LegiStorm founder makes offering to angry staffers

The president and founder of a web site that has angered congressional staff by posting personal information contained on disclosure forms is offering a solution.

LegiStorm, the company at the center of the dispute, will re-post redacted records if the House pays to black out home addresses, bank account information, signatures and other sensitive information from the financial disclosure forms, which senior House staffers are required to fill out.

{mosads}Jock Friedly, who created LegiStorm to bring more transparency to government documents, made the offer in a posting on his website Thursday after a story in The Hill reported that outraged staffers were demanding legal action.

Aides argue it is against the law for LegiStorm, a for-profit company, to use financial disclosure forms for commercial purposes.

Friedly defended his company in the posting, and wrote that he would re-post redacted forms if the House pays his “out-of-pocket costs.” This would not include LegiStorm’s overhead or any potential profits, he wrote.

He said he would post the redacted forms provided the retracted information had “no significant public disclosure consequences.”

Friedly also suggested that the House make minor changes to the financial form so that the signature and addresses of staffers are disclosed only to the House and are not released publicly. The House Ethics Committee has already said it will do this.

In addition, he said the House should review the forms for inadvertent disclosures before they are released publicly.

“This solution would certainly save the taxpayers over the alternative of the House foolishly bringing the frivolous lawsuit that many chiefs of staff appear to demand,” he wrote.

He emphasized staffers only provided personal details, such as investment account numbers and children’s names, which are now provoking complaints, in a small number of the forms.

He also argued that LegiStorm has voluntarily gone to significant lengths and costs to scrub the most sensitive of information from what it posts, including investment account numbers and Social Security numbers.

LegiStorm voluntarily added security measures to ensure automated bots cannot scan posted information for telemarketing or more nefarious purposes, he said. Some staffers have suggested that telemarketers have contacted them by getting information from LegiStorm.

The House Administration Committee, which is working with the Clerk of the House to address the problem, did not return a request for comment.