The extent of the SEC’s new b(3)b, though more limited than Fox has described it, remains undefined. The agency will have to argue a case in court as to what they take records or information obtained for “surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities” to mean. (The SEC’s statement speaks of including products derived from this category, a step towards expansiveness.) And judges will, as they have in litigation around other FOIA exemptions, have to make some decisions about what congress intended here.
But one thing’s clear: they didn’t intend to exempt the SEC from each and every FOIA, no matter what someone on Fox Business says.
CORRECTION, 7:30pm: It’s Fox Business Network, not “Fox Business News”, as the article originally had it. The text has been corrected.