Subject: Re: ARRB more than just a document releasing body
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 17:09:49 GMT
From: wparker@kendaco.telebyte.net (Bill Parker)
Organization: Legion of Dynamic Discord
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk

On 18 Sep 1998 00:51:29 GMT, br332@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Joseph Martines)
wrote:

>
>I just learnt that the ARRB made attempts to subpoena Richard
>Russell and/or his records due to a belief that he had
>credible evidence and information related to the assassination.
>This would appear to contradict the emotional ranting of one
>"contributor" to this newsgroup who is somewhat crazily
>possessed with the belief that the ARRB was simply a body to
>facilitate the release of existing official documents related
>to the assassination.  Perhaps this individual should read
>more and talk less.
>
>Joe martines

It's good to know that you are taking an interest in the ARRB, now that they
have 12 more days left
in their existence.

Here is some material written by the ARRB that might help you to understand
their purpose and
function.

This is from the FY96 ARRB Report's introduction:
(You read it long ago, right, Joe?)

QUOTE:
This Report is being submitted to the Senate Governmental Affairs and the
House Government Reform
and Oversight Committees by the Assassination Records Review Board in
compliance with Section 9(f)
of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of
1992, 44 U.S.C. 2107
(note), PL 102-526, (the "JFK Act").
The Assassination Records Review Board ("Review Board") is an independent
Federal agency created by
the JFK Act to oversee the identification and release of records related to
the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. The JFK Act, which received broad bipartisan
support in 1992, was signed
into law by President Bush. The five members of the Review Board were
appointed by President
Clinton, confirmed unanimously by the U. S. Senate, and sworn in on April
11, 1994. The JFK Act
granted the Review Board the mandate and the authority to identify, secure,
and make available,
through the National Archives and Records Administration ("NARA"), records
related to President
Kennedy's assassination.

Section 9(f) of the JFK Act requires the Review Board to submit a report to
Congress each year that
accounts for the progress of the Review Board, describes the status of
agency compliance with the
JFK Act, identifies "any special problems," and proposes "requests to
Congress for additional
legislative authority needs." The report that follows addresses each of the
statutory requirements
and recommends that Congress grant an extension of the Review Board's
mandate beyond its scheduled
expiration on September 30, 1997. The Review Board believes that a one-year
extension will be
necessary to complete the principal objectives of the JFK Act.

Accomplishments and Goals.

During its first two years, the Review Board has set the standard for the
release of thousands of
previously secret government documents and files related to the
assassination of President Kennedy.
Among the records that previously were classified or unavailable that have
now been reviewed and
released by the Review Board are:

Thousands of records from the CIA's official file on Lee Harvey Oswald and
the assassination of
President Kennedy;
The controversial House Select Committee on Assassinations Staff Report on
Oswald and Mexico City;
The deposition transcript of "John Scelso" (pseudonym), who was the Chief of
the CIA's division of
the Western Hemisphere that was responsible for Mexico and who was the first
person charged with the
responsibility of investigating the assassination for the CIA;
The original Marine Corps personnel file on Oswald;
Copies of the official records of District Attorney Jim Garrison's
investigation of the
assassination;
The private papers of J. Lee Rankin (General Counsel of the Warren
Commission), Jim Garrison, and
Edward Wegmann (the attorney who represented Clay Shaw in the Garrison
probe);
Thousands of records from the FBI's core and related files on the
assassination; and
Thousands of once-secret records of the HSCA investigation into the
assassination of President
Kennedy.
In addition, the Review Board secured and placed into the public record
original outtakes of
television film taken on the day of the assassination as well as motion
picture film taken by
presidential aide Dave Powers on President Kennedy's trip to Texas. The
Review Board has also
conducted extensive inquiries into the state of medical and forensics
evidence related to the
assassination.

With one additional year, the Review Board plans to complete its review of
the extensive FBI and CIA
files that were collected in response to requests from the House Select
Committee on Assassinations.
Additional time also will permit the Review Board to make other records
available, including records
now in private hands and in the custody of foreign governments.

The Review Board's accomplishments and goals are explained more fully below.

Background of the JFK Act.

The tragedy of the assassination of President Kennedy has been compounded
over the years by the
lingering suspicion -- widely shared by the American people -- that the
Federal government is in
possession of secret records that reveal that the government has known much
more about the
assassination than it has been willing to disclose publicly. Although many
pledges were made, as
early as 1963, that the government would reveal all of its evidence related
to the assassination,
more than 30 years have gone by with only portions of the record and the
story being revealed.

From the beginning, the Federal government was responsible for the
investigation of the
assassination and for collecting records related to the assassination. In
order to ensure that there
would be a single investigation, President Johnson named seven distinguished
Americans to the
President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
(the "Warren Commission").
Despite the early pledges to release all of the Warren Commission evidence
to the public, and
although the Warren Commission itself published 26 volumes of evidence, many
of the records had
still not been declassified by 1992. Although records continued to be
released pursuant to
declassification and to FOIA suits, the public was still not privy to much
of the evidence that had
been available to the Commissioners.

After several previously unknown facts were revealed in the late 1960s and
1970s, including CIA
assassination attempts on Fidel Castro and others, the scope of illegal
domestic activities by the
CIA and the FBI, and the first public viewing of the famous Zapruder motion
picture that depicted
the assassination, the House of Representatives decided that it should
conduct new investigations
into the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
Accordingly, the House Select
Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was formed in September 1976, to inquire
into the two slayings.

In addition to these two major Federal investigations into the assassination
of President Kennedy,
other Federal investigatory bodies have dealt with the assassination to some
degree. In January
1975, President Ford created the President's Commission on CIA Activities
Within the United States
(the "Rockefeller Commission") to investigate allegations about domestic CIA
activities. The
Rockefeller Commission made some limited inquiries into the Kennedy
assassination and related
issues. Also in January 1975, Congress created the Senate Select Committee
to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the "Church Committee")
and the House Select
Committee on Intelligence (the "Pike Committee"). Some of the work of these
committees was related
to the assassination. Book 5 of the Church Committee Report, for example,
was devoted exclusively to
the Kennedy assassination.

Although many records that had been reviewed by the HSCA, Rockefeller
Commission, Church Committee,
and Pike Committee were made available to the public, as of 1992 a
significant number of records
remained unavailable. Many FOIA requests had been filed in order to obtain
access to the records
resulting in continuing (and expensive) litigation brought by private
citizens who sought to learn
what their government knew about the Kennedy assassination but was unwilling
to tell the American
people.

In 1992, Congress wisely decided that it was time to bring an end to the
suspicion and secrecy that
has surrounded the death of the 35th President. In order to show the
American people that its
government was fully prepared to release all of the evidence in its files,
it enacted the JFK Act in
1992. The JFK Act was designed, in part, to be an innovative alternative to
the existing mechanisms
for the public release of records related to the assassination and to the
conduct of U.S. government
agencies. The JFK Act states that "the Freedom of Information Act, as
implemented by the executive
branch, has prevented the timely public disclosure of records relating to
the assassination . . . "
(emphasis added). In addition, Executive Order No. 12356 on National
Security Information was found
by Congress to have excluded from the automatic declassification provision
matters such as the
identification of intelligence sources and methods, as well as informants,
which form the core of
the Kennedy assassination records that remain unavailable to the public.
(Executive Order No. 12356
has been superseded by Executive Order 12958, which similarly protects
sources and methods.) The
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs concluded that the creation of a
Review Board was required
to ensure an "independent and enforceable mechanism for disclosure under
uniform standards for
review."

Key Provisions of the JFK Act.

The JFK Act provides that: "All government records concerning the
assassination of President John F.
Kennedy should carry a presumption of immediate disclosure." Furthermore,
the JFK Act requires that
all assassination-related materials be transferred to a single collection at
NARA to be known as the
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection ("JFK
Collection").

The JFK Act required all Federal agencies to make an initial assessment of
whether they possess
records relating to the assassination. The agencies themselves were to have
conducted an initial
review and to have identified all "assassination records" in their
possession within 300 days of the
enactment of the JFK Act. The agencies also were required to determine
whether their records might
be disclosed immediately or whether disclosure should be postponed. All
records deemed by an agency
as not suitable for immediate release are subject to evaluation by the
Review Board. Once the Review
Board completes its review of an agency's recommendation for postponement,
all records, including
those that have a postponed release date, are transferred to the NARA. The
JFK Act requires that all
assassination records must be opened by 2017, with the exception of records
certified for continued
postponement by the President.

The JFK Act defines five categories of information for which disclosure may
be postponed, including
national security, intelligence gathering, and privacy. The JFK Act presumes
that in the
overwhelming number of cases the information should be opened and emphasizes
that such postponements
should occur only in rare cases where the harm of the release outweighs the
public interest in the
disclosure of the information. However, the JFK Act also provides that the
agencies shall have an
opportunity to present to the Review Board information supporting their
proposed postponements. The
agencies have submitted a great deal of information to the Review Board in
support of their proposed
postponements. This process, which properly was established by Congress in
the JFK Act, has
nevertheless consumed a great deal of time both for the Review Board and the
agencies.

Authority of the Assassination Records Review Board. According to the Senate
report on the JFK Act,
"the underlying principles guiding the legislation are independence, public
confidence, efficiency
and cost effectiveness." To achieve these broad objectives, the JFK Act gave
the Review Board
specific powers, including the powers to:

Direct government offices to provide identification aids and organize
assassination records;
Direct government offices to transmit assassination records to the National
Archives;
Obtain assassination records that have been identified and organized by a
government office;
Direct government offices to provide additional information, records, or
testimony from individuals
which the Review Board has reason to believe is required;
Request the Attorney General to subpoena private persons to compel
testimony, records, and other
relevant information; . . .
Require any government office to account in writing for the destruction of
any records relating to
the assassination of President Kennedy;
Receive information from the public regarding the identification and public
disclosure of
assassination records; and
Conduct hearings, administer oaths, and subpoena witnesses and documents.
UNQUOTE

Bill Parker