financial disclosures & faux transparency - cogel - pittsburgh - 2014-12
TRANSCRIPT
Financial Disclosures&
Faux Transparency
Kathleen Clark
COGEL
December 8, 2014
Kathleen Clark & Cheryl Embree, Faux Transparency: Ethics, Privacy and the Demise of the STOCK Act’s
Massive Online Disclosure of Employees’ Finances,
in
RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON TRANSPARENCY
(Padideh Ala’I & Robert Vaughn, eds.) (2014)
ideal
approach
?
ideal
purpose
?
Accountability:
- Legal llll
- Political
Accountability:
- Legal llll
- Political
Current system:
Paper-based
FD forms
assetsincome
transactionsliabilities
giftsoutside/future jobs
300,000:
confidential
28,000:
publicly available w/ hurdles
ethics officials
review
FD forms
for COIs
weaknesses
in
current
system
Need info on:
•Ee’s duties
•Who is affected by them
•Ee’s access to nonpublic info
FD provides
job title
complexity & obscurity of
corporate & NGO relationships
underinvestment
Congress
not subject to criminal COI
statute
Congress
inis subject to political
accountability
net worth
domestic v. foreign
vacation homes
gifts / travel
publicly available w/o
hurdles
searchable
sortable
database
STOCK Act of 2012 Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge
transparency
can increase
legal
accountability
crowd-source
COI
checking
NGOs
filer’s subordinates
regulated entities
searchable
sortable
database
Senior Executive
Association v.
United States
NAPA study
revised
(gutted)
STOCK
Act
searchable
sortable
database
political
accountability
for
whom
?
does legal accountability
need a transparency-based
assist?
COIs
at the
NSA
?
