Red Tape

bureaucratic routine

Red Tape is an album by American southern rock band Atlanta Rhythm Section, released in 1976. (See 1976 in music).
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Red tape is a derisive term for excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making. It is usually applied to government, but can also be applied to other organizations like corporations.Red tape generally includes the filling out of seemingly unnecessary paperwork, obtaining of unnecessary licenses, having multiple people or committees approve a decision and various low-level rules that make conducting one's affairs slower and/or more difficult.
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Noun
1. needlessly time-consuming procedure
(synonym) bureaucratic procedure
(hypernym) procedure

(a.)
Pertaining to, or characterized by, official formality. See Red tape, under Red, a.
  

government forms and procedures An immigrant faces a lot of red tape - many interviews, forms.