The U.S. Department of the Treasury has seized control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae--I'm not sure how it all works but I think there would have been a way to prevent this.
Fannie and Freddie were both government chartered corportations; however because they were not federal agencies they were not subject to the FOIA. Furthermore, examination records that other agencies developed while looking at Fannie and Freddie are allowed to be withheld from the public pursuant to FOIA exemption 8.
I believe that if Fannie and Freddie would have been subject to the FOIA; and if exemption 8 of the FOIA is either abolished or limited, this whole fiasco may have been averted. Why, because transparency allows the public (and investors) to see much more of what is going on and therefore, would have possibly caused Freddie and Fannie to limit their activities that caused this to happen long before it came to a government seizure or would have allowe the public to look and see what government agencies where not properly doing in regulating these two financial giants. Of course, this is only hindsight, and we taxpayers are now going to foot a very large bill.
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