Barney Frank: “This is a bill that reflects cooperation not just between the parties but, sometimes even harder to achieve, between…”

“This is a bill that reflects cooperation not just between the parties but, sometimes even harder to achieve, between committees. This is a joint product of deliberations among the gentleman from Alabama, the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee; myself; and other members--Mr. Campbell of California, for example, and the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Mr. Towns and Mr. Issa. This goes back to 2006. In that year, Christopher Cox, then the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and our former colleague, sent to the Congress a request that we give an amendment to the SEC law dealing with freedom of information. And it was an entirely reasonable request. What they said was, the SEC from time to time obviously gets information from private entities that they are investigating. What they were afraid of was the company saying, But, you know what, if you take our data, it will then be a matter of public record, and we may have proprietary information; we may have information that we have every legal right to keep confidential, competitive reasons to keep confidential; and, therefore, unless you can assure us that this will not be made public, we're going to fight you. And that made it harder for the SEC to get this. So it was particularly the enforcement arm of the SEC that asked for it. When Mr. Cox asked for it in 2006, no action was immediately taken.”