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NARA houses master database cataloging JFK assassination records in Top Secret area

Aliya Sternstein – Nextgov: “The master database cataloging material related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has always been housed in a Top Secret vault, much of the time on a personal computer, according to National Archives and Records Administration officials.  The index — which does not hold physical artifacts — was set up in a stand-alone computer in the early 1990s in response to the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. The law does not require Fort Knox-like protection. It’s just handy for the Archives personnel who use the system to have the JFK database close to other caseloads that include classified records…While the so-called JFK Assassination Records Collection Database Master System isn’t classified, it does contain some content unavailable to the public..A version of the database available to citizens online is on public-facing servers. Both versions are only finding aids. They contain locations and other descriptive information for physical papers, photographs and analog film. The collection includes, for example, Kennedy’s autopsy report, as well as an audio tape of charges made by political commentator Bill O’Reilly, then a Dallas TV reporter, that alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was employed by the CIA.”

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