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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 9, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I wonder why they would bother with not releasing these latest documents if they all amount to a nothingburger.

I also wonder if the last 1% of documents is something that the CIA/DoD did which wouldn't reflect well on the US. Like some sort of reprisal or dirty tricks against the soviets.

Ostensibly it’s to protect “sources and methods.” For example, that would include tradecraft techniques for contacting moles, or bugging and trailing sources. Technology changes, but a lot of those methods might be just as useful today as they were in 1963. Or documents might mention agents embedded in hostile foreign countries like Cuba who are still alive and might be subject to arrest and execution if their names are revealed. Conspiratorially, even if there’s nothing damning in the files, there could be evidence that might be linked to shady business, or small details that contradict the Warren Report, or possibly obvious holes in the investigative methodology that points to an after the fact cover-up.