SALON

Thursday, Mar 8, 2012 10:54 PM UTC

Gov’t Concerned People Could Leak Jobs Data

By

Topics: From the Wires,

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Labor Department is worried that people could leak its market-moving monthly jobs report to traders before its public release and is reviewing ways to tighten security.

Spokesman Carl Fillichio said Thursday that the department commissioned a study last year by Sandia National Laboratories, a government organization that safeguards the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.

Sandia was asked to examine the media’s access to the reports.

The government arranges so-called “lock-ups” to give reporters 30 to 60 minutes to review the data and prepare stories before they are released to the general public.

The lock-ups are held at the Labor Department and are supposed to be secure. Reporters turn over their cell phones to Labor staff, have no internet access and are not allowed to leave the room.

Fillichio said the review wasn’t sparked by any specific instance of a data leak. The review was reported earlier Thursday by CNBC.

Fillichio said that for more than 20 years, the lock-ups “have facilitated the news media’s ability to carefully review economic data, and provide information and analysis to the public.”

He said Sandia was asked to recommend, in light of new technologies, what steps could be taken “to maintain the integrity” of the lock-up process.

“Protecting the integrity and confidentiality of economic data is and always has been a top priority for the Department of Labor,” Fillichio said. “We constantly take steps to safeguard sensitive information.”

Sandia spokeswoman Heather Clark in Albuquerque, N.M., confirmed that it had done the review but declined to provide details.

The jobs report can move the market strongly in a blink. If traders had advance notice of what the government numbers were going to be, they would have an unfair advantage that could net them millions of dollars in profit.

Last month’s report showed the economy added 243,000 net jobs in January, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent — the lowest level in three years. That triggered a spasm of buying on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average rose to its highest close since May 2008 — four months before the financial crisis struck.

The monthly report also has political implications: it reverberates through the presidential campaign and has a potential impact on President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects.

The government will release the February report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday.

__

Associated Press writer Sam Hananel contributed to this report.

More Marcy Gordon.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations