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Breaking News
posted by martyb on Thursday October 26 2017, @05:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the for-the-record dept.

Update: 2,800 documents will be released tonight, others may be released on April 26, 2018.

Update 2: Documents have been released.

Update 3: Check this live feed: JFK files: government releases classified assassination documents – live

John F. Kennedy, often better known as JFK, was the United States of America's 35th President. He was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

The deadline for the release of redacted and withheld records from the JFK Assassination Records Collection is today. Of the approximately 5 million pages in the collection, about 11% are redacted and 1% are withheld in full:

According to the [JFK Assassination Records Collection Act], all [JFK assassination-related] records previously withheld either in part or in full should be released on October 26, 2017, unless authorized for further withholding by the President of the United States. The 2017 date derives directly from the law that states:

Each assassination record shall be publicly disclosed in full, and available in the Collection no later than the date that is 25 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, unless the President certifies, as required by this Act, that –

(i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement or conduct of foreign relations; and

(ii) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

The Act was signed by President Bush on October 26, 1992, thus the final release date is October 26, 2017.

Some records related to grand jury information and tax return information will remain withheld, as specified in Sections 10 and 11 of the Collection Act.

Although the current President of the United States could authorize the non-disclosure of any documents in the collection, that action appears unlikely:

Few seem as excited about the release of the final batch of secret documents from the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy as the current occupant of the Oval Office. "The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow," President Trump wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. "So interesting!"

Surely, then, it was just a coincidence that Mr. Trump posted that message while on Air Force One heading to, of all places, Dallas. Or was it? Fifty-three years and 11 months after the event that gave rise to a thousand conspiracy theories, the president even landed at Dallas Love Field Airport, where Kennedy's body was brought for the final flight home, and his motorcade came within a few miles of Dealey Plaza, where the fateful shots rang out.

[...] "Of all the presidents since 1963, this is the one who would mind the least if the release of these documents damaged the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., two organizations that he's very angry at at the moment," said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:08PM (18 children)

    by edIII (791) on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:08PM (#587913)

    (i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement or conduct of foreign relations; and

    Bull-fucking-shit. It's been over 50 years. What harm could the assassination, presumably not from U.S actors, possibly do to our military defense? What does JFK have to do with military defense plans ~50 years later, and why on Earth should this not be disclosed to the American public? Same goes for intelligence operations. Is it going to tip our hand, that we acknowledge after 50 fucking years, that our President was assassinated by X? That's bullshit, and again, if true, should be disclosed to the American public. Maybe not the exact details, but it should be disclosed what kind of terrible danger we are in that does not let us look back at our history 50 years later. Law enforcement is even more fucking ridiculous. Has the FBI been prepping some major takedown of a shady organization for 50 fucking years? If so, what harm have they let the organization do to the public in the meantime?

    Foreign relations may make sense, but that's only if it is North Korea, and little Kimmie just like Orange Anus, gets upset when truth is spoken to power. Every other country has moved the fuck on. Hell, the U.S even gets along with Germany and that is not that much older of an event.

    the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

    The ONLY identifiable harm would be that it riles up the public, makes them face the facts that the 1% terminated a President that didn't tow their line, and it makes the 1% start to have a bad day. That's fucking it, and that IS NOT in the best interest of the public. The best interests of the public is served by releasing the fucking information.

    Fucking hellbound bastards.

    --
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:23PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:23PM (#587923) Journal

    The ONLY identifiable harm would be that it riles up the public, makes them face the facts that the 1% terminated a President that didn't tow their line, and it makes the 1% start to have a bad day.

    Ah, but that is such a HUGE harm. Of course, they would never brazenly state that as the identifiable harm. They would state that there is a harm to national security in the very act of revealing what the identifiable harm actually is. Would Trump be capable of such a thing? That is left as an exercise for the reader.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @09:26AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @09:26AM (#588171)

      Would Trump be capable of such a thing?

      Capable of riling up the public? I think so.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 27 2017, @01:24PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 27 2017, @01:24PM (#588206) Journal

        I meant would Trump be capable of asserting the fiction that the records cannot be released because of (omg!) . . .
        [x] National Security
        [_] Think Of The Children
        [_] Terrorists
        [_] Non White People
        [_] Non Male People
        [_] Non Christian People
        [_] Non Rich People
        [_] Non Fat People
        [_] Hillary's Emails

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:47PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:47PM (#587938)

    Aliens

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:50PM (1 child)

      by edIII (791) on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:50PM (#587939)

      It's all green text on a monitor, but that hairdo is coming through loud and clear :)

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:00PM (7 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:00PM (#587945)

    50 years is simply a guarantee that anyone involved in any classified information (not just JFK's) is either very dead or so old they're not worth chasing (unless they've helped kill Jews, obviously).

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:26PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:26PM (#587956)

      Or were the office boy in a place that helped kill Jews.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:35PM (#587965)

        Assistant to the Associate Sanitation Engineer at Auschwitz.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 26 2017, @08:40PM (4 children)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 26 2017, @08:40PM (#587984) Journal

      50 years... (unless they've helped kill Jews, obviously).

      That's a weird non-sequitur. There's no statute of limitations on murder, FYI.

      • (Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:30PM (3 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:30PM (#588002)

        There is, typically, in Europe.
        Except for Crimes Against Humanity, like being a carpenter or a dog walker in the general vicinity of a concentration camp.
        Or War crimes, restricting where W and Cheney dare to travel.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:41PM (2 children)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:41PM (#588010) Journal

          I can't imagine any conversation we could possibly be having that would be less about Europe than this one.

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 26 2017, @10:03PM (1 child)

            by bob_super (1357) on Thursday October 26 2017, @10:03PM (#588019)

            There was a certain logic to the thought, though.
            How many people are still looking for living perpetrators of crimes committed 50 years, let alone over 72 years, ago?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:17PM (#587950)

    No, identifiable harm may still be possible in some limited cases. Think of a fictionalized account like,

    "Monitoring stations CASPER, FRIENDLY, and AREA51 reported no increased traffic from their monitoring sectors. Station CIGAR, on the South end of the island, reported increased VHF traffic ten minutes after the assassination. Source agent BECHAMEL reported that Mr. Castro ate huevos rancheros that morning and over coffee mentioned......."

    And tomorrow morning some guy nobody remembers today gets a bullet in the brain. And the world learns Area 51 did more than just plane development, which is work they (fictionally) still do today until this is revealed but now the government will spend an extra 200 million dollars moving intelligence work away from there (fictitiously).

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:29PM (2 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 26 2017, @07:29PM (#587960) Journal

    What does JFK have to do with military defense plans ~50 years later,..,.

    In a shocking new twist it turns out Vietnam was actually a bad idea!

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:26PM (#587998)

      Also, we still haven't reinstalled the Batista government in Cuba!

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:33PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:33PM (#588006)

        We'll get to that right after we apologize for the whole Shah mess. Promise!