Judge temporarily blocks Stock Act

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/judge-temporarily-blocks-stock-act/2012/09/13/d4d2e4b2-fdf8-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.html

A federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked the government from enforcing a new insider trading law that would require about 28,000 executive branch employees to disclose details of their financial transactions on the Internet.

U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. in Greenbelt granted opponents of the law a temporary preliminary injunction that prevents the so-called STOCK Act from being enforced until Oct. 31 .The law, signed by President Obama in April, had been set to take effect Aug. 31.

The judge wrote that the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act appeared to illegally infringe on federal workers’ right to privacy. The injuction does not, however, affect the law from taking effect for members of Congress and their staffs. The law was written with them in mind. Congress amended it to extend to senior executives in the executive branch, including the military.

The law was designed to restrict those it affects from profiting from non-public information they obtain through their jobs.