Aides’ private info exposed

Furious senior House aides are demanding committee action against a website that has posted their bank account numbers, signatures, home addresses and children’s names that are included in financial disclosure documents.

Some are demanding legal action against the website LegiStorm, which since February has been posting congressional documents online as a way to increase transparency in government. Aides have brought their complaints to the House Administration Committee and the clerk of the House.

{mosads}Staffers, however, are unsatisfied so far and say they may protest by refusing to turn in personal disclosure forms by the May 15 deadline. They worry the online information could lead to identify theft or their being targeted by criminals, and some are pleading for intervention from lawyers at the House General Counsel’s office.

“No one has a problem with disclosure,” said Jeff Loveing, chief of staff to Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.). “What we’re talking about is a concern for our safety, our financial safety and our children’s safety,” he said. “I’ve researched identity theft and how much of a goldmine this information is for people who deal in that world.”

Loveing argued that the House and Senate could have a “liability problem” if someone used the information to commit a crime.

Aides complained about LegiStorm during a meeting earlier this week of the House Chiefs of Staff Association, attended by representatives from the clerk’s office and staffers from the ethics committee along with 30 senior aides.

Some aides said they are livid House Administration has not at least threatened legal action against LegiStorm, which they say should be prohibited by law from using the information because it is a for-profit company.

“If any federal agency had so poorly protected thousands of sensitive personal files, they would have been called up for a full investigation by [Government and Oversight Committee Chairman] Henry Waxman [D-Calif.],” remarked one senior GOP aide.

LegiStorm founder Jock Friedly has refused to remove the names of children, home addresses and staffers’ signatures. In defending his company, he said it is up to the House and Senate to remove information from the forms if it is sensitive.

“If they fell down on their jobs, it’s not our fault,” he said.

{mospagebreak}Friedly, a former reporter for The Hill, has taken down personal information in some cases. For example, he took down the address of a woman who had been stalked 20 years earlier and wanted her address redacted.

He said he decides whether to comply with a request on a case-by case-basis.

“I’m not going to define the line … we’re not saying never, but everyone has a story,” he said.

{mosads}Not all staffers are required to fill out the forms LegiStorm is posting. Only those earning 120 percent of the federal FS-15 base-level salary — just more than $111,000 in 2007 — must submit them.

The ethics committee has agreed to change the form for the next filing date in May so it does not make staffers’ home addresses and signatures publicly available. But the aides argue that the damage has already been done.

Loveing, who along with other aides is writing to the General Counsel’s office for help, first became concerned after receiving telemarketing phone calls from brokers citing extremely detailed information about his financial holdings. Shortly afterward, he said another broker called and asked to speak to his young son.

Unlike some of his colleagues, he doesn’t blame House Administration or the clerk for the posting of sensitive information, and notes they have worked with LegiStorm to remove some material, such as Social Security numbers. At the same time, he said House Administration should interpret the prohibition on commercial use of the documents in staffers’ favor instead of LegiStorm’s.

The clerk’s office would not respond to a request for comment about the criticism. It did issue a statement acknowledging the issue was addressed at a Monday meeting of the House Chiefs of Staff Association, and insisting that ongoing measures are being taken to “ensure the privacy and security of confidential information submitted during the filing of financial disclosure statements.”

Friedly brushed aside suggestions that financial institutions are combing the site for telemarketing purposes, arguing that the white pages have people’s addresses and that other legal information, such as their home purchases, can be searched on LexisNexis or even on The Washington Post’s database of home purchases in the area.

“It strains credibility to believe that financial services companies would spend hours combing our site for a handful of financial disclosures when there is much more information available by other means,” he said. “This is not where Smith Barney gets its information. It just doesn’t make sense.”

He also noted that LegiStorm is not selling the disclosure information but providing it for free so the media and citizens can find out whether top staffers on the Hill have any conflict-of-interest issues with their financial holdings, previous employment or spouse’s work or whether they received any inappropriate gifts.

Since the forms were posted online, several reports about staffers’ conflicts of interest and inappropriate gifts have appeared in newspapers, including The Hill.

Staffers contend they are not objecting to the disclosure requirements, which have been required by law since the late 1970s, but to the lack of personal privacy and protection. During Monday’s meeting, one staffer said his apartment was burglarized shortly after the financial disclosure forms appeared online. The first thing the police asked him, he said, is whether anyone recently had access to his personal financial information.

Friedly dismisses such suggestions as conspiracy theories.

“Hysteria on the Hill is not matched by the reality of what’s gone on,” he said.