The Memory Hole > Govt Report on Judges' Financial Disclosure Pulled Offline

Govt Report on Judges' Financial Disclosures Pulled Offline

Click here for the report
(Acrobat format, 2.2 megs)

Left-click to open
Right-click to save the file to your hard drive
Mac users: Control-click to save the file

>>> On 2 Aug 2004, the Government Accountability Office—the investigative arm of Congress—released the report "Federal Judiciary: Assessing and Formally Documenting Financial Disclosure Procedures Could Help Ensure Balance Between Judges' Safety and Timely Public Access." A copy was posted to the GAO's website here. (You can also see it listed in "Today's Reports" for 2 Aug.)

By the 10th, that report had been pulled offline. My guess is that it was posted accidentally. The report's number (GAO-04-696NI) ends in "NI," which means that it's not available on the Web, just in hard copy. Some reports on supposedly sensitive topics are given this treatment. The fact that it was posted at all was most likely a mistake.

By the time they snatched it down, it was too late. Political Money Line had already mirrored it, and now so are we.

An HTML version is available here.

A Washington Post article on the report, "U.S. Judges Getting Disclosure Data Deleted," is here.

Thanks to Mike Ravnitzky

From the report's highlights section

Why GAO Did This Study

The Ethics in Government Act requires judges and other federal officials to file financial disclosure reports as a check on conflicts of interest. However, given potential security risks to federal judges, Congress authorized redactions of information that could endanger them. This redaction authority is set to expire at the end of 2005. To assist in deliberations about whether to extend the authority, this report discusses (1) the number of redaction requests filed and the proportion granted, (2) the basis for the decisions regarding redactions requested during 1999 through 2002, (3) the judiciary’s procedures for safeguarding information without unduly compromising public access, and (4) the release of reports for selected legislative and executive branch officials.