It’s the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, and the law that successfully released most assassination records is over 30 years old.
Congress doesn't normally get involved in declassification efforts, though.
It has largely ceded this authority to the president, who sets the rules for classification and declassification through executive order. (The major exception is classified information about nuclear materials and facilities, which is controlled by the Atomic Energy Act.)
This makes 1992’s Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act a remarkable outlier in combating government secrecy.
As of this writing, a few thousand records remain secret, based on arguments that are tenuous at best. But millions of pages are now public thanks to the law, making it an overwhelming success.
Despite this, Congress hasn’t successfully ordered another targeted, high-level declassification review effort since.
It should. These projects promote the public’s right to know, improve congressional oversight, and save the government money (because keeping documents classified is expensive).
The JFK Act
Oliver Stone’s 1991 film, “JFK,” persuaded much of its audience that its assassination conspiracy theories were true. It was so effective — and so damaging to public opinion about the government — that it encouraged Congress to pass a law to prove what the government really knew about the president’s death.
The JFK Act created the Assassination Records Review Board to determine the merit of agency claims that certain records had to stay secret. The board began its work in 1994 as “a new and unusual legislative remedy to the problem of government secrecy.”
By the time the board issued its final report in 1998, it was able to convince agencies to release tens of thousands of records.
It also agreed with agencies that 35,000 documents needed ongoing protection. The act further required those records to be released in full by October 2017 — 25 years after the passage of the law — unless the president agreed with agencies that releasing certain records would cause so much harm that it would outweigh public interest in release.
The CIA and FBI successfully convinced both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden that 3,500 records must remain secret — seven years after the 2017 deadline.
But as much as 99% of the assassination records — nearly 5 million pages — have been declassified and are available.
That makes the JFK Act a success. Compare this to the number of documents that have been declassified on other high-interest topics, from UFOs to government surveillance, and the act’s success is all the more striking.
Other high-level declassification efforts
Congress has attempted, so far unsuccessfully, to replicate the JFK Act.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to introduce a UFO transparency bill last year, citing the JFK Act in his attempt. He said that “the measure would create a board just like with the JFK assassination records to work through the declassification of the many government records on UAPs … This model has been a terrific success for decades and should be used with UAPs.”
Senate Republicans killed the bill.
In 2017, Sen. Jay Moran tried to introduce a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have required the declassification of documents concerning military members’ exposure to toxic material. It stated that information could only remain classified if it would “materially and immediately threaten the security of the United States.” This is a stricter withholding standard than is even found in the executive order on classification.
It was adopted by the Senate but did not ultimately become law.
There have also been several unsuccessful attempts by Congress to declassify information on what the U.S. knew about human rights abuses in Latin America. They failed as well.
But just because some powerful lawmakers are addicted to secrecy, it doesn’t mean the legislative branch should give up.
Congress must keep trying
Congress should not be discouraged by past failures. The work is too important — and there have been examples of other kinds of successful high-level declassification projects in recent years to learn from.
The best example is 2019’s Argentina Declassification Project, which forced the CIA, FBI, and others to declassify 47,000 records on what they knew about human rights abuses in South America. This presidential initiative began under President Barack Obama and was completed by Trump.
Congress should learn from these success stories and bring the JFK Act model into the 21st century. Such a model could be used to declassify what the government knows about the dangers of climate change, nuclear weapons, federal spying abuses, and much more.
Elon Musk has repeatedly called in recent weeks for abolishing classification altogether. He’s got the president-elect’s ear, so anything is possible. But until then, and in the absence of government-wide classification reform, this targeted approach is one of our best bets for transparency.
