financial disclosures & faux transparency - cogel - pittsburgh - 2014-12

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

?

Financial Disclosures&

Faux Transparency

Kathleen Clark

kathleen_clark@mac.com

COGELDecember 8, 2014