Write your congressmen to put gold questions to the Fed

3:17p ET Friday, February 26, 2010

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

While we don't seem to have succeeded in getting any gold questions put to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during his testimony to Congress this week, we'll likely have success if enough of us who are U.S. citizens write to our members of Congress to ask them to put gold questions to Bernanke. He will have a much harder time ducking questions submitted in writing.

So below is a sample letter for U.S. citizens to send to their U.S. senators and U.S. representative. Please contact them by regular U.S. mail, not e-mail, since e-mail is not taken seriously.

You can identify your two U.S. senators by using the locator mechanism at the top right of the home page of the Senate's Internet site here:

http://www.senate.gov

You can identify your U.S. representative by using the locator mechanism at the top left of the home page of the House's Internet site here:

http://www.house.gov/

GATA asks you to write three letters -- one to each of your two senators, and one to your representative -- to keep copies of the letters, and alert GATA to any responses from the Fed that are forwarded to you from your congressmen.

The postal address for senators is:

U.S. Sen. ---- ------
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

The postal address for representatives is:

U.S. Rep. ---- ------
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

The sample letter is below. It's fine if you use it as it is, but feel free to make additional comments. Of course please be polite.

Thanks for your help.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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SAMPLE LETTER TO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Dear Senator / Representative:

Could you try to get answers from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to the following questions that are of great interest to a non-profit educational and civil rights organization with which I'm affiliated, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)?

1) Will the Federal Reserve confirm the substance of Fed Governor Kevin M. Warsh's letter of September 17, 2009, to the GATA, to the effect that the Fed has gold swap agreements with foreign banks and insists on keeping those agreements secret? (For a copy of Warsh's letter, please visit GATA's Internet site here: http://www.gata.org/node/8192.)

2) What is the purpose of the Fed's gold swap agreements?

3) Have any of these agreements ever been implemented? If so, exactly how, why, and when?

4) How do those agreements affect the U.S. gold reserves?

5) Why must the Fed keep these agreements secret? What would happen if the public, the markets, and Congress knew what the Fed was doing in the gold market? Will the Fed disclose those agreements to Congress? If not, why?

Thanks for any help you can be here.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME
YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS
YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER

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To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16