As NARA’s press release informs us, after the December 2022 redaction releases, fewer than 4,400 records have “Section 5” redactions left in them. Good to know, but where and what are these redactions? What are the justifications for continuing to hold back the information the little rectangular boxes conceal?
There is now some new documentation for the curious, as mandated by President Biden’s 2021 memo, and posted at NARA.…
NARA has released another set of redacted texts from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (JFKARC, or just plain ARC below). Since I am not a newspaper or journalist, I will not rush to get out all the new news from this latest, but not last, set of previously redacted texts.…
Judge John Tunheim served as chair of the Assassination Records Review Board from 1994 to 1998, and together with the other four Board members, deserves much credit for the important accomplishments of the Board, the greatest of which was the successful creation of the massive JFK Assassination Records Collection (JFKARC or ARC), a most valuable contribution to the history of both the JFK assassination and to the historiography of the cold war as a whole.…
If NARA can stick to its schedule, next week we will see more redacted text released from the JFK Assassination Records Collection. Since not much time is left, I had better hurry up with my predictions of what that “new” material will include.
Calling future roulette rolls can be tricky, but I’m confident about the predictions I will offer here.…
[Note that some material linked in this post has moved from my Google Drive to Dropbox, I have changed the links and refs for these.]
This post discuses my recent attempt to count redactions in the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (JFKARC) at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).…
[Note! The compilations discussed in this post have moved from Google Drive to Dropbox. Let me know if you have any trouble with viewing or downloads.]
This post introduces a long term project which I have finally finished. As noted many times, on this website and elsewhere, there are over 10,000 CIA documents in the JFKARC that still have redactions.…
On October 19th, the Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF) filed suit against President Biden’s plan to release the remaining redactions in the JFKARC. For those confused by all this, a quick look back might be helpful.
In October 2021, President Biden issued a memo instructing Federal agencies with redacted materials in the ARC to get ready to release these by December 15, 2022 or to justify their continued redaction by jumping through an elaborate series of hoops.…
This is my 11th note on NARA 21, the updated version of the JFK ARC database (available here). See the first note in this series for more details on the what, when, why of this update.
This note concludes my look at redacted CIA documents in NARA 21. The three previous posts on this subject were two looks at short docs, and one look at mid-length docs.…
Some interesting ARC docs have recently been posted online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation website. These docs are records of executive session testimony before the SISS (Senate Internal Security Subcommittee), which conducted a “limited inquiry” into the JFK assassination in late 1963. The session records were acquired by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) all the way back in 1995, and are noted in the ARRB’s Final report (see here and here).…
While press coverage of the December 2021 ARC releases was mostly disappointing, NARA provided much useful information on the December releases for those who wanted to report it. This note takes a look at the good news side of the December releases, including important clarifications of the current status of the JFK Assassination Records Collection at NARA.…