Monday, August 05, 2013

About That FEMA Food Scare

I'm not getting why the name and contact info for the FEMA rep was redacted.  There is no legitimate reason I can think of to do that, and it makes independently validating this next to impossible. [More]

It's not like we're talking about a whistleblower needing protection here. This was a public employee making a public inquiry. And it can hardly be that the supplier fears they'll be mad  at him -- if this is genuine, they're no doubt already irked, their procurement guy being ID'd or not.

All may be as represented here, but until I see a way to check into this, I can't take it too seriously.

[Via several of you]

2 comments:

Bear said...

Interesting. When I first heard about this, it was reported as "FEMA sent a request for purchase for everything I have on hand." But this email simply looks like a low level bureaucrat asking how fast a company can ship emergency foods during an emergency... like during the current hurricane season which is approaching the statistical peak (which is almost sorta like something a hypot6hetically constitutional emergency management agency should be doing.

Even it were an ominous RFP, there's no logical reason to redact the name/contact data. For what looks like a routine planning measure? More like someone is trying to drum up paranoid fears of FEMA (heck, what FEMA really does is sufficient there, without silly stuff like this).

MacBeth 51 said...

I agree, Bear. This looks like the type of query FEMA should be making. I saw nothing requesting that it be kept confidential, either.