Malicious Record-Keeping

      Reading about the history of health risks from asbestos and things things companies did to cover it up, I learned that not all of it was overt.  Sure, people were pressured to sign releases, or sworn to silence as part of settling lawsuits; research was hidden; misinformation was promulgated: all the usual Hollywood-villain stuff really did happen.  But as lawsuits started to pile up, there was another technique: malicious filing practices.  Rather than destroy records, which would have been a red flag, a crime and of itself, some of the bigger offenders began "storing" records by piling them up in random heaps, often in scattered warehouses without climate control.  They could argue it was expensive to keep all those files, and impossible to keep track.

     Of course, they'd let opposing counsel dig through all that -- but don't expect an index.

     I've been thinking about that as the Epstein files have been released, a great big digital heap of stuff, some of it withdrawn for further redaction and then reissued, with no tracking.  Is it all there?  Who can say, but there's certainly a lot of it, and the various journalists and activist organizations are digging through it all, many with their own axes to grind.  It's another six-day wonder for the news cycle, steeped in rumor, adorned with a few facts gleaned catch-as-can.

     More sound and fury, associated with horrendous crimes against vulnerable young women, buried in the noise, much of it self-created.

     Don't think it's not deliberate.