Policy laundering

Policy laundering is the disguising of the origins of political decisions, laws, or international treaties. The term is based on the similar money laundering.

Hiding responsibility for a policy or decision

One common method for policy laundering is the use of international treaties which are formulated in secrecy. Afterwards it is not possible to find out who advocated for which part of the treaty. Each person can claim that it was not them who demanded a certain paragraph but that they had to agree to the overall "compromise".
Examples that could be considered as "policy laundering" are WIPO or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Yet another manifestation of policy laundering is to implement legal policy which a subset of legislators desire but would normally not be able to obtain approval through regular means.
The American Civil Liberties Union argue that policy laundering has become common political practice in areas related to terrorism and the erosion of civil liberties.