The release of 64,000 pages of documents regarding the 1963 JFK assassination has raised significant privacy concerns after no information was redacted. Critics have noted the FBI's rushed handling, which led to the visibility of a CIA agent's complete personnel file and the Social Security numbers of many individuals, some still alive. Many affected, including former contractor William A. Harnage, expressed outrage. Despite administration officials' awareness that the release would expose private information, the White House did not comment on the situation, which sparked debates on transparency versus privacy.
President Donald Trump's supporters praised the documents' release as government transparency at its finest. But that was not how William A. Harnage, a former government contractor, said he felt when he learned from a reporter that his Social Security number had surfaced in a file from 1977. 'I consider it almost criminal,' said Harnage, 71.
Critics said that failure was evidence of an FBI rush to vet material released after a president's demand. The release exposed at least one CIA agent's complete personnel file and the Social Security numbers for hundreds of people.
Administration officials knew before the documents went out that releasing them without redactions would mean some personal information would be exposed, according to one person with knowledge of the effort that was granted anonymity to discuss the deliberations.
It was almost inevitable. Members of Trump's national security team were surprised by his abrupt announcement, made Monday during a tour of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, that he would release what he said would be 80,000 documents the next day.
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