Alex described how during the last economic crisis, the Federal Reserve was printing large amounts of money and was handing it out to bankers, foreign central banks and dictators. In response, Bloomberg News sued the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They wanted to know what the Federal Reserve was doing so they took advantage of the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency laws. The Federal Reserve lawyers claimed they are a private corporation with private shareholders with officials elected by those shareholders. So they felt they were exempt from certain laws that are in place for government agencies only.