Comment by blitz_skull
12 hours ago
Explain like I’m stupid: what is the most gracious interpretation of redaction when releasing files like this?
Why should anyone involved retain any anonymity?
I’m asking in good faith because naively it seems like this should not even exist. All of it should be exposed.
EDIT: I did not think about the innocent folks that might be caught in the crossfire. That checks out. Thanks everyone!
Iirc WikiLeaks took the position of any information that would directly lead to the bodily harm of an individual (or something to that effect). The rational being, "Yes, group A did something horrible that warrants investigation, but if we publish their GPS coordinates they will be blown to smitherines"
Unless those people impacted were friendly to US interests? if I recall correctly they published the names of collaborators and informants in Iraq. They also published military tactics that would help those trying to kill US soldiers. GPS coordinates by comparison generally go stale very quickly.
No, that was the 2010 "diplomatic cables" release. Basically, they disseminated an encrypted version of the data cache, and gave the decryption key to a few key people, including Guardian journalist David Leigh, with the expectation he'd report on the info without sharing sensitive intel.
David Leigh then published the decryption key in his 2011 book about Wikileaks (for some reason) and the info became publicly available. Everyone pinned the blame on Assange.
Moral of the story: journalists can and will disclose ridiculously sensitive info you give them for a bit of fame and you should be extremely careful about covering your tracks.
There was, to say the least, not a specific law mandating release of the material held by WikiLeaks and specify what was to be, and what was not to be, redacted, so I don't see that as much of a guide here.
The law mandating release requires redaction of victim identities, information relating to investigations that are still active, child sexual absue material, and information related to national security.
It generally prohibits other redactions, and expressly prohibits redactions for embarassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.
Of course, there is considerable concern that the actual reactions do not appear to comply with the legal requirements.
FWIW, a lot of of the victims (possibly all) are saying they don't care about redactions if they end up being used to protect perpetrators. They want to make sure everyone is held accountable.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/epsteins-alleged-victims-accuse-do...
Specifically, a number of Epstein victims have complained that the release was unacceptable because it was incomplete, illegally redacted material other than victim names which was not excepted from release under the law mandating release, and because it failed to redact victim identities required to be protected under the law mandating release.
Protecting the identity of victims, eyewitnesses or informants.
Don't forget the co-conspirators!
The weirdest part about that is this administration was clearly willing to just stall and could have done what the CIA and FBI does all the time and just "disappear" all of the documents.
What would be the fallout? The Democrats are complicit, the regime all but controls the judiciary (at least the Supreme Court.) And a lot of these guys are billionaires and untouchable anyway unless someone does a Luigi on them. They have the ability to just brute force past the controversy and yet they've chosen to attempt the most ridiculously inept coverup possible.
On the one the sheer stupidity of this administration and its incompetence at implementing fascism means that as bad as things are they could be much worse. On the other hand I fear that once JD Vance or someone just as evil but without Trump's instability takes power we're going to wish we'd done something more when we had the chance.
The files of a high profile and long running investigation are going to be full of false leads, hoaxes and other bullshit. The reason they don’t just always release the files after closing cases is that there genuinely are going to he innocent people caught in the crossfire who have privacy rights.
This case is so important and such a clusterfuck that the files need to be opened anyway.
Person asking above question explains he doesn’t understand so I guess he also doesn’t understand prosecutors, lawyers, law enforcement, judges make mistakes.
So yes this is best explanation. Revealing everything might bring great harm to innocent people just because they were somehow mentioned in the documents.
Just add all the experience we already have with “internet investigators” that ruin people lives for petty reasons.