As news spreads that a consensus Wall Street bailout plan is being finalized, and leaders negotiate between proposals submitted from the Treasury Department, Senator Dodd, Representative Barney Frank, and others, two separate conversations are taking place. One is public, as the nation struggles to evaluate the urgency of the economic situation, and to understand the best course of action.  The other, however, is not public, as the compromises and deal making — the real stuff of urgent policy-making — are held in the dark.

The Sunlight Foundation is calling on Congress to publish the proposed bailout legislation as soon as possible, to give constituents and lawmakers themselves as much time as possible to examine the specifics of the proposal before it’s voted on.  We will post the draft legislation to PublicMarkup.org as soon as possible, to give citizens a chance to weigh in on the proposal’s specifics.

Congress faces urgent pressure from the Administration and from constituents to act. Regardless of the course of action Congress ultimately chooses, this is a decision that must be made in full public view. If citizens don’t have a chance to evaluate the legislation, how can Congress possibly represent their constituents’ needs?

The need for sunlight is especially required for urgent or emergency legislation. All too often, Congress praises transparency as a democratic value, but violates it in practice. Any lack of transparency in consideration of this legislation would be especially ironic since lawmakers have blamed the current crisis on financial malfeasance that was hidden from public view.

We have called the relevant congressional committees and have asked for copies of the new consensus legislation.  As soon we get it, we’ll be posting the text of the legislation online at PublicMarkup.org.

Now more than ever,  Congress must represent the needs of all Americans, and to give everyone - citizens and lawmakers alike — a chance to participate actively in the legislative process.

Before the bailout proposal is considered by lawmakers, it must undergo an even more important test: evaluation and assessment by the public.

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Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, writing at Secrecy News, reports that the Congress has not used the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to perform any oversight of the National Security Agency (NSA), despite maintaining an office there to do just that.

Despite multi-billion dollar acquisition failures at NSA and the Agency’s controversial, possibly illegal surveillance practices . . .Congress has declined to summon all of its oversight resources such as GAO to address such issues.

When asked NSA oversight during a Senate hearing, David Walker, GAO’s comptroller general, verified that the agency has office space at the NSA, but they don’t use it since they are not receiving any request for oversight from Congress. He added that he didn’t want to have people sitting out there twiddling their thumbs.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on government oversight, has introduced the Intellegence Community Audit Act of 2007 (S. 82), that would bolster GAO’s oversight role in auditing the country’s intelligence agencies. Last Friday, Akaka convened a hearing on the subject, GovernmentExecutive.com reports, and Steven testified that federal spending on intelligence has almost doubled in the last decade, going from $26.6 billion in 1997 to more than $50 billion last year, without any corresponding increase in oversight. Steven also said intelligence agencies have doubled their spending to hire private contractors over roughly the same time period, again with inadequate oversight, what Steven termed, "In effect…a net decrease in intelligence oversight."

GAO has been called the "Congressional Watchdog" and the "Taxpayers’ Best Friend." Huh?

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