Atalig apologizes for staff redacting original documents

Finance Secretary David Atalig apologized Monday to the House Special Committee for Fiscal Review of Executive Expenditures, which is looking into and reviewing the purchases, travel, and reimbursements of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres.

The apology came after a line of questioning by Rep. Tina Sablan (D-Saipan) regarding the Department of Finance staff redacting full credit card information on the documents needed from them under the Open Government Act, despite the minority bloc’s request for the last four digits of the credit cards to not be redacted.

“I apologize. My staff were the ones that did it, and they thought that was the information they needed to redact,” Atalig said.

The Finance secretary also stated that he was not aware that the redactions were made on the original documents, and only found out about it after having received the summon from the special committee.

“I was surprised and said we need to make a statement and explain what happened,” he added.

Last week, Finance’s director of Administrative Services Margaret Bertha Torres appeared before lawmakers, where she stated that the governor’s legal counsel, Gilbert J. Birnbrich, advised them to redact personal information from the documents.

These included personal identifiers such as bank account and social security numbers. The Finance director, however, made it clear that Birnbrich did not ask them to redact the full credit card numbers, nor to redact the information from the original documents.

During the special committee meeting on Monday, Atalig stated that he got concerned the moment he found out that redactions, including of the full credit card numbers, were made on the original documents. Five Finance staff worked on the documents.

“I was surprised [as] I assumed that [they were going] make copies and redact the copies. …I was concerned. The last four digits are not considered confidential, just like the last four digits of the social security number are not confidential,” he said.

Atalig further stated that he explained that to his staff, who were then “apologetic” for not being aware that they were not supposed to redact the entire line of credit card numbers.

Atalig, in an earlier interview, stated that he will provide the lawmakers the unredacted documents. He explained before the special committee Monday that, at that time, he was not aware that the information had been redacted from the original documents.