When it comes to questionable behavior by some inside our intel agencies, there are endless termite tunnels to crawl through and not enough investigative bandwidth — or will — to examine each one.

For the first time in my memory, a member of Congress is exploring one of these relatively uncharted tunnels: improper redactions of government documents. The head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Sen.(R-Wis.), is not only seeking redacted material but also is trying to find out who is responsible for withholding it.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Johnson accuses the FBI of providing a “slow-walked, inadequate response” to his queries. “Moving forward, I expect more complete and expeditious responses to my oversight requests,” writes Johnson.

Yet, too often, the feds have redacted information in an apparent attempt to obstruct efforts to investigate their actions, or to prevent release of material that implicates them in embarrassing behavior or wrongdoing.

Improper redactions are when federal reviewers — in consultation with their political masters — block out parts of documents that the public or Congress is entitled to see. Under policy and law, redactions are only permitted in limited, carefully defined circumstances, such as to protect national security. After all, government officials do not lord over us; they work for us, on our behalf. They own neither the documents they generate nor the information they collect; we do.

He includes some seemingly outrageous examples found among text messages written by FBI agent Peter Strzok to his reported then-lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page. One of them reads, "Currently fighting with Stu for this FISA," where "Stu for this FISA" was redacted in a version turned over to Congress.

“FISA” refers to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which dictates limited terms under which the FBI can wiretap U.S. citizens. It’s not known who “Stu” is but a man named Stuart Evans is National Security Division deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. And the date of the text coincides with the timeframe in which FBI agents successfully convinced a FISA judge to let them wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Other redactions included: "Went well, best we could have expected. Other than L.C.'s quote, 'the White house is running this'” (the initials “L.C.” had been redacted); and "Jesus. More BO leaks in the NYT" ("BO" had been redacted).

An additional redaction included this entire section: "Clinton, Mills, and Abedin all said they felt the server was permitted and did not receive information that it was not. To the extent there was objection down the line in IRM, we did not pursue that as State OIG did, because it was not a key question behind our investigation. There are going to be many avenues we might have pursued if we had unlimited time and resources, but this is one of those categories of wouldn't have changed our fundamental understanding of the gravamen of the case."

According to Johnson, “None of the above redactions are clearly justified” under criteria outlined in Justice Department communications. “The FBI and the Justice Department have not explained the basis for redactions to these text messages, or any other document produced to date.”