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White House further postpones disclosure of JFK assassination documents, citing Covid
The White House announced late Friday that it would further postpone the release of more documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, pointing to the "significant impact" of the Covid-19 pandemic.
President Joe Biden issued a memo that said the national archivist recommended he "'direct two public releases of the information that has ultimately 'been determined to be appropriate for release to the public.'" The first will be an "interim release" later this year, with a second, "more comprehensive release in late 2022," the memo said.
The memo said that the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the process of reviewing whether redactions continue to meet the "statutory standard."
The Act permits the continued postponement of disclosure of information in records concerning President Kennedy's assassination only when postponement remains necessary to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
Since 2018, executive departments and agencies (agencies) have been reviewing under this statutory standard each redaction they have proposed that would result in the continued postponement of full public disclosure. This year, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has been reviewing whether it agrees that each redaction continues to meet the statutory standard.
The Archivist of the United States (Archivist), however, has reported that "unfortunately, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the agencies" and NARA and that NARA "require[s] additional time to engage with the agencies and to conduct research within the larger collection to maximize the amount of information released." The Archivist has also noted that "making these decisions is a matter that requires a professional, scholarly, and orderly process; not decisions or releases made in haste."
The Archivist therefore recommends that the President "temporarily certify the continued withholding of all of the information certified in 2018" and "direct two public releases of the information that has" ultimately "been determined to be appropriate for release to the public," with one interim release later this year and one more comprehensive release in late 2022.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 23 2021, @10:40PM (2 children)
By them I meant people in government. Which should be pretty obvious, given that the people with the info and making the decision are, you know, people in government. And not magic secret aliens. It's not exactly a secret that administrations like to dump info late on Friday when the press is less likely to pick it up, or when there's something big to divert attention.
Now I'm sad I had to explain this.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday October 24 2021, @02:50PM (1 child)
"By them I meant people in government"
Oh, you mean what the Constitution calls "We the People". This is the difference between liberals and conservatives in a nutshell. Whom do you mean when you say "them"? Government leaders whom you get to vote for, or corporate leaders whom you only get to vote for if you're a stock holder? Or perhaps a hybrid of both known as the "military industrial complex"?. Now before you say this is off-topic, JFK's assassination has become the ground work of all kinds of conspiracy theories rooted in these world views. I predict that release of additional facts, when they are eventually released, won't change anyone's opinion one bit. They will either reject the new facts as propaganda, or they will try to shoe horn the new facts into their favorite conspiracy theory.
I was 7 months old when JFK was assassinated. I did it. I was the baby on the grassy knoll with a rifle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @03:58PM
My level of control over even the elected people is effectively nil. 95+% of people in government are neither elected nor even appointed, and I have no control whatsoever over them. Watch some "Yes, Minister" some time. Then read up on Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy.
As the saying goes, "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy". This kind of bullshit is inevitable.