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fomc | 1,995 | But for all the transcripts that the participants in the meeting have reviewed and made corrections to their statements where necessary, we can throw away both the tapes and the draft transcripts. That would cover everything from the start of 1994 on. | 47 |
fomc | 1,995 | So, have you thrown away the tapes but still have the draft transcripts, or have you kept both? | 21 |
fomc | 1,995 | So far, pending this discussion, we have kept everything. | 12 |
fomc | 1,995 | Going forward then, we would-- | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | Going forward, once the lightly edited transcript is finished, we would throw away the other transcript and the tape. | 22 |
fomc | 1,995 | So within the ambit of the next meeting, you would have a lightly edited transcript and no draft transcript or tape? | 23 |
fomc | 1,995 | I don't know what the timeframe will be. It might take a couple of months before we get all the corrections and are able to incorporate them into the lightly edited transcript. By the time we send the draft transcripts to you, you send them directly back to us, and we incorporate corrections, there may be a meeting tha... | 67 |
fomc | 1,995 | Okay. I think it is important that most of what anybody would get with a subpoena would be the transcripts that we have reviewed for accuracy--the lightly edited transcripts with the confidential information redacted. | 39 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Then I think that normally keeping the tape on is the right way to go. The tape is normally on, and it is explicitly turned off only for certain discussions of confidential matters other than monetary policy. I am convinced that we have less risk with this policy, given what Don has said about the lightly edited transc... | 63 |
fomc | 1,995 | The Chairman has just requested that we speed up this conversation. With that, I call on President Parry. | 22 |
fomc | 1,995 | I basically agree with what President Forrestal said. I would stress, though, that if we do have the tapes subpoenaed we fully intend to stop taping at that point. | 36 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Jordan. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Thank you. If we did not already have the tapes, I am not sure that I would support initiating such a procedure, but I don't see the possibility of terminating it at this time. We have transcripts for 1994. They will be released five years from now, or sooner if somebody makes us. That leaves us basically with two choi... | 254 |
fomc | 1,995 | That is a very good point. | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | I would say the current situation is such that as much as I would like to turn the tape off, I don't think we can. Having said that, I must tell you that I think Governor Lindsey is right. First of all, I believe the tape has had some chilling effect on our discussions. I see a lot more people reading their statements.... | 182 |
fomc | 1,995 | Governor LaWare. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | I must say that I have never seen any reason why we should not keep the tape on. I agree with some of the representations made here that might serve us well in protecting the tape. The lightly edited transcript, I think, is very useful from a historic point of view. If we can delete or remove or edit the confidential m... | 158 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let them wait then. [Laughter] They will forget about it after a while. I just don't see the need to do that. It will just reopen the whole issue and stoke the fire under it. | 43 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let me respond to that because it is a quite legitimate question. It is my impression that House Banking Committee Chairman Leach has been holding off on any legislative initiatives in this area on the grounds that we are going to do it ourselves. The impression I have--I don't know how firmly based it is--is that if w... | 223 |
fomc | 1,995 | I agree with your impression, Mr. Chairman. My understanding from talking with the committee staff is that there was interest on the part of the new chairman of the committee on including something on this subject in legislation. Indeed, the bill that was introduced on the first day of the session concerning the Reserv... | 196 |
fomc | 1,995 | Chairman Leach effectively is leaving it to us to make the judgment, but he has made it very clear that he wants us to make a judgment. | 31 |
fomc | 1,995 | Okay. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Are you finished, Mr. Chairman? Did you want to say more? | 15 |
fomc | 1,995 | I don't want to say more. | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Moskow. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am very concerned about making a long-term decision on this today that is going to bind future Open Market Committees for many years to come. Since I am very new to this, I am begging indulgence if I ask some very basic questions. First of all, you mentioned that Virgil Mattingly's memo came out after the subcommitte... | 97 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. Subsequent to that memo we had a conference call devoted-almost exclusively to the memo and we left the recommendation intact. | 26 |
fomc | 1,995 | I divide this into two questions. One is, would we want to have these tapes today if we were voting today to set up a system of taping and follow the procedure we are going to have? Would we do that today? My sense just from reading this report and from the comments here is that we would not initiate this. | 67 |
fomc | 1,995 | You could stipulate that. [Laughter] | 10 |
fomc | 1,995 | Okay. If that is the case, then the second question I have is whether we have explored both within the Committee and with those in the Congress who are so interested in this area other ways that we could be more open. I agree that we should have a policy of openness unless it is going to interfere with our deliberative... | 73 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let me address that. I think the answer to that is definitely yes. We have explored it on the Hill and tried to get a sense of where everyone was. We obviously can't do this in any detail, but I am not sure that any of the options we tried to surface had any support. The only real option that exists for us now is to tu... | 323 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mike, were you finished? | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Broaddus. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | I want to support Jerry Jordan's point--if we are going to leave the tape on most of the time, I think he made a compelling argument for leaving it on all of the time. | 39 |
fomc | 1,995 | Then the lightly edited transcript would be released after five years in redacted form. We have redaction capabilities. So, it is really a redaction issue. | 32 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes, it would not preclude that. I think we would still have the lightly edited transcript as the principal written record, but I also think that there might be something to be gained by keeping the draft transcripts somewhere in our archives so that any questions that might come up about the integrity of the editing p... | 76 |
fomc | 1,995 | Isn't there a legal question on the redacting? That is, within 30 years don't we have to send the unredacted transcript to the National Archives? We can't redact the transcript and throw the unredacted version away. | 47 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am confused. Could you clarify? I thought we had to keep an unredacted transcript for archival purposes, but I also thought I heard you say before that we do not have to do that and that we can just destroy that transcript once we have done the redactions. | 56 |
fomc | 1,995 | What we would destroy is the draft transcript that does not incorporate your edits. We would then have a complete lightly edited transcript-- | 25 |
fomc | 1,995 | Including the materials that would later be redacted before publication. | 12 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes, before release to the public. The unredacted transcript would be turned over to the National Archives after 30 years. | 26 |
fomc | 1,995 | Okay. Governor Lindsey. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | I have a point of information that I think gets to the heart of President Boehne's comment and our willingness to redact certain materials. Mr. Chairman, is it your intention to turn off the tape during the discussion of Mexico we are about to have later this afternoon? | 55 |
fomc | 1,995 | It is one of the questions that I was going to raise with the Committee after we discussed the grounds for redacting central bank issues. However, I must say my own inclination would be to forget this issue of turning off the tape from time to time on a discretionary basis because that leaves open the question of how t... | 78 |
fomc | 1,995 | No quarrel from me; I think it makes the point that we were making earlier. | 18 |
fomc | 1,995 | On the last point that you made, Mr. Chairman, about when to turn off the tape, there is a way to accomplish that and that is by doing it in a negative way instead of in an affirmative way. In other words, what is at issue here, I believe, is an appropriate record, whatever that may be, of monetary policy discussions. ... | 216 |
fomc | 1,995 | I forgot this issue. Some of the things that I had in mind for turning off the tape were organizational discussions and issues relating to how we as a Committee comport ourselves. The reason I would raise that issue, and I retract what I just said about leaving the tape on all the time, goes back to what I thought was ... | 117 |
fomc | 1,995 | Precisely. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | I would not turn the tape off on central bank discussions on the grounds that they may involve important issues. But I would think that personnel matters and discussions about how we relate to the world at large and how we organize ourselves as a Committee could be done without the tape running. | 55 |
fomc | 1,995 | For example, this conversation we are having now would not be taped? | 14 |
fomc | 1,995 | Exactly. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | This conversation, yes. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | I take it your point is, of course, that what is taped ought to be broadened to include perhaps central bank considerations as opposed to somewhat more tightly defined monetary policy considerations? | 36 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let me tell you what I think I heard as a consensus, though I am not sure. Correct me if you think I am wrong. It seems to me that we need a vote to determine this. I think I heard a consensus, though not unanimity, that we should continue taping and that we should enunciate a policy on this issue. It is possible not t... | 140 |
fomc | 1,995 | I agree. It is not clear where the Committee is on that. I think we ought to take a vote of all 19 of us because this is a policy in which we will all be involved, not just the current members of the FOMC. | 52 |
fomc | 1,995 | I have some questions. First, what is the definition of "enunciate?" Could enunciate be a private communication to the chairman of the House Banking Committee? | 34 |
fomc | 1,995 | Do you want to answer that, Mr. Chairman? | 11 |
fomc | 1,995 | Is it the same thing as an announcement to the public or could it be different? | 17 |
fomc | 1,995 | I used the phrase enunciate a policy and the question is does that mean-- | 17 |
fomc | 1,995 | When the tape would be turned off, is that what you mean? | 14 |
fomc | 1,995 | No, the question is do we enunciate a policy on taping, and I do not really know what enunciate means in this context. | 31 |
fomc | 1,995 | You mean make public do you not? | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | Oh, yes. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | That is what I meant. | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | Make a public announcement. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | The answer is "yes." We would make a public announcement and mention our decision in the minutes. But the announcement would not go into details. It would just list the various items; it would be a very short statement. | 45 |
fomc | 1,995 | You could not just have it in the minutes and then convey that to the chairman of the House Banking Committee? | 22 |
fomc | 1,995 | If it is in the minutes, it is public. | 11 |
fomc | 1,995 | The minutes will be published in about six weeks. | 10 |
fomc | 1,995 | Oh, you mean those minutes? | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Okay. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think we have a few more people who want to speak. | 13 |
fomc | 1,995 | I just have a question and this has to do with whether we allow the tapes to go off for certain subjects. It is a question to Virgil: What could we argue reasonably convincingly about redaction? For example, if we keep the tape on all the time, what is it that we could hold back for 30 years? What would be a legitimate... | 100 |
fomc | 1,995 | That is legitimate. We could keep from the public information that we get from another central bank or foreign government on the grounds that if we disclosed it after five years, we would no longer be able to get that information. That source of information would dry up and that is legitimate grounds to redact the mate... | 61 |
fomc | 1,995 | What about how we organize ourselves for the rest of the world? | 13 |
fomc | 1,995 | We would have to make that discussion public. Our organization rules are public. Now, if the Committee is talking about the appointment of a person to a particular position, the debate about that could be redacted. There would be a possible invasion of personal privacy. | 52 |
fomc | 1,995 | I would note with respect to dealings with foreign central banks that Congress, back in the late 1970s and the early 1980s when they were considering legislation dealing with the maintenance of transcripts, did contemplate an exemption dealing with foreign central banks that would have allowed us to withhold that infor... | 65 |
fomc | 1,995 | Returning to your example, Mr. Chairman, I would agree that it was outrageous to request the tape for that telephone meeting we had in October 1993. In hindsight, however, it probably served us well that we had that tape because it was very useful in showing that there was no conspiracy, that there was no evil activity... | 90 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think it did clear the air, but the issue is that if we had known our discussion was going to be transcribed and made public, would we have been inhibited in that discussion--as indeed I think we were in other discussions later. There is a very special type of discussion that any committee, independently of the indiv... | 299 |
fomc | 1,995 | That's exactly right. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, when we are dealing with monetary policy, it is a lot easier to defend preserving the confidentiality of a document. I think there really is a lot of respect for the independence of the Fed in the Congress. When anyone is trying to get information and we can say it relates to monetary policy, we are going... | 145 |
fomc | 1,995 | Tom, did you want say something again? | 9 |
fomc | 1,995 | Not on substance. I was just going to suggest that it might be helpful for the Chairman to take a straw vote--a show of hands--on that issue first, just to get a sense of where people are without a formal vote. | 48 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am not going to record these votes because we do not have to. There is no legal requirement. But we do have to find out where everyone stands. | 32 |
fomc | 1,995 | Before we do that, may I ask a question? A lot of times we have briefings where one of us or a member of the staff presents information and we ask questions. Is this the kind of thing that you would contemplate not taping? | 50 |
fomc | 1,995 | No, the tape would be on for that. | 10 |
fomc | 1,995 | I was thinking about legislative matters such as what is happening on the Hill, those kinds of discussions? | 20 |
fomc | 1,995 | That is not done during the meeting. | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | It is done when the meeting is over. | 9 |
fomc | 1,995 | We usually do that at lunch because it is not part of the FOMC deliberations. | 19 |
fomc | 1,995 | And the tape is not on. | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | Okay. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think, Mr. Chairman, we could distinguish between organizational matters that would not be taped and monetary and central banking matters that would be taped. | 29 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
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