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In reply to the discussion: Know your BFEE: Social Security is a Side Show while Banksters Walk and You Pick Up the Tab [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)Washington (CNN) The U.S. House on Friday eliminated a key requirement of the insider trading law for most federal employees, passing legislation exempting these workers, including congressional staff, from a rule scheduled to take effect next week that mandated online posting of financial transactions.
Aides to lawmakers insisted the changes were needed to avoid potential security risks to federal employees by revealing personal information.
The House vote followed similar action by the Senate Thursday. The votes were done with little notice and came at a time when most people were paying attention to the Senates work on high profile issues like guns and immigration.
One advocacy group pushing for greater government transparency blasted the move, saying it guts the law.
Not only does the change undermine the intent of the original bill to ensure government insiders are not profiting from non-public information, it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online, Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation wrote in a statement,
This isnt the first time the new insider trading law, called the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act has been caught up in controversy.
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/12/congress-votes-to-eliminate-key-requirement-of-insider-trading-law/