The fourth set of releases from the JFK ARC for 2023 is now up at NARA. On June 13, 2023, redactions were released in 290 records from the JFK collection. This follows the release of redactions in 1279 records during April and May of 2023. For those keeping count, 1569 records have been released in full this year. This note looks at the 6/13 releases. It follows the format used in my last few posts on NARA releases, examining who released what and how much more information remains redacted.

Agencies releasing information

Here is a breakdown of the latest releases by agency name and number:

How many redacted records are left?

All 290 documents that had redactions released this time are now released in full. This was also true for the April and May releases. No more partial releases here. Citing again my previous post on remaining redactions, following the big December 20222 release, there were 4,342 “Section 5” documents in the ARC with redactions. (“Section 5” document was also explained in that post.) Following this latest release, there are therefore 2773 redacted documents left in the JFKARC.

In that previous post, I also looked at which agencies are responsible for releasing these documents and found that the CIA was responsible for releasing most of these records, a total of about 3648 documents. This number comes from a pdf posted at NARA. All of the documents released so far in 2023 have been on that list. Based on that doc, therefore, CIA is still responsible for the release of 2079 documents.

I note again that although some of these 2079 documents originated from other agencies, the docs include classified CIA information. As a result, CIA is responsible for their release.

How many of these redacted documents were originated by the CIA? Remember that record numbers beginning with the prefix “104” were originated by the CIA. On the CIA list linked to above, there are 2905 “104” docs. 373 of these were released in full on April 12, 308 were released on April 27, and 445 were released on May 11. In the newest batch, 244 of the records are “104” docs. That means 1535 “104” docs still have redactions.

As I said in my last note, there are a small number of “104” records which other agencies are responsible for releasing, including the DOD and the State Department. These are not included in my count.

My two cents

I am still reviewing the contents of the latest releases, so I’ll comment on content in a later note. I am reasonably certain there will be at least one more release by the June 30th deadline. Don’t disappoint me, guys!

On the other hand, I am sure that redactions will continue in the JFKARC after June 30th as well. Remember, about 400 of these are social security numbers of living people. So don’t have a cow, man.