Tell America once again, Mr. President, how your secretive, spying national security policy is for the benefit of citizens and not of your corporate cronies - or to cover up your administration's illegal and unconstitutional acts.
From Business Week Online this morning:
Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules
Now, the White House's top spymaster can cite national security to exempt businesses from reporting requirements
President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.
Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office. It couldn't be immediately determined whether any company has received a waiver under this provision.
The article points out the "intriguing" timing of Bush's signing of the memo authorizing such an unprecedented move - the day of Porter Goss' resignation as head of the CIA. Administration officials unsurprisingly denied any connection between this unique delegation of authority to Negroponte and Goss' departure, and refused to clarify whether any company had been exempted yet from reporting.
Security-law experts speculate in the Business Week article that such waiving of reporting requirements for companies could be used to mask the funding of secret CIA or Pentagon assignments.
The article closes with the following:
The memo Bush signed on May 5, which was published seven days later in the Federal Register, had the unrevealing title "Assignment of Function Relating to Granting of Authority for Issuance of Certain Directives: Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence." In the document, Bush addressed Negroponte, saying: "I hereby assign to you the function of the President under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended."
A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."
