I heard about that on NPR this morning, I'm all for it. My only concern, do they have any privacy rights against this? Or does the gov't building imply same protections as being in public?
They are at a public meeting, in a government building, exercising their 1st amendment rights to petition their government. They have absolutely no privacy rights here. They are not compelled to identify themselves but they have no protection against others identifying them nor are they likely to receive such protection given the legitimate concerns the public has over corruption (the Lobbying Disclosure Act [2 USC 1605] does permit lobbyists to perform routine information discovery, such as attending this event, without requiring disclosure but the fact that they are not required to report their attendance would probably not be enough for a court to find any expectation of privacy for anyone attending such an event.)
I think NPR has just captured a moment in time where they can pull something like this off. If the idea of catching lobbyists in the crowds has any impact, lobbyists will just stop attending hearings.
I wonder. Lobbyists presumably don't go to hearings just to waste their time. So it would probably decrease their power if they couldn't watch hearings live.
None of the people identified so far are "players" in the game, just low-level staffers who were sent to take notes and show the flag. The real lobbyists do not go to hearings, they make phone calls and do lunch and social events. To place this in a context that people here might understand, if these photos had been taken at a random internet conference then you would be seeing associates or EIRs of a VC firm and not general partners.
