The FBI is investigating a security breach of AT&T’s website that allowed hackers to access the e-mail addresses of iPad owners.
"The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions," an FBI spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. "We have opened an investigation to address the potential cyber threat." The Bureau did not comment on the scope of its investigation.
A hacker group called Goatse Security exploited a vulnerability on AT&T’s website to harvest the e-mail addresses that iPad 3G buyers provided to activate their devices. The group sent the information to tech and gossip blog Gawker, which reported that 114,000 e-mail addresses were exposed.
Without commenting on the vast scope of the alleged hack, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) acknowledged taking action to fix a security hole online payday advance.
The exposure connected subscribers’ e-mail addresses with their iPad ICC IDs, a unique identification number used to link devices with their owners. AT&T linked them so that users of Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) 3G version of the iPad would not have to type in their e-mail addresses every time they wanted to access or change their AT&T account and billing settings.
AT&T said e-mail addresses were the only information that could have been exposed as a result of the glitch, and that it will inform all customers who may have been affected. The company would not comment on the FBI investigation.
Attorney General Bill McCollum announced a settlement with Certegy Check Services Inc. over allegations the company did not provide adequate data security for consumer records.
Under the settlement, Certegy will ensure that safeguards are in place to protect consumer data, a release said. The company will maintain a comprehensive “Information Security Program” that assess internal and external risks to consumers’ personal information, implements safeguards to protect that information, and regularly monitors and tests the effectiveness of those safeguards.
Certegy also will contribute $125,000 to the Attorney General’s Seniors vs. Crime Program and will pay $850,000 for the state’s investigative costs and attorney’s fees, the release said.
Certegy reported in July 2007 that a former company employee had stolen customer data. Certegy notified authorities and consumers, the release said. The former employee, William Sullivan, subsequently was convicted of fraud and is serving a 57-month sentence in federal prison.
Certegy, based in St. Petersburg, is a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (NYSE: FIS), headquartered in Jacksonville.
Tax day is Thursday and if you’ve waited until the last minute to file your return, that makes you a prime target for tax preparers.
The days leading up to April 15 are like Black Friday for companies like H&R Block and TurboTax. And they’re all looking for an edge that will get you "in the door."
As more and more taxpayers spend time e-filing and scouring the Internet for tax help, finding ways to optimize online ads is invaluable for tax preparers. And that’s where Google comes in. The search giant’s analytics tools can narrow down when most people are searching for tax help, making it prime time for advertising those services.
Unsurprisingly, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) says the volume of searches for terms like "tax," "taxes," and "IRS" doubles between February and mid-April. But by using advanced tools like Google Insights, tax preparers can find a much more revealing trend: The majority of people really only care about taxes for about six or seven days a year.
Search traffic for "taxes" surges an average 150% right after W2s are distributed during the first week of February. Those searches quickly die down and stay low until the days leading up to April 15. During the last three- to four-day stretch of tax season, tax-related searches rise an average of 270%. That’s nearly quadruple the amount that occurs during a typical week in the "off-season."
TurboTax, which is a Google Analytics customer, calls the trend "Batman ears": Two exceedingly short periods of time to get it right or pay the price.
"Google is really important to our business because it helps us understand consumers’ behavioral intent so we can serve up the right types of ads in the right places to the right people," said Seth Greenberg, director of national media and digital marketing at TurboTax. "There’s such a small window of time, and the margin of error is so tight."
TurboTax, which is owned by Intuit (INTU), took in just under $1 billion of revenue from its tax products last year, and $780 million of that came during tax season.
"The two peaks make or break tax companies’ years," said Jon Kaplan, head of Google’s financial services industry team faxless pay day loans. "They have to have a sound, focused marketing strategy that takes advantage of those three- to four-day peaks, and they can’t really have a bad day."
Cutting through the noise
As more people file online, competition is growing more intense: A search query for "taxes" on Tuesday returned sponsored ads from 11 of Google’s advertising partners, including TurboTax, H&R Block (HRB), and Jackson Hewitt, all promoting their free online e-file systems. Google said its partners spend tens of millions of search advertising dollars during tax season.
To cut through the noise, TurboTax said Google helps it offer its most relevant taxpayer ads at the most relevant time.
Some of the solutions have little to do with analytics. For instance, Google allows TurboTax to display two different types of ads: one for existing TurboTax customers and one for potential new customers. It also lets TurboTax do "remarketing." That is, showing ads specifically for customers who visited the site but ultimately didn’t use TurboTax’s products.
Other solutions are a little more involved. For example, Google’s data show that searches for "tax refund" soar in early February, when W2s go out, and then taper off. TurboTax says it found a correlation between early filers and those getting refunds, allowing the company to adjust its ads accordingly.
Google also found that most people clicking on TurboTax ads were from a younger demographic, which the company chalks up to the fact that it runs its tax business exclusively on the computer. As a result, TurboTax has turned to social networking to attract customers. It also had a "Tax Rap" competition this year, the winner of which is currently displayed on YouTube’s homepage.
In addition to the usual "taxes," "how to file," and "tax refund" searches, this year is bringing hot searches for "unemployment and taxes," as well as ones related to first-time homebuyer tax credit, new car purchase credit and Energy Star tax credits.
And the top tax-related search this week? "Tax extension."
Buyers lusting after one of the most lucrative domain names in the world, sex.com, will have to wait for their chance to bid on the coveted Internet property.
The rights to sex.com were scheduled to be auctioned off Thursday, with bidders required to put up $1 million just to get in the door, after the previous owner, Escom, went into foreclosure for unpaid debts.
But the auction was postponed after Escom was forced into bankruptcy court late Wednesday by a group of creditors, according to Scott Matthews, a lawyer for DOM Partners, one of Escom’s main creditors.
"The auction has been postponed based upon an involuntary bankruptcy filing in California that was filed after 5 p.m. yesterday," Matthews said, adding that a sale will eventually happen, though he could not say when.
Matthews said there had been "significant interest" in the domain name, but he declined to say how many bidders were scheduled to take part in the auction.
Escom reportedly paid $14 million for sex.com when it bought the site in 2006. DOM Partners helped finance the deal and acquired the rights when Escom failed to make payments earlier this year.
DOM announced plans last week to sell the site to the highest bidder in the equivalent of a foreclosure sale. But the auction was scratched after three of Escom’s creditors filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against Escom in the U payday loan lenders.S. Bankruptcy Court in California’s Central District.
The creditors — Washington Technology Associates, iEntertainment Inc. and AccountingMatters.com — claim Escom owes them more than $10 million.
The dispute marks the latest twist in the storied history of sex.com, which is potentially one of the most profitable internet properties.
Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com, first registered sex.com in 1994. He spent several years in court battling with Stephen Cohen, an adult entertainment mogul with a checkered past, over the site’s ownership.
In 1995, Kremen accused Cohen of stealing sex.com from him in a scheme that involved forged letters and falsified e-mails. In 2000, a court handed control of the domain name back to Kremen and ordered Cohen to pay $65 million to Kremen. Cohen subsequently appealed and the case was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2003.
Two years later, Cohen was arrested in Tijuana for failing to appear in court. He was released in 2007, according to published reports.
U.S. stocks looked ready for a strong start Monday, as investors continue to be upbeat about the economic recovery following a key report on retail sales and ahead of comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Dow Jones industrial average futures were higher.
Futures measure current index values against their perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins.
Wall Street has rallied for the past two weeks as investors have gained confidence in the pace of the economic recovery.
"There really just doesn’t seem to be anything holding this market back," said Manus Cranny, senior market commentator of MF Global Spreads in London.
Cranny said the markets are being driven by "a tsunami of positive sentiment."
Economy: Retail sales jumped 1.4% in October from the prior month, according to the Census Bureau, exceeding the increase of 0.9% expected by a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com. Sales without automobiles rose 0.2%, falling short of the 0.4% gain that was forecast by Briefing.com consensus.
That’s compared to an overall decline of 1.5%, or an increase of 0.5% without auto sales, the prior month.
A survey on manufacturing in New York state also comes out at 8:30 a payday loan companies.m. ET. That’s followed by a report on September business inventories at 10 a.m. ET.
The Fed: Bernanke will offer an outlook of the U.S. economy at a speech in New York City, starting at 12:15 p.m. ET.
Autos: General Motors, releasing its first financial results since emerging from bankruptcy in July, said it lost $1.2 billion in the third quarter. It also said it would begin repaying government loans in December. The U.S. government will received $1 billion, with nearly $200 million going to the Canadian and Ontario governments.
World markets: Stocks worldwide were lifted amid optimism that governments would keep up stimulus efforts. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei added 0.2%. European shares jumped in midday trading.
Money, oil and gold: The anemic dollar was lower versus major international currencies.
Commodities continued to benefit from the weaker greenback. Oil for December delivery jumped 68 cents to $77.03 a barrel.
And gold prices, which have been on a tear this month, reached a new record of $1,133.50 a troy ounce before retreating slightly. The precious metal was still up $11.90 per troy ounce to $1,128.60 in electronic trading.
Oil fell more than 2% Wednesday on worries about demand in the world’s largest fuel consumer after data showed a surprise build in U.S. gasoline inventories and weak U.S. new home sales.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose less than expected last week as imports increased, but gasoline stockpiles logged an unexpected gain of 1.7 million barrels, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"Crude stocks were only up 800,000 but the surprise was gasoline stocks. I think that’s what is keeping the market down," said Dan Flynn, analyst at PFGBEST Research in Chicago.
U.S. crude fell $2.09, or 2.63%, and settled at $77.46 a barrel.
Oil prices came under pressure after data showed sales of new U companies making payday loans.S. homes tumbled unexpectedly in September, the first drop in six months, feeding doubt about an economic recovery.
Oil markets have been watching equities and economic data for signs of a rebound that could lift flagging fuel demand.
U.S. and European equity markets fell after the housing sales data. The U.S. dollar rose on safe-haven demand.
Weaker crude oil prices and slumping margins at refineries knocked quarterly earnings lower at ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500), PetroChina (PCCYF) and Hess Corp., (HES, Fortune 500) all of which reported earnings on Wednesday.
If the word ‘cybercrime’ conjures up images of computer geeks trying to crash computers from their mothers’ basements, think again.
Cybercrime has become a rapidly growing underground business built by savvy criminals, who buy and sell valuable stolen financial information from millions of unsuspecting Internet users every year in an on online black market.
"Most cybercriminals are very, very interested in financial gain by compromising customer accounts," said FBI special agent Austin Berglas, who supervises the Bureau’s New York Internet crimes squad. "Believe it or not, there are people who fall victim to their scams, and we see it every day."
Because cybercriminals are so skilled at hacking into thousands of computers every day, the crime is potentially a billion-dollar business. If every stolen credit card and bank account had been wiped clean last year, that would have netted cybercriminals some $8 billion, according to data from Symantec, maker of the Norton antivirus software.
As a result of the lucrative payout, more and more online criminals are entering the game. In fact, the number of new Internet security threats rose nearly three-fold last year to 1.7 million.
Those cyber attacks mostly come from malware, or malicious software, that hands control of your computer, and anything on it or entered into it, over to the bad guys without you even knowing it. The most common forms of malware include keystroke logging, spyware, viruses, worms and Trojan horses.
How the deed is done. Once your information has been stolen, cybercriminals go onto an invitation-only Internet Relay Chat (like a chat group) to do commerce with other online criminals. Cybercriminals will often set up a hacker channel for a matter of days, do business, and then take it down to avoid detection. When active, hacker IRCs can get upwards of 90,000 cybercriminals talking to one another at a given time, according to Dave Cole, senior director of product management at Symantec.
Online criminals use the IRCs to sell or trade your credit card or bank account information. Credit cards are some of the cheapest commodities sold on the Internet Black Market, averaging about 98 cents each when sold in bulk. A full identity goes for just $10.
Credit cards and bank account information made up 51% of the goods advertised on the underground economy last year, up from 38% in 2007. Credit cards are most popular because they’re the cheapest stolen commodity. Cards with expiration dates, CVV2 numbers and names go for more than ones with numbers only, but there is no honor in the underground online crime world — oftentimes hackers will sell the same credit card information to multiple users, and many have already been canceled.
As a result, buyers and sellers on IRC channels will often give the information to a trusted third party for a fee guaranteed high risk personal loans. The third party will test the card information, often by charging a very nominal amount or by posing as a charity, and then verify the goods to the buyer.
After the information is purchased by a secondary criminal, that person can use a machine to print out a fake credit card with your information. But many use yet another tertiary person to wire stolen money into an overseas bank account.
That third person in the chain is usually called a "mule," who often doesn’t even know he or she is part of an underground organized crime scheme. Many mules respond to the "make money from home" schemes, where stolen money is sent to their accounts, and they subsequently wire that money to an overseas account for a 10% to 15% fee.
Other mules are given phony ATM cards and are asked to retrieve cash for a small fee. But there is substantial risk involved — law enforcement usually comes knocking on mules’ doors first.
To catch a thief. The FBI is working undercover in many of these IRC channels in an effort to thwart the cybercriminals. And in many cases, captured criminals agree to work for the government in exchange for reduced sentences.
"After we make an arrest for someone cashing out at ATM machines, I’ll tell them they can go to jail for 10 years or they can come work for Team America," said Berglas.
The strategy doesn’t always work. Albert Gonzalez, the infamous TJ Maxx (TJX, Fortune 500) thief who stole 45 million credit card numbers and private information of 450,000 customers in 2007, was an FBI informant. He helped bring down a massive credit card theft scheme, but double-crossed the FBI, using insider information to help fellow criminals evade detection and carry out the TJ Maxx theft.
Security software also helps, but it far from solves the problem. To avoid detection, many cybercriminals will send out just a handful of viruses before modifying the code and sending it out again.
"The truth is that ‘fingerprint’ security technology is no longer effective," said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president of product development at Symantec. "The bad guys that got involved are organized professionals, and they figured out how to get around our technology."
Though Trollope said the new version of Norton’s antivirus software helps address the problem by scanning for files’ reputations, he said that Internet consumers also need know how how to keep their identities safe online.
"We do products really well, but the next step is education," said Trollope. "We can’t keep the Internet safe with antivirus software alone."
Warren Buffett praised the U.S. government Tuesday for its efforts to heal the economy, but the influential investor said he expects a slow recovery as consumers remain wary of spending.
Buffett said U.S. officials have done "a terrific job, all things considered" to help forestall the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
"We were right at the brink," Buffett told Carol Loomis, Fortune senior editor at large, at the magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit in California. "This country was becoming not only dysfunctional, but nearly inoperative."
In fact, Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis may have "inadvertently" helped save the financial system a year ago by arranging for BofA (BAC, Fortune 500) to buy troubled Merrill Lynch in "virtually a 24-hour period," according to Buffett.
If Lewis hadn’t, Buffett said Merrill "would have been gone in a nanosecond," joining Lehman Brothers in going out of business.
While he does not see the "green shoots" of economic renewal, Buffett said "I don’t see things getting worse either."
He said the housing market has shown signs of improvement and that markets in certain parts of the country could stabilize within a year.
But the pullback in consumer spending that has occurred as unemployment has risen to a 25-year high could remain in place for some time, he said free credit report without a credit card.
"I think that change in behavior is going to be long lasting, and that may mean that the recovery will be quite slow," he said.
Looking back, Buffett said the head of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) contacted him last year looking for help raising money shortly before the troubled insurer was rescued by the government.
"Don’t waste your time on me," Buffett told said he told Robert Willumstad, then the chief executive officer of AIG. "I’m not going to be able to do anything for you."
Buffett said he was also contacted by Barclays with a request to provide insurance for the British bank’s bid to buy Lehman Brothers last year. Buffett said he requested additional details from the bank but didn’t learn until 10 months later that a Barclays executive had tried to contact him on his cell phone, which he didn’t understand how to operate.
"Don’t try to get in touch with me by cell phone," he said.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A) invests in more than 70 businesses, including various insurance and reinsurance companies and public utilities.
The fight over health care overhaul is on track to be the most expensive issue ever to hit the hallways of Congress.
The bill for lobbyists, television ads and political donations has topped $375 million — or enough to pay the entire insurance tab for about 30,000 families a year.
The big spenders range from drug companies, hospitals and doctor groups to organizations that advocate for unions, immigrants and retirees.
The largest chunk has gone to direct lobbying of lawmakers and other policymakers. In the first half of 2009, the health care industry spent nearly $280 million on lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Another $75 million was spent on television advertising airtime by health care interests, mostly politically left-leaning groups and health industries. And another $23 million has flowed from the health care sector into the campaign war chests of 2010 candidates for federal office, on the heels of some $95 million raised during the 2008 cycle.
"The health sector is on track in 2009 to spend more on lobbying than it has on any other year in U.S. history — and by a lot," said Dave Levinthal of the Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes and collects lobbying and campaign spending figures.
Taking the Hill
Part of the reason for the big price tag is that so many different types of groups and companies could be affected by health care reform. Business models could be upended — for better or worse — for everything from urgent care clinics to providers of electronic medical records.
Lobbyists have been hired for groups as varied as the College of American Pathologists, which has spent $775,717 on lobbying this year, and the prestigious University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which spent $220,000.
The other reason for the big bucks is the duration of the debate. Every week it goes on, millions more are spent trying to influence the negotiations.
The lobbying figures alone are on track to exceed half-a-billion-dollar mark by the end of the year, which would be a record.
The big payoff for such spending? Open doors to policy makers.
Consider that Richard Umbdenstock, who heads the American Hospital Association, has spent $7 million on lobbying this year and made seven White House visits since March to talk to staffers, according to a White House letter to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a nonprofit watchdog group that sued to get such information.
Other advocates that have made White House visits include the head of the lobbing group for drug makers, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the head of the health insurance lobbying group, America’s Health Insurance Plans.
"Health care is supposed to be a personal issue that addresses the issues of individual Americans, but now it’s addressing drug and insurance industry concerns, thanks to their lobbyists," said Christine Hines of Public Citizen, a nonprofit group that tracks money and power on the Hill.
Yet, lobbying and advertising is guaranteed by the Constitution. And several big spenders, such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, say they’re educating not advocating for any particular bill creditreport.
"All of our advertising to date has been done to raise awareness of the importance of passing bipartisan health care reform this year," said Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at the pharmaceutical group, which has spent $13 million on lobbying this year.
Johnson points out that his association’s members have told policymakers they’ll commit $80 billion to cutting costs over the next 10 years. However, the group is also wary of legislative attempts to allow government to use its purchasing power to force drugmakers to negotiate pricing or allow cheaper foreign drugs to be imported.
"Our companies directly employ nearly 700,000 workers around the country as well as another 2.5 million indirectly," Johnson said. "I would say that we have a pretty significant stake in this debate, too."
TV ads get the word out
A popular way to influence public opinion is through television ads, and August was the biggest month this year for health care advocacy ads, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
About $1 million a day has been spent on health care reform TV ads since June, said Evan Tracey, president of the the media research group.
In August alone, $20 million was spent on 34,000 ads, with foes of congressional reform proposals outspending proponents. Earlier in the year ads supporting reform outnumbered those opposing by a margin of 2-to-1.
The buyers range from left-leaning groups Health Care for America Now, whose members include unions and immigrant advocacy groups, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and anti-tax groups such as Our Country Deserves Better.
"What you’ve got is the perfect storm of lots of stakeholders who have access to all kinds of capital, so they’re putting everything into this," said Tracey, whose group consults for CNN. "Everyone has a dog in this fight. That’s what is compounding this from an advocacy perspective."
Another way to influence the debate is through election campaign contributions. Although it is early in the 2010 election cycle, the health care sector has contributed $23 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
One of the biggest beneficiaries has been conservative Blue Dog Democrats.
Many Blue Dogs are on the fence about controversial health care issues, such as whether to create government-run insurance plans. Their votes are crucial to passing a final bill, so they also tend to attract more attention and campaign contributions than other Democrats and Republicans.
Health and accident insurers, HMOs and health services organizations increased their contributions to Blue Dogs from $106,200 in the first quarter of 2009 to $122,650 in the second, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
That is a 15% increase. By comparison, Democrats not in the Blue Dog group saw a 3% hike in contributions.
The Obama administration pledged unprecedented transparency in its accounting of the $700 billion bank and auto bailouts (TARP) and the $787.2 billion Recovery Act. A lot of information has been made public but there are some key details where the transparency falls far short.
Here’s what we still don’t know:
They’re important questions: We want the government to ensure it is spending our money wisely, and experts want to know why the Obama administration won’t provide the answers.
"Why are we bailing out banks, and what are we getting out of it?" asked Craig Jennings, senior fiscal policy analyst at transparency research organization OMBWatch. "These are very big questions, and the administration doesn’t seem to be willing to answer them."
What we do know. To make the bailouts and stimulus more transparent, the administration commissioned Web sites like recovery.gov and financialstability.gov, which have given the public previously unattainable information about how taxpayer funds are spent.
"The president and vice president made a clear commitment from the beginning that we would provide unprecedented accountability and transparency," said Liz Oxhorn, the Obama administration’s spokeswoman for the Recovery Act. "Look at recovery.gov and compare it to the standard of how government worked in the past. It is truly a pioneering site in terms of access."
But many analysts and overseers say that the provided information is not nearly enough.
"The administration’s transparency goals clearly have not been reached," said John Clippinger, co-director, of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. "I think this administration is making a huge effort to enable them, considering where we’ve been in the last eight years, but they’re certainly not there yet."
Accounting for TARP. The Treasury Department states on financialstability.gov that the $204 billion in capital investments in banks are "for stability or lending." But it does not require banks who have received the funds to show how they are using the money.
Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP) Neil Barofsky, and Prof. Elizabeth Warren’s Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) have been outspoken on this issue, and Barofsky even performed his own voluntary survey to show the accounting could be done. Treasury responded that its current method of accounting is sufficient — reporting on broad trends for the top 21 banks’ lending habits.
"We share SIGTARP’s interest in tracking the level of lending by those institutions that have received government investment," a Treasury official said. "To that end, Treasury has released monthly reports tracking how much these institutions are actually lending."
Experts say without deeper digging into the question of "where the money is going," the public will never really know if the program is working: If banks are lending, what do they have to show for it? How has lending improved?
"Are they giving loans just to extremely credit-worthy people? Subprime borrowers? Are minorities able to secure loans?" asked Jennings online payday loans.
Besides "is it working," Treasury also won’t answer how taxpayers’ investments are faring, declining to make public the fair market value for the shares and warrants it holds as a result of TARP. Taxpayers won’t have any way of knowing whether they have lost or gained money on their investments in companies like General Motors, AIG (AIG, Fortune 500), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) until after the government sells its stakes.
Digging into stimulus. The accounting of stimulus has been met with less scrutiny, mostly because Congress made it a point to track how every dollar was spent after struggling to get the same information from the TARP program.
Still, the government’s accounting only goes as far as the first tier recipients from the states. For example, say a construction company gets stimulus funds from the state of Nebraska. That company has to report the receipt of those funds to the government, but if they hire a dump truck company and an asphalt company to do the work, that doesn’t get reported.
Why do we care? "It would enable the Obama administration to say there were X amount of businesses that benefited from a particular project, and the government could connect the dots if there is fraud, waste or abuse," said Jennings.
What can be done. Some argue open-source technology is the best solution for both the government and the public.
That is, use the Internet to provide all forms of government data in a very sortable, searchable database, said Clippinger. He argues that if all the data are in one place, with independent eyes looking at it, then the data couldn’t be co-opted, or selectively made available.
"When you get lots of people looking at it, you’ll create better accountability and efficiency," said Clippinger.
That idea is supported by House bill H.R. 1242, backed by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.). The bill would take the reporting out Treasury’s hands, and require the administration to send all data straight into a database.
It’s similar to the model used by recovery.gov, which is run by the independent Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (Recovery Board), not by the Obama administration, which runs financialstability.gov.
"We’re fully aware of what our name is and what the public expects of us," said Ed Pound, a Recovery Board spokesman. "We’re not going to fall into that trap of not sharing certain information."
In the end, experts say the Obama administration will have to find ways to make a greater amount of data even more accessible to achieve the transparency goals it set out for itself.
"There are other ways of skinning this cat," said Clippinger.
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