The Justice Department’s attempt to redact sensitive information from the Epstein files has quickly unraveled after people online discovered an easy way to read what’s behind many of those black boxes.
There are still a lot of questions surrounding the DOJ’s court-ordered release of the files, but some of them were answered rather quickly. Upon initial release, people were frustrated and angry to see just how much text had been redacted.
Some lawmakers criticized the DOJ for “covering up things” on behalf of President Donald Trump, while others suggested the move might not hold up in court.
Un-redact the Epstein files with this one simple trick
But some of the redactions have been uncovered in the most basic of ways—copying and pasting the text into a Word document.
All across social media, people have been pointing out that merely transferring the text to a basic word processor automatically removed the inadequate attempts at redaction that were made.
“I simply highlighted the text, copied it, and pasted it in a document. Why is the Trump administration hiding this stuff and why are they so freaking incapable of doing everything? How many other files are not really redacted?” asked journalist Ed Krassenstein.
Tech-savvy folks have suggested that the reason these redactions were so easily bypassed is because a consumer product along the lines of Adobe Acrobat was likely used to do the redacting. These programs sometimes even warn users that drawing a black box over text isn’t a permanent redaction.
“Anyone can read the redactions of the Epstein Files by just copying and pasting them into a word doc. The people at Trump’s Justice Department are so stupid they used Adobe Acrobat to black out the documents,” wrote @RealJakeBroe.
But there’s still a lack of clarity as to why things are playing out this way. According to the New York Post, a DOJ source claimed that the Trump administration wasn’t trying to hide any information and that the documents just happened to be blacked out that way from civil litigation.
However, the Justice Department is also currently scrambling with an “emergency request” for volunteers to help redact Epstein files they have yet to release, even though the deadline already passed last Friday.
It’s also noteworthy that not all of the redactions are removed by the copy and paste method, suggesting there may not be a unified source behind them.
Social media reactions
As mentioned, there are still tons of questions surrounding these files, the redactions, Trump’s ties to Epstein, the files that have yet to be released, and what, if anything, the current administration is hiding from the public.
But while we wait for more information to scrutinize, people are enjoying rolling their eyes at whatever incompetence lead to these failed redactions.
“It’s crazy that millennials are verifiably the first and last tech literate generation. You can copy and paste nearly half of the Epstein files’ “redactions” into a notepad and see what’s underneath them. I’m metaphorically and literally surrounded by morons,” wrote @spaceghost.
“BREAKING: Trump’s DOJ is so incompetent that they don’t even know how to properly redact PDFs. Merely by coping some of the redacted text and pasting it into a notepad, one can quickly unredact some of the files. I guess this is what happens why your hire ‘the best people’” Krassenstein wrote.
“First they failed to release the files in full,” tweeted @broadwaybabyto. “Then they failed to redact victims names. Then they started deleting files that they had released. Now it would appear some of their PDFs were not properly redacted. You can unredact them in Notepad. This is incompetence.”
It’s a shame the rest of the files weren’t released before people figured this out. Will the Trump administration figure out how to correctly redact the rest?
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