FBI Paid $851K in Overtime for Epstein 'Transparency Project' Redactions(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
FBI Paid $851K in Overtime for Epstein 'Transparency Project' Redactions
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-11-25/epstein-files-new-fbi-emails-detail-review-special-redaction-project
13 comments
Don't only names, addresses, email addresses, account/phone numbers, and illustrations need to be redacted? Couldn't an LLM do at least most of that fast and cheap?
LLMs are suitable for tasks where it’s cheap to validate the result or the cost of being wrong is low. This is basically the opposite of that: if you fail to redact things, the costs can be high and since these are documents written by humans you need intelligence to handle indirect or obscure language or you’re risking missing a redaction because clues which don’t easily identify someone can be combined to do so. A million dollars is likely to be considerably cheaper than the legal costs of getting it wrong.
For such a simple task, checking the AI's work would probably take just as long as doing the redaction by hand.
Maybe a lot of the budget is already going to a second level of workers checking the redacting workers' work.
Redactions for transparency. Truly we live in a era of newspeak.
Crazy. almost a million dollars.
Also, makes sense why Trump moved fast to get his appointees in place and some with no polygraphs.
Also, makes sense why Trump moved fast to get his appointees in place and some with no polygraphs.
Does it matter? Anyone who sees that their favorite politician was part of Epstein’s circle, will simply ignore it. They’ll forget it happened and dismiss it when it is brought up. If their disliked politicians show up in there though, they’re going to not stop talking about it.
It matters. The fact that partisans will selectively ignore evidence is an even stronger argument for more exposure.
I disagree mostly because it doesn’t matter anymore. a video can come out of _____ doing the most heinous things on monday, by wednesday we’ll be talking about bombing boats and giving peace prizes to mass murderers :)
This is learned helplessness. ‘Nothing matters because people get distracted’ is how you guarantee nothing changes.
how do things change? genuinely interested… I am soooo past helpnessness phase at this point (also have no hope at all anything will change…)
Incrementally and unevenly. The catholic church abuse scandal took decades of persistence before change. Tobacco litigation seemed pointless until it wasn't. Epstein was a known criminal for years before arrest. The gap is long and uncertain, but the alternative is what? You keep your own house in order regardless of whether the neighborhood is on fire. That is the only part you can control
I wish I shared your enthusiasm. I generally do but I think we are too far into deep end to make this change