More Bailout Contracts Contain Blacked Out Portions
The Treasury Department has hired two big accounting firms to help keep tabs on the government's financial-industry rescue program, and once again certain basic elements of the deals are shrouded in secrecy.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP will provide internal controls for the government's $700 billion bailout fund. Ernst & Young will provide general accounting and consulting. The Treasury Department said the first phase of the three-year contracts will be worth $191,469.27 and $492.006.95, respectively.
That sort of specific detail is lacking in the agreements themselves. The Pricewaterhouse Coopers contract released by the Treasury Department on Tuesday has blacked-out text in the area covering the firm's bid, and also conceals the name of the PricewaterhouseCoopers partner who signed the deal.
Another section listing the names of the PricewaterhouseCoopers employees designated to work on the contract also is blacked out.
The Treasury Department said it contacted 12 accounting firms about the contracts, and received six bids for each of the engagements.
http://waronyou.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-bailout-contracts-...
Those blacked-out portions...
Those blacked-out portions are called redactions. When someone gets subpoenaed for documents that are sensitive, the judge might allow the entity being subpoenaed to redact portions of their documents that aren't directly relevant to the opposition.
The idea is to prevent access to information that would otherwise be secret via a frivolous lawsuit.
IE, if you are going to sue me because I sold you bad merchandise, I might have to subpoena you for the receipt. But your credit card number is actually irrelevant. So a judge would likely give you permission to redact the copy of the receipt that you submit as public evidence.
Probably a good idea, but like any other apparatus in our labyrinthine legal system, it gets abused.
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