Politics

Documents Arrive Fully Redacted; The Redactions Are Complimentary

Fourteen months, 312 pages, and one exemption code that does not appear in the statute.

By Marcus Webb Filed from the document room 5 min read

A released government page covered in heavy black redaction bars with one unredacted word reading outstanding, stamped exemption b nine, unsolicited favorable assessment. — 312 pages withheld to avoid the appearance of promotion.

The request was filed fourteen months ago. It sought the internal assessments prepared for a policy review the administration has described, in each of its four interim responses, as ongoing. The response arrived Tuesday. It runs to 312 pages and every one of them is black.

Full withholding is not unusual and is not, by itself, a story. The exemption code is the story. Each page cites (b)(9), a designation that does not appear in the statute. The office's own index defines it as Unsolicited Favorable Assessment, Withheld To Avoid The Appearance Of Promotion.

"We are not permitted to release material that makes the policy look good. Read cold, it reads as promotion. Withholding it is the conservative call." A records officer, speaking on condition of anonymity

What Survived The Bars

Four things came through unredacted across the 312 pages: the page numbers, a date range, the word outstanding on page 118, and a footnote on page 297 reading see above. The office attributes the word outstanding to a clerical error and declined to say which clerk. The footnote is under review.

The bars themselves were measured. Redactions ordinarily follow the contour of the text beneath them, which is standard and uninformative. On 87 of the pages the contour is identical: a three-line block that begins wide and narrows twice. Jin-Ah Park was asked to compare the shapes without being told what they were. She said they are the same paragraph, printed 87 times. She asked what the paragraph said. This reporter does not know what the paragraph said.

An appeal has been filed. It argues that an exemption cannot be created by an index, that a favorable assessment is not a promotional product, and that the public interest in a document does not decrease when the document is complimentary. The reasoning was reviewed twice for the possibility that it is being advanced for other reasons. The reasoning holds.

A colleague passing the document room observed that the second Post-it wall would now require an on-the-record citation. The request number is 2025-NSC-04417. The appeal is docketed. The office has ninety days.

Records note: The 312 pages are available on request in the form in which they arrived. The desk will supply a magnifier. The magnifier does not help.