This is standard procedure...the emails go through a vetting process to redact things that are not meant to be released to the public. This can mean anything from classified information to private information that was sent to an official (medical records, personal information in a forwarded application, etc). The PDF workflow is probably the most efficient way to do this...I don&#x27;t mean efficient in terms of what programmers think of as efficient...I mean efficient in that the vetting&#x2F;censoring process involves a good number of officials who are reviewing the documents which probably involves some back-and-forth, for which paper is a pretty decent medium for. Also, not all&#x2F;many of these officials are versed in digital editing workflows [1]. I think in some situations, the emails are printed, <i>physically</i> redacted (i.e. black marker), then scanned and converted to PDF. Keep in mind that many requesters of government documents are perfectly fine with printable documents, even if such documents are not suited for machine parsing.<p>[1] Government officials have been burned before when using what they <i>thought</i> was a PDF redaction tool...i.e. using the box-drawing-tool and drawing a black box...was not actually redaction...Governor Blagojevich&#x27;s case comes to mind: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wbez.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;update-blagojevich-lawyers-created-pdf-document-faulty-redacted-statements" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wbez.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;update-blagojevich-lawyers-created-...</a>