[IncreasePosts]

I think the idea was to wait for people mentioned in those documents to die, so as to not affect their privacy.

You want people to tell the truth to government investigations in the future, and not hold something back because they think in 15 years the government might just release a transcript of everything you told them.

[throw10920]

That's a legitimately good reason. Are the entirety of those remaining 1700 documents redacted? If so, then they should just redact parts that would uniquely identify those last surviving people and release the rest of the documents.

[agsnu]

Sounds like a bunch of work. I thought the priority was reducing waste of taxpayer dollars?

[throw10920]

This is a snide, low-effort comment that didn't have the bare minimum of effort put into it to research whether or not its core premise was correct, and actively degrades the quality of discourse on HN.

It would have taken thirty seconds to Google "President Trump administration priorities" and come up with https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/01/pres...

The efficacy or utility of those priorities doesn't matter - the fact is that the claim that "the only (or top) priority is reducing waste" is trivially easy to invalidate, in addition to making the gross logical error that good uses of taxpayer money (of which "making sure that the taxpayers are aware of what their money is being used for" is one) and bad/inefficient uses of taxpayer money are equivalent, which doesn't even require a Google search to understand is wrong.

Comments like this shouldn't be on HN. The guidelines directly state "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle." (which is what this comment did) and that HN is for intellectual curiosity, which also didn't happen because it took less than a minute to invalidate the core premise of this comment. HN is explicitly for intellectual curiosity and thoughtful discussion like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42874301 - not this.

[thejazzman]

i very much dislike that anytime i see a comment on HN that isn't a wall of text arguing with someone, then the police arrive to tell them they're not allowed to participate in that way

i hate the wall of text on this site. i hate how some people feel entitled to tell others their remarks aren't welcome.

it truly takes away from this site to see the police show up on almost every single thread.

[throw10920]

> i very much dislike that anytime i see a comment on HN that isn't a wall of text arguing with someone, then the police arrive to tell them they're not allowed to participate in that way

You either did not read my comment, intentionally and maliciously lied about what it said, or accidentally responded to the wrong comment, because it's extremely clear that I never said anything remotely like "you're not allowed to post anything except a wall of text arguing with someone".

> i hate the wall of text on this site.

Then go somewhere else. Hacker News is explicitly for intellectual curiosity, which involves thinking, which involves writing[1][2]. If you don't want to think, then this is not the place for you.

> i hate how some people feel entitled to tell others their remarks aren't welcome.

Your remarks are not welcome if you're going to violate the guidelines and engage in political flamewars. Just like in real life, there are things you can't or shouldn't say. That shouldn't be a foreign concept.

> it truly takes away from this site to see the police show up on almost every single thread.

If the "police" are those calling out violations of the guidelines - you're factually incorrect. The guidelines add to the site, because they're crafted in a way to allow intellectual discussion. Comments such as yours, and the grandparent comment, take away from the discussion by pushing aside curious thought and replacing it with emotional outburst and base instinct.

Notice that you didn't make a single logical point in your comment, nor did you inform or enlighten me or satisfy my intellectual curiosity - you just spoke about your feelings and your hatred. Why would I go to HN when I can read that on Twitter or Bluesky?

[1] https://paulgraham.com/words.html [2] https://paulgraham.com/writes.html

[nomel]

The released files have redactions for this reason. Why couldn't the names be redacted in the remaining? Doesn't pass the smell test.

[declan_roberts]

That's not the stated reason why they're dragging their feet.

[yardstick]

What’s the stated reason?

[echelon]

And who stated a reason?

[hulitu]

> I think the idea was to wait for people mentioned in those documents to die, so as to not affect their privacy.

Are the Dulles still alive ?

[2-3-7-43-1807]

> I think the idea was to wait for people mentioned in those documents to die, so as to not affect their privacy.

you probably also think that mk ultra is a conspiracy theory.

[IncreasePosts]

It was a conspiracy.

[chrisco255]

If the transcript involves evidence against a random psychopath who committed murder against beloved public figures (with no connection whatsoever to the government), I don't understand why anyone involved with such an investigation would be upset about the release of such transcripts immediately, much less 15 years or 65 years in the future.

[yardstick]

And if those transcripts don’t have incriminating evidence, should they still be released?

If they interviewed everyone at that parade, what they were doing etc, and some of those people were completely uninvolved but maybe having affairs, or doing something immoral (whatever that is), then shouldn’t they be afforded privacy? Eg Imagine one would be mortified to have what sex toy was in their pocket at the time documented in public transcript.

[nepthar]

I think a simple redacted name would address that concern

[Someone]

For people taking part in the parade, I doubt that. Extreme example is Jackie Kennedy. “I was sitting next to the president” identifies her pretty well.

There were people in the crowd who can easily be identified, too. For example, Zapruder’s testimony would have to leave out that he shot a movie and was life on television that day, and quite a few other details to anonymize it.

[yardstick]

I’d mostly agree with that. After sufficient years have passed. Name isn’t the only way to identify someone.

[afavour]

In our conspiracy theory riddled world?

The first thing that comes to mind is Sandy Hook. Those poor parents being harassed by people accusing them of being “false flag” actors and all that nonsense. If you were a key witness in the JFK assassination you can bet nutjobs hell bent on some conspiracy theory or another are going to track you down and harass you.

Not to mention the way more vanilla stuff: people whose testimony incriminated friends, family members etc etc

[t-3]

They can still redact the released documents before releasing them. Many of those already released have been very heavily redacted.

[potato3732842]

If the documents truly are mundane and simply fill in gaps and dox a few old people then it would probably greatly reduce conspiracy theory stuff to reduce them because the gaps in the narrative is where those theories grow from.

[account42]

> In our conspiracy riddled world?

FTFY

[zombiwoof]

They will name informants and under cover folks and even how the secret service worked and works

[zombiwoof]

Truth to this government is funny

[dehrmann]

> I think the idea was to wait for people mentioned in those documents to die, so as to not affect their privacy

I also remember that story, but it's no justification for keeping something with this much public interest secret.

[MeetingsBrowser]

So you would like people to feel comfortable telling the whole truth, unless it’s something really important?

[dehrmann]

Secret witnesses aren't allowed to testify in the US. Not that these were court trials.

[lazide]

Except for FISA.

And don’t forget that cases ‘pertaining to national security’ get thrown out all the time. [https://www.fjc.gov/content/overview-7]

Either because key evidence is classified, or witnesses are, or testimony would be considered a threat to national security, etc.

[nozzlegear]

Is public interest the only thing we need to drum up if we want to strip away somebody's right to privacy?

[kelnos]

They can still redact parts of the documents, including names or other identifying information.