Market (and taxpayer) sensitive redaction
Being a fund manager involves many skills. One of the rarer ones is trying to work out what redacted government documents say. The Department of Homeland Security has just completed a large no-bid contract to purchase Relenza – a drug made by Glaxo. It is justifiably a no-bid contract because whilst there are competing drugs they have resistance problems. Relenza has a monopoly over its drug protected by patent. A no-bid contract – even of large size - makes sense.
The Department of Homeland Security have released some details of the contract – but the key lines are redacted. In particular the cost is redacted, as are the number of doses and even the names of the authorising officers.
The blacked out number below is highly market sensitive. Help. Please.
Finally I am just a gambler on the stock market. My concerns are private. However you should also be concerned. This is taxpayer money. This is a no-bid contract with limited transparency. I can’t think of any good reasons for blacking out these numbers. If you thought the no-bid contracts in Iraq were a concern (and I did) then you should also consider this redaction a concern. At least in the Iraq case there might have been a security reason for redacting the key information. Here I can’t think of any reason other than it is standard practice for the Department of Homeland Security.
John