US Release of Unredacted JFK Files 'Doxxed' Officials, Including Social Security Numbers (usatoday.com)
- Reference: 0176788573
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/22/0237216/us-release-of-unredacted-jfk-files-doxxed-officials-including-social-security-numbers
- Source link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/20/jfk-files-social-security-trump/82567111007/
Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represented current and former spies and other officials in cases against the government, told USA Today that he "saw a few names I know and I informed them of the breach... Hundreds were doxxed but of that number I don't know how many are still living."
> Zaid, who has fought for decades for the JFK records to be made public, said many of the thousands of investigative documents had been made public long ago with everything declassified and unredacted except for the personal information. Releasing that information now, he told USA TODAY, poses significant threats to those whose information is now public, including dates and places of birth, but especially their Social Security numbers. "The purpose of the release was to inform the public about the JFK assassination, not to help permit identity theft of those who actually investigated the events of that day," Zaid said.
The Associated Press [6]reported Thursday afternoon that government officials "said they are still screening the records to identify all the Social Security numbers that were released."
> One of the newly unredacted documents... discloses the Social Security numbers of more than two dozen people seeking security clearances in the 1990s to review JFK-related documents for the Assassination Records Review Board.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/20/jfk-files-social-security-trump/82567111007/
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/14/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump-lawsuits-2020-election/index.html
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20180323154828/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/02/29/digenovas-legacy/8f02d31e-df56-4b9f-aac1-416f1f947077/?utm_term=.ce1171c8ddfc
[4] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/086201/government-releases-thousands-of-declassified-pages-related-to-jfk-assassination
[5] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/20/jfk-files-social-security-trump/82567111007/
[6] https://apnews.com/article/jfk-assassination-files-personal-information-5609ccd6e106c5b30ee6b6cca3a30e3c
Yet another example... (Score:1)
Yet another example of how incredibly reckless this administration has been so far. We'll be lucky if the damage he's doing / going to do is repaired in a decade.
Responsibility (Score:2)
The Trump administration isn't responsible for releasing and redacting information, the National Archives are. The people who did this are National Archives staffers. The administration ordered them to release the documents. They did, not following their own regulations. The issue I've seen with these document releases historically, is that they tend to redact a *lot* of information, even when directed not to. I'm not sure how you fix the problem, beyond firing the people who don't understand that "minimal
Orange man bad! (Score:2)
This is just more leftist stupidity. Doxxing people is simply 16D chess from our president genius.
Did you see that new airplane? F-47? Yes! F-47! F-47 in the ass!
The actual problem... (Score:2)
The actual problem is different. SSNs are not in any way private. How many people and organizations know, or could know yours? Dozens? Hundreds?
The actual problem is, if someone can use your SSN to do you harm. Any organization that considers an SSN to be some form if identification is idiotic, and ought to be liable for any resulting damages.
Unforced error (Score:2)
This was an unforced error, for which there are clear laws that would apply. I would hope diGenova (and others impacted) will receive appropriate compensation for the mistake, and their time it will take to make it right for them (simply issuing the impacting individuals new SSNs, which the SSA indicated it will do, does not update the existing SSNs which exist in many places for anyone; someone 80 years old, like diGenova, may not even be aware of all the places their existing SSN is stored and now needs
I'm shocked, shocked, to find that... (Score:2)
... gross incompetence is going on around here.
Just had to pick the low-hanging joke (and change the vacuous Subject).
But I actually am a bit surprised. I haven't yet heard anything really distracting from this manufactured news, and I was expecting that it had been released as another deliberate distraction. Even relatively carefully considered when you compare it with some of the other BS that is flooding the zone lately.
On that theory it should have included some interesting stuff. I even imagined that t