Judge orders Fed to deliver gold records for her review

2:18p ET Monday, January 10, 2011

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

GATA today scored a small but perhaps auspicious victory over the
Federal Reserve in our lawsuit seeking access to the Fed's secret gold
files. The judge presiding over GATA's federal freedom-of-information
lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Ellen Segal
Huvelle, granted GATA's motion to order the Fed to produce in complete
form for the judge's private review 20 gold-related documents the Fed
has sought to keep secret. The judge ordered the Fed to deliver the
documents by Friday.

Through its lawyers, William J. Olson P.C. of Vienna, Virginia -- www.LawAndFreedom.com
-- GATA has argued that the Fed's production of gold-related documents
has been so inadequate and the Fed's arguments for keeping them secret
so weak that the court should review the documents acknowledged by the
Fed and order the Fed to answer 25 questions from GATA about the Fed's
search for relevant information.

While Judge Huvelle still could grant at any time the Fed's motion to
dismiss GATA's lawsuit, her ruling today at least implies a little
skepticism about the Fed and its tactics. Combined with today's
statement by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the new chairman of the House Financial
Services Committee's Subcommittee on Monetary Policy (http://www.gata.org/node/9495),
Judge Huvelle's ruling gives hope that the Fed's enormous secret power
to rig markets and bestow the most fantastic patronage on a parasitic
financial elite can be brought to account eventually.

The judge's order to the Fed to produce documents for her private review can be found at GATA's Internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedLawsuitCourtOrder-01-10-2011...

Those who are skeptical of GATA's complaint that the Federal Reserve
is part of an international gold-price rigging scheme should reflect on
the meaning of the Fed's refusal to disclose all its gold-related
records, records that include gold swap arrangements with foreign banks:

http://www.gata.org/node/8192

If the U.S. gold reserves are just sitting somewhere, inert,
unencumbered, and unused for surreptitious market intervention, what's
the problem with full disclosure?

Financial journalists unafraid of aggravating the world's financial
powers should start putting gold-related questions to the Fed and other
central banks and stop simply assuming that secrecy should be the normal
order of things with central banks and gold.

And people everywhere who believe in free markets in the monetary
metals and who have not already supported GATA financially can join our
struggle here:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

This struggle could have been undertaken easily and likely more
effectively by the World Gold Council, which aims to represent gold
mining companies and gold investors. But the council's indifference to
questions of surreptitious central bank intervention in the gold market
has left the struggle to GATA. We need your help to pursue this struggle
to victory for free markets, limited government, and a better, fairer
world.