Financial Regulation Law exempts the SEC

  When FOX Business Network filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), they inadvertently stumbled upon a little jewel that was hidden in the recently passed Wall Street Reform bill– the SEC has been exempted in the reform, and is not required to release any documents to the public, even under a FOIA request.

  When Barack Obama was touting this legislation he claimed that this bill would bring transparency to the financial world:

Indeed, in touting the new law, Obama specifically said it would “increase transparency in financial dealings.”

    Barack Obama is a master at saying one thing even as he is doing the exact opposite (one needs to look no further then his signing a bill with thousands of earmarks in it while claiming that we needed earmark reform– and that is just one example) and this is just the latest example of that.

  Needless to say, many people are not happy with this new revelation:

Steven Mintz, founding partner of law firm Mintz & Gold LLC in New York, lamented what he described as “the backroom deal that was cut between Congress and the SEC to keep the  SEC’s failures secret. The only losers here are the American public.”

  The SEC will still be allowed to operate in secrecy, despite the new regulations designed for transparency and it looks as if there was a backroom deal made in order to get this exemption.

  Backroom deals were enough to derail the DISCLOSE Act once it became known that the NRA, AARP, and most unions had cut backroom deals in exchange for their support for the legislation, but unfortunately this deal was missed and it was able to sneak through. We are left to wonder once again if congress voted on the bill without reading it, or did they read it and agree with the SEC exemption? Which is worse? I am not sure.

  The American people are getting sick and tired of reading about all of these backroom deals. Barack Obama promised two things; he promised to bring transparency to Washington and he promised to change the way Washington did business. He has failed on both accounts, and he needs to be held accountable in November.