When Congress passed the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act in 1992 agencies throughout the Federal Government transferred assassination-related records to the National Archives which established the JFK Assassination Records Collection. The Collection consists of approximately 5 million pages of records. Approximately 88% of the records in the Collection are open in full. An addition 11% are released in part with sensitive portions removed. Approximately 1% of documents identified as assassination-related remain withheld in full. All documents withheld either in part or in full were authorized for withholding by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), an independent temporary agency that was in existence from 1994 to 1998.
According to the Act, all 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:
In October of 2014, after conducting an initial pre-processing evaluation of the withheld materials, the National Archives constituted a dedicated team of four (4) archivists to process withheld JFK Assassination-related records in preparation for the 2017 release of additional materials. NARA has hired three (3) additional technicians to assist with digitizing the withheld materials.
The Team conducted archival processing on the documents to prepare the records for scanning. Agencies with equities in the withheld materials were notified that previously withheld documents will be released in 2017 absent a successful appeal to the President. The staff worked with NARA’s Office of Innovation to determine the best way to present the documents through archives.gov when released.
On Saturday President Trump indicated that he will not stand in the way of the release, scheduled for today. In a call this morning, representatives at the National Archives indicated that the records will be release sometime today, but they did not know what time. Records can be searched HERE once released.
Image Credits: National Archives