Social Security Number of Living Persons Included in Unedited Kennedy Assassination Documents
Sensitive personal information, including the Social Security Number, was unveiled in the new unedited John Kennedy assassination document released this week, which doesn’t quite fit with those affected.
Joseph Digenova, former campaign attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, is one of the people who disclose personal information. He said he is planning to sue the National Archives and Records Administration for privacy violations and fear of identity theft.
“This shouldn’t happen,” Digenova said in a phone interview Thursday. “I think it’s the result of incompetence in conducting the review. I don’t think it’s related to the rushing process. The people who reviewed these documents have no work.”
His personal information is about his work on the U.S. Senate Selected Committee, which investigated documents that abused power by government officials in the 1970s, including surveillance of U.S. citizens.
White House officials said Thursday a plan has been developed to help those who disclose personal information, including credit monitoring provided by the National Archives and screening records that began Wednesday to determine all published Social Security numbers. Officials also said a new social security number will be issued to those affected.
The White House did not answer questions about why personal information was not edited.
“President Trump fulfilled his commitment to the highest transparency by fully releasing archives related to President John Kennedy’s assassination,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “At the request of the White House, the National Archives and Social Security Agency immediately developed an action plan to proactively help individuals who publish personal information in their archives.”
The National Archives did not immediately respond to emails seeking comments.
Most records have been published
Trump ordered the release of confidential files associated with the assassination of 1963 shortly after he was sworn in January. About 2,200 documents containing 63,000 pages were posted on the National Archives website Tuesday night. Many of these pages reveal what has been edited before.
More than 6 million pages of records, photos, movies, sound recordings and artifacts related to assassination have been released previously in most national archives.
The National Archives published an assessment of the newly released documents on its website, but noted that the time to Wednesday did not have enough time to review a small portion of them.
Documents released this week provide more details on the secret US actions in other countries in the Cold War era, but were initially confident in the conspiracy theory of the people who killed Kennedy.
For example, one of the unedited documents revealed the social security numbers of more than twenty people seeking security clearances in the 1990s to review documents from the Assassination Record Review Committee related to Kennedy International Airport.
The White House said the state archives began screening documents on Wednesday to determine all Social Security numbers in the assassination records.
According to the White House, the National Archives will share the numbers with the Social Security Agency, which will identify the people who reside and issue new numbers to them. Officials said the National Archives will also provide creditor monitoring services for affected persons until they receive a new Social Security number.
Kennedy was killed while visiting Dallas when his convoy was shooting at the Texas School Book Possitory Building on November 22, 1963. Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, a former Marine who lived from the sixth floor sniper. Two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot deadly while broadcasting the prison transfer radio live on TV.
