Treasury Department Redacts Bailout Contracts

Meaning, there are huge chunks of these Bailout deals that are being blacked out before they are released to the public--as though they were CIA documents, or something.

Unredacted, these documents would allow the people to know just how their taxpayer money is being doled-out and spent. In our system of supposedly transparent government, this sort of secrecy is unacceptable, and outrageous even to the been-there-seen-that experts and commentators.

Currently at issue: Various law firms, accounting companies and stock management houses are going to receive money from the Bailout fund that we taxpayers provided. But much of that information has been redacted, so that the public can't know the details.

Here's a sample culled from these redacted documents:




The law firm whose rates have been redacted above once offered me a job as an Associate--Simpson, Thacher, Bartlett blah blah... Why their rates are suddenly such sensitive information, I have no clue. Because it doesn't jibe with what I remember.

And redacted documents are hardly new to me. But even I am rather shocked by this shroud of secrecy increasingly surrounding the way the Treasury Department is spending our desperately-needed taxpayer dollars.

You can watch CNBC's coverage of this story here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbYLf6lU55A