• Congress and the President are not privy to Fed deliberations. Unlike the intelligence agencies, the Fed does not even brief elected officials on a limited "need-to-know" basis.

 
• Transcripts of Fed Open Market Committee meetings are not made public until five years after the meeting. 

 
• Summaries of meetings of the Federal Advisory Committee (representing the 3,296 commercial member banks) are not made public until three years after the meeting. Actual transcripts of FAC meetings are never released.

 
•  Unlike other federal agencies, the Fed generates its own funds and writes its own budgets, which are exempt from audits by the U.S. General Accounting Office.

 
• The Federal Reserve System is exempt from provisions of the National Labor Relations Act and the civil service Merit Systems Protection Board, including the federal Whistleblower Protection Act. 

To date, the Fed also has successfully claimed exemption from the Federal Labor Relations Act. Unlike three-fifths of the federal workforce, none of the Fed's 25,000 employees is (or ever has been) covered by a collective bargaining agreement.