Foreign Lobbying Database Up and Running (original) (raw)

By Alex Knott, CQ Staff

Tracking the efforts of foreign countries and organizations to lobby the U.S. government became easier this week. The Justice Department launched a searchable online database of filings under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) — including reports filed during the current month.

“This has been underway for years,” said department spokesman Dean Boyd. “Part of the statute calls for this to be publicly available and we are just doing it in a way that is more user-friendly.”

Previously, the FARA database had been available to the public only at the agency’s Pennsylvania Avenue office, during limited hours.

“It is about time that the Department of Justice step up to the plate and carry out its mandate,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, which has long pushed for wider access to the FARA database. “This is the original intent of FARA . . . if we just opened up the book for everyone to see, we would be able to derail any mischief that foreign governments may be up to.”

Earlier this year, the Senate included in its version of the lobbying disclosure bill (S 1) a provision requiring the attorney general to put the FARA database on the Internet. The House-passed version (HR 2316) has no similar language.

“Today the American public won a small victory,” said Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, sponsor of an unsuccessful bill in the 109th Congress demanding online access to the FARA database. “I am delighted that there is finally sunshine on the foreign agent filings at the Department of Justice.”

In recent years, there have been approximately 1,700 lobbyists representing more than 100 countries before Congress, the White House and the federal government, according to the Justice Department’s most recent biannual report to Congress.

This story originally appeared on CQ.com.