'll get for now, this was passed with unanimous consent by both the House and Senate, and it was signed by the President yesterday (src: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d113:SN00716:@@@X ).

Shameful.

msandford2• 13 years ago

If they don't have to publish the data publicly then the only people who will really know what trades they made are the IRS and their brokerage.

I wonder what the voluntary reporting rate will be. My guess is 5% tops. And what does get reported will take years to get released if someone makes a FOIA request.

andrewtbham• 13 years ago

A lot of the pressure to pass this law came from a 60 minutes piece. I am curious how they will respond.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388130n

criley• 13 years ago

So, instead of a public database we'll have to use FOIA requests to get the data?

coldcode• 13 years ago

Them that wants the gold makes the rules.

wilfra• 13 years ago

How was this able to pass in the first place if they unanimously voted to repeal it now?

omni• 13 years ago

Election cycles, of course.

ry0ohki• 13 years ago

It's the old "pass a law and make a big deal about it when everyone cares, then repeal it quietly when they've moved on to something else" trick.

bjhoops1• 13 years ago

Quite typical.

It strikes me that legislative bodies have nothing that resembles a Quality Assurance effort. A law is passed, and then we just assume it works the way it was intended. Even in cases where it quite obviously did NOT (such as California's Three Strikes Law | http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-...), that horrible piece of legislation lives on for years and years. Only the most atrocious pieces of legislation are ever repealed.

I think it would make sense for all pieces of legislation to have something like a 1-3 year (depending on the type of legislation) review period. At the end of that time, a committee would make an assessment of the programs true impact, keeping in mind unintended consequences, and Congress must vote to either retain or repeal the law.

Just something I'd been pondering lately after reading about legislation which had huge unforeseen repercussions.

caseysoftware• 13 years ago

Because they had to look like they were doing something.. though they all basically knew they were remove it once the heat was gone. In this case, a Friday afternoon vote immediately before the tax filing deadline did it.

kislayverma• 13 years ago

Has this made headlines in all kinds of mainstream media yet? Because it bloody well should.

gresrun• 13 years ago

Guess who sponsored the bill? Sen. Harry Reid, the same senator who, less than 6 months ago, railed against Mitt Romney for not disclosing his tax returns and, in 1974, boldly asserted that "[a]ny man or woman who will not be completely candid about his or her finances does not deserve to be in public office [...]"

bsenftner• 13 years ago

Orwell was the rough blueprint of the society we built and have today.

yahelc• 13 years ago

This is very misleading. The law still applies to the President, Vice-President, members of Congress, and executives requiring Senate confirmation.

The law was passed so quickly in a populist fit around the 60 Minutes piece that they didn't do their due diligence about the extent of the coverage of the law. It doesn't seem like they considered the level of disclosure it might require from, say, CIA officials stationed abroad, or the other 28,000 non-political senior government officials who aren't politicians.

This still addresses the underlying problem -- insider trading by members of Congress.

[1] http://www.federalnewsradio.com/204/3283822/Congress-repeals...

[2] http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1007-other/293919-obam...

tptacek2• 13 years ago

Thank you. It's also a pure politics story of the sort that used to be flagged off the site quickly, before HN got so big that any populist story would quickly overwhelm flags. I flagged it anyways.

gnosis• 13 years ago

Political stories have long been a part of HN. Sometimes they do get deleted, but many times not.

I'm personally happy that they're on HN. They make it harder for the tech community to bury their heads in the sand and remain in a self-imposed apolitical bubble.

Also, if you honestly don't think politics belongs on HN, why do you keep participating in political discussions here?

crag• 13 years ago

"This still addresses the underlying problem -- insider trading by members of Congress."

No it doesn't. Because the only people who'd know about the trade would the government itself. Sure, I suppose a citizen like myself could sue to get the information.

Look, if the law effected CIA officials stationed abroad then a simple change in the law excluding them would've made more sense.

danso• 13 years ago

Here's the current Senate disclosures database: http://www.pfd.senate.gov/index.cfm

And here's the House site for financial disclosures: http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial.aspx

Both are not particularly amenable for large-scale analysis, unless you've got some bulk OCR/Mechanical turk capability

Congress Quietly Repeals Congressional Insider Trading Ban

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