I do so love the way that Governments like to dress up unpleasant truths in words they think that we won't understand. The Americans gave us "extraordinary rendition" meaning "state sponsored kidnapping" and now we have had, from our own Government, "redact", a technical publishing term so obscure that I had to look it up.
In case anyone hasn't bothered to consult a dictionary, the primary meaning is "to prepare for publication". What this normally means is to proofread, structure and edit. What it means in the hands of the Government is to wipe out great swathes of information that they would rather we didn't see. Unfortunately, thanks to the Daily Telegraph we've seen a lot of it already and you can bet that the parts that we haven't seen they'll get round to in due course.
Until then we'll have to settle for the Government redacting things out of existence.
In case anyone hasn't bothered to consult a dictionary, the primary meaning is "to prepare for publication". What this normally means is to proofread, structure and edit. What it means in the hands of the Government is to wipe out great swathes of information that they would rather we didn't see. Unfortunately, thanks to the Daily Telegraph we've seen a lot of it already and you can bet that the parts that we haven't seen they'll get round to in due course.
Until then we'll have to settle for the Government redacting things out of existence.
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