Sensitive personal information including Social Security numbers was revealed in the newly unredacted documents , and that is not sitting well with the people affected.
Joseph diGenova, a former campaign lawyer for , was among those whose personal information was disclosed. He said he is planning to sue the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration for violating privacy laws over concerns about identity theft.
鈥淚t should not have happened,鈥� diGenova said in a phone interview Thursday. 鈥淚 think it's the result of incompetent people doing the reviewing. I don't believe it had anything to do with rushing the process. The people who reviewed these documents did not do their job.鈥�
His personal information was on documents relating to his work for a U.S. Senate select committee that investigated abuses of power by government officials in the 1970s, including the surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Officials at the White House said Thursday that a plan was in place to help those whose personal information was disclosed, including credit monitoring offered by the National Archives until new Social Security numbers are issued. Officials also said they are still screening the records to identify all the Social Security numbers that were released.
鈥淧resident Trump delivered on his promise of maximum transparency by fully releasing the files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "At the request of the White House, the National Archives and the Social Security Administration immediately put together an action plan to proactively help individuals whose personal information was released in the files.鈥�
The White House press office also released a statement from the National Archives.
鈥淚n an effort to maximize transparency, these records were released without redactions and some of these records contain the personal identification information of living individuals,鈥� the statement said. 鈥淭he National Archives and Records Administration and the Social Security Administration are working closely together to protect the individuals who may be affected from their information being exploited.鈥�
The statement also said that while the National Archives will be contacting people whose personal information was disclosed, it urged those people to contact the National Archives.
Neither the White House nor the National Archives explained the decision-making process behind the public release of the personal information.
the release of the remaining classified files relating to the 1963 assassination shortly after being sworn into office in January. consisting of over 63,000 pages were posted on the National Archive's website on Tuesday evening. Many of those pages revealed what had previously been redacted.
The vast majority of the National Archives鈥� more than 6 million pages 鈥� records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts related to the assassination 鈥� had previously been released.
The National Archives posted assessments of the newly released documents on its website, but noted that there wasn't enough time as of Wednesday to review more than a small fraction of them. The documents released this week provided more details of in other nations, but they didn鈥檛 initially lend credence to conspiracy theories about who killed Kennedy.
One of the newly unredacted documents, for example, 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.
Gerald Posner, author of 鈥淐ase Closed,鈥� which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, said the documents release was rushed, echoing what other researchers believe.
鈥淚 know that people will probably shake their head if they hear that 鈥� because how could they be rushing in after 62 years?鈥� he said Thursday. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot of documents. It鈥檚 a lot of files. The Archives in the past has provided a sort of a search guide. So if I want to find James 鈥楯esus鈥� Angleton, for instance, I could do a search and find all the documents he鈥檚 in and then I can see what鈥檚 different from the last release. This time they didn鈥檛 have that.鈥�
Angleton was the CIA's counterintelligence chief from 1954 to 1974.
The National Archives began screening the documents on Wednesday to identify all the Social Security numbers in the assassination records, the White House said.
The National Archives will share those numbers with the Social Security Administration, which will identify the people who are living and issue them new numbers, according to the White House.
Kennedy was killed on a , when his motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown and shots rang out from the building. Police arrested a former Marine who had positioned himself from a sniper鈥檚 perch on the sixth floor. Two days later, Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner, fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer that was broadcast live on television.
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Associated Press writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
Dave Collins, The Associated Press
