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Comment by EMM_386 | Hacker News Reader

What I find most intriguing about the JFK assassination is the fact that parts of it still can't be declassified.

In 1992, Congress passed a law saying everything was to be declassified in 25 years. October 2017 came and went, and the FBI blocked around 7,500 documents from release. The DEA didn't want CI names related to organized crime in them. The State Department blocked some due to "national security and foreign affairs concerns".

Trump claimed while running for President that he was now going to release everything, yet the FBI and CIA stepped in again and those plans changed.

Trump finally said he couldn't release them due to some being "of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure".

So they remain secret, 60 years later.

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What’s the anti-conspiratorial explanation for that? I can imagine a million different things they’d love to hide, but what would the legitimate, honest/harmless reason?

Hypothetical: They checked with an agent who is deep / high up in some foreign agency and he said "wasnt us." that agent retired but helped recruit others. those may have retired and helped recruit others.

Just that one connection in a file, "we asked agent $name and he said $agency knew nothing" might be justifiable to keep secret if theres a connection to someone still active.

> Hypothetical: They checked with an agent who is deep / high up in some foreign agency and he said "wasnt us." that agent retired but helped recruit others. those may have retired and helped recruit others.

> Just that one connection in a file, "we asked agent $name and he said $agency knew nothing" might be justifiable to keep secret if theres a connection to someone still active.

The names of the agents would be redacted at first place on declassified material.

It’s not just names but also things like places, times, methods of communication, etc. which could be use to narrow things down. If there was a high-level KGB officer whose cooperation hadn’t previously been recognized they don’t want to inspire new investigation into what else that person or their handlers did.

The anti-conspiratorial explanation would be that the government flagrantly broke tons of laws over the years, both in the US and abroad, and that they don't want to publish details about that (even though none of those details actually involve trying to kill Kennedy).

Well that's still a conspiratorial explanation, just a different conspiracy.

Though we do know these agencies have broken laws and done some pretty nasty stuff like MKUltra over the years.

So they really have no stock and should have been broken up a long time ago. No conspiracy theories needed really.

Perhaps some of the programs are still running, new generation, same playbook

With this kind of secrecy it's no wonder that conspiracy theories are so popular.

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