Details of bailout loans remain a secret

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York provides select members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors the daily reports on bailout loans that journalists have been asking for, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg has suited for records which mostly exist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which claims it isn't subject to FOIA. The Board of Governors now has 231 pages of these documents; however, it is using a trade secret exemption to prevent releasing the data to the public.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors receives daily reports on bailout loans to financial institutions and won’t make the information public, the central bank said in a reply to a Bloomberg News lawsuit.

The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast “a stigma” on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed secrecy was the focus of a Senate Banking Committee hearing today in which the panel’s top two members said the central bank’s reluctance to identify companies benefiting from the American International Group Inc. bailout risks undermining public confidence in the government.

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