Our friends at GATA report an interesting development in its multi-year confrontation with the Fed, namely that the organization has "scored a small but perhaps auspicious victory over the Federal Reserve in our lawsuit seeking access to the Fed's secret gold files. The judge presiding over GATA's federal freedom-of-information lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Ellen Segal Huvelle, granted GATA's motion to order the Fed to produce in complete form for the judge's private review 20 gold-related documents the Fed has sought to keep secret. The judge ordered the Fed to deliver the documents by Friday." While this does not mean that the Fed will actually publicly announce that its gold vaults are in fact filled with GLD stock certificates, it does put the Fed in an unpleasant position to have to escalate its defense of its secrecy in an increasingly more sensitive topic, i.e., precious metals price manipulation with or without JP Morgan, and is a definite setback for Bernanke in his pretend push to make the Fed appear more transparent.

More from GATA:

The judge's order to the Fed to produce documents for her private review can be found at GATA's Internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedLawsuitCourtOrder-01-10-2011.pdf

Those who are skeptical of GATA's complaint that the Federal Reserve is part of an international gold-price rigging scheme should reflect on the meaning of the Fed's refusal to disclose all its gold-related records, records that include gold swap arrangements with foreign banks:

http://www.gata.org/node/8192

If the U.S. gold reserves are just sitting somewhere, inert, unencumbered, and unused for surreptitious market intervention, what's the problem with full disclosure?

Financial journalists unafraid of aggravating the world's financial powers should start putting gold-related questions to the Fed and other central banks and stop simply assuming that secrecy should be the normal order of things with central banks and gold.

And people everywhere who believe in free markets in the monetary metals and who have not already supported GATA financially can join our struggle here:

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

This struggle could have been undertaken easily and likely more effectively by the World Gold Council, which aims to represent gold mining companies and gold investors. But the council's indifference to questions of surreptitious central bank intervention in the gold market has left the struggle to GATA. We need your help to pursue this struggle to victory for free markets, limited government, and a better, fairer world.

And from the actual order: