Short Stuff: Redacted! | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh and Chucks here as always Dave's. here in spirit Jerry's here in spirit. they're both alive don't worry uh. they're just not here with us right now. and that makes this short stuff that's. cuz they're at Spirit. Halloween uh that's true they both got. extra side hustles as they're. called we just got a bunch of new. Halloween stuff Emily really wants to. ramp up our Halloween game oh nice we.

got one last year we got a big tall. scary guy who's holding a baby upside. down and they both like the baby screams. not a baby let's say a toddler is does. it suck the breath out of the baby no it. just holds her by her leg um upside down. and she screams a lot and the guys is. like and it's pretty great I mean that. this is a huge step up from what we. normally do which is a um like a. papier-mâché pumpkin and a sign that. says get away yeah yeah the reason I. asked about the breath is there's a a.

legendary um figure that you can like. this giant that you can put on your. front porch where the dude holds up a a. toddler and it has I guess steam or. smoke or something and it looks like. it's sucking the breath out of this. child wow and uh our our friends of the. show John Hodgman and Jesse Thorne. talked a lot about it on their Judge. John Hodgman podcast MH which by the way. is on tour if you want to go see those. guys on tour it's a lot of fun yeah. they'll take your breath away for sure. see Him Live yeah so just go uh go check.

out Judge John Hodgman tour it's a fun. show and you never know who might show. up might be me might be Josh man hodman. owes you some money for that segue that. was amazing and speared Halloween for. God sake I'm still trying to figure out. how you work that in that was great all. right well we've wasted two of our 12. minutes so let's talk about redaction. yeah and Chuck redaction we definitely. touched on it in our foia episode for. sure but the just to kind of refresh. everybody redaction is where there's um. parts of documents or transcripts or.

something like that that are so. sensitive that they have to be. essentially removed they're usually. blacked out is the traditional way that. you know you think of redaction but it. turns out there's a lot of other types. of redaction and ways to do it and tons. of reasons it's not just because you ask. the CIA for a bunch of documents there's. a lot of different groups that redact on. the regular yeah for sure uh you. mentioned Foya the Freedom of. Information Act if you've ever laid your. eyes on something as a request from that.

M uh act then you will probably see a. bunch of um Sharpie magic marker through. names and places maybe entire Pages uh. redacted but uh it's often thought of as. a government thing but like you said a. lot of um sometimes like a court will. order that to protect sensitive. information uh in the medical field. obviously there's the health insurance. uh portability and accountability act. the hippo thing that you always hear. about at the doctor it's you know your. medical privacy so they they might order.

a redaction there um your your grades. and your schooling is private uh thanks. to the family educational rights and. privacy act so your educational records. could be redacted if it was brought into. court that kind of thing for sure and. then speaking of Court the legal world. is huge on redaction they're. ridiculously into. it that one really got me actually that. one um that in particular in the legal. World redaction is usually a associated.

with civil cases because there's a. process of discovery where it's like. give me all the documents you have. pertaining to this case and I'll give. you all the documents I have and if not. we'll get in big big trouble if we don't. do that right but in those documents. there's inevitably stuff that doesn't. pertain to the case um there's protected. like say copyrighted or trademarked or. patented information like Trade Secrets. can be in there if there's a company. involved uh there's people not related.

to The casee Who maybe emailed about. something or were just CC you want to. get rid of thaty client privilege of. course exactly there's a lot of reasons. to redact in legal cases and uh there's. a certain way to do it and yet. regardless of all these reasons that. people have to redact in all these. fields that are like required to redact. things like Hippa requires the medical. field to redact um there's not actually.

like a prescribed way like and this is. how you do it it's more like you need to. redact this and go figure out how to do. that and then if you do it wrong you're. going to get your pants suit off that's. right and uh shall we take a break and. talk about the Myriad ways that you can. do so yeah all right we'll be right back. [Music].

all right so you mentioned that there. are not any um set rules in place about. how to redact something it's up to the. redact door um what you will usually see. and what you if you've ever seen. government documents on uh on the news. or whatever um you usually will just see. uh like a black Magic Marker drawn. through name so not through a name but. like complete over a name or uh it's not.

always a name just whatever you're. redacting again it could be sentences or. whole pages or paragraphs uh and then. what you should do then uh is then make. a copy of that uh otherwise someone and. this has happened plenty of times yeah. if you give that person the original you. can just hold it up to the light many. times and see what's going on if you. photocopy it you can't so that's a. pretty good old school uh way to do so. yeah um Yi and I watched the Amber herd. Johnny Depp lawsuit couple years ago oh.

on T on the trial on tv yeah and um I. that that's where I learned that that's. what you're supposed to do from some. lawyers who analyzed it um like just. about every night uh and they said. apparently the reason they brought it up. is because somebody was holding a. document and on the TV Camera it was the. original just with it blacked out and. apparently the internet could read what. it was I think it was somebody's email. like maybe even Amber herd's email.

yeah and that night the lawyers are like. they that's not how you do it you do. that with the originals and you make a. photocopy of The Originals and it's just. not possible to see what you've redacted. at that point so what a dumb thing to do. oh yeah dude that's I mean what do you. do like are you just like well you just. gave me your services for free like what. you know what's what happens as a result. of that I'm curious yeah me too well. we'll talk a little bit about that at. the end um I don't know what happened in. that case but what can happen uh so yeah.

drawing black magic markers good old. school way but you know a lot of stuff. these days most stuff in fact is an. electronic form so uh people started. using software tools and you know like a. things within a program to essentially. black Magic Marker over it and that can. be good but um you know one of the. articles I use for this talked to a uh. an attorney uh a dc-based national. security law attorney who was like I. don't trust it I don't trust technology.

uh even if you do that maybe somebody. could design a program to undo that and. override it so this guy like he doesn't. even like the black Magic Marker because. I think he's been burned by that before. so he cuts everything out literally with. scissors and he he said you know it's. kind of sloppy looking um but but it. makes sure that no one can see what was. there or if it's electronic I might just. completely delete the sentence or word. and and type in over that in all bold.

letters deleted by the request of the. CIA yeah and that guy's name is Mark Z. the the lawyer and there's really good. reason to actually go in and delete the. words because there's been at least one. case the trial of Paul manfor who uh was. on trial for perjury I think lying to. the FBI obstruction of justice a few. things related to that whole Muller. report investigation of um Russian. interference in the 2016 election m in. that case um one of the redacted.

documents that a journalist from the. guardian named John Swain got um all. they did was put a a black bar like they. used the the the square like draw tool. in Microsoft Word and filled it in with. black and sent it out and like. privileges yeah and John Swain copied. the whole thing and pasted it and that. stuff was not reacted anymore because it.

didn't copy paste the the black box so. there's there's definitely the wrong way. to do it and it does happen from people. who just aren't thinking or just don't. have enough experience but it seems like. it would be a really big big deal like. you'd be like okay your job for the rest. of your career is redacting and you get. perfect at redacting and that's what you. do not welcome to the firm start. redacting stuff good luck you know yeah. for sure um you can you know if you're.

uh in a case and you see some things. redacted but you're trying to still kind. of figure it out and like guess and. speculate first of all that attorney Zed. said it's really not smart to do that uh. because you can be off base and get. things wrong and I've even done that in. cases uh but like I was trying to figure. out how this could happen and one thing. that I just sort of dreamed up was you. know let's say it's a case where you. might know it's one of like four three. people that did something and one one of. them's name is uh a Abra Abraham.

abramowitz one of them's name is is. Joshua uh Clarken uh Clarken. Gage I was gonna say don't drag me into. it but I don't know this Joshua Clarkin. Gage and then one guy's name is uh Tom. Bill and you see this very short. redaction you could probably figure oh I. bet you anything it's the guy with a. really short name because it's a short. redaction so we we've narrowed it down. that way so that's just one way that I.

dreamed up that uh you can you can smart. redact you know maybe do like longer. lines if it's a really short name or. something that you're trying to conceal. good good point um I prescribe you to. spend more time looking at names on. headstones and cemeteries because that's. apparently where writers good writers. get their best ideas for names that. aren't like Josh Clarken Gage or. something like that or chance finklin or. something you know like and sorry to all. the chance splin out there but that.

sounds made up as a name and if you are. a chance finklestein write in cuz that. would be amazing to hear from you well. that's why I did silly things because I. didn't want to accidentally say. someone's real name oh okay oh I get it. well good idea I don't think Josh and or. Clark Eng Gage is a real uh surname is. it I I don't know probably not it. doesn't sound. right maybe mck Clark. engage back to redacting earlier he said. like what could happen if you like I. guess I don't have to pay my lawyer if.

they screwed up on that level um maybe. that could happen there could be legal. penalties uh there could be uh like uh. if you had to pay some big fine and your. attorney screwed up and uh you had to. pay that fine because of that bad. redaction then you could certainly go. after them uh there would certainly be a. loss of trust which is another one of. the things and damage to reputation like. if that kind of thing gets out then. you're not going to be someone that gets. a lot of work you you're going to be the. bad redactor right so I think the moral.

of this story is if your job is to. redact things do it. right yeah well Chuck silence means. short stuff is. out stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart radio for more. podcasts my heart radio visit the iHeart. Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you. listen to your favorite shows. [Music].