Update2: More of a geek than I thought I was, I changed the invalid file extension and got the video archive of the hearing to work. Go here. Skip ahead to 3:24:00 to watch Rep. Bachus and Professor Elizabeth Warren debate the possible application of a waiver to the banks. Also, Professor Warren has posted a long blog, including a discussion of her long colloquy with Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the committee's senior Republican. It turns out that after I left the hearing for another meeting, she made many of the same points that I did below about requiring banks to sign waivers and provide full information. I "associate my remarks" with hers, as they say here in Washington. If you are more adept with media players than I appear to be today, you can watch the archived webcast. The Warren/Bachus discussion appears over three hours in--but you should be able to skip ahead. I remain astonished that the committee would side with the banks, whose strategy is clearly to chill the efforts of ordinary citizens to petition their government, in such a way.

Original post: Today several victims (pictured here at the hearing in the audience, not at the witness table) of credit card tricks and traps refused to testify before a Financial Services Committee subcommittee hearing today, after an unprecedented demand by Republican staff that they sign a waiver. Although I haven't seen the document I am told it was sweeping and would have allowed their banks to use their confidential account information to impeach their testimony. Here is a release from PIRG and other consumer and labor groups decrying the gag rule. I've been in Washington seventeen years, and I've never seen anything like this, nor have I ever seen a committee request similar detailed information or waivers from a bank witness. It certainly would be helpful if Congress had more detail about banks -- profits from bank fees, distribution of bank fees across customer base, internal marketing strategies, copies of all consumer phone calls and letters complaining to the bank -- to help it do its business. I cannot even remember the last time I saw a footnote in testimony from an industry witness, let alone significant supporting documentation. Here's a link to the hearing, which includes testimony of several professors on behalf of our position. Here is also the testimony
that one victim, Marvin Weatherspoon, would have presented.