[104-10337-10014.pdf — page 34]
# FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARDSection B includes a discussion of the "Rule of Reason" that the Review Board ultimately adopted with regard to receiving evidence from the agencies.c. JFK Act requires the Review Board to balance evidence for postponement against public interest in release.Assuming that agencies did provide clear and convincing evidence that information should be protected from disclosure, the terms of section 6 required that information not be postponed unless the threat of harm outweighs the public interest in disclosure. As used in the JFK Act, "public interest" means "the compelling interest in the prompt public disclosure of assassination records for historical and governmental purposes and for the purpose of fully informing the American people about the history surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." The Review Board interpreted the balancing requirement to mean that agencies had to provide the Review Board with clear and convincing evidence of the threat of harm that would result from disclosure. However, to the extent that the JFK Act left room for discretion in evaluating the historical significance, or public interest, of particular assassination records, it was the Review Board-not the agency that originated the document-that was to exercise this discretion. The burden was on the agencies to make the case for postponement, not to judge the level of public interest in a particular document. The JFK Act established the Review Board as a panel of independent citizens with expertise as historians and archivists precisely in order to secure public confidence in such determinations.[^21]d. Segregability and substitute language.When the Review Board determined that the risk of harm did outweigh the public interest in disclosure, it then had to take two additional steps: (1) ensure that the agency redacted the least amount of information possible to avoid the stated harm, or "segregate" the postponed information, and (2) provide substitute language to take the place of the redaction.3. Federal Agency Record Groups and the Standards Applied to Them.The JFK Act defines "assassination records" to include records related to the assassination of President Kennedy that were "created or made available for use by, obtained by, or otherwise came into the possession of" the following groups: the Warren Commission, the four congressional committees that investigated the assassination, any office of the federal government, and any state or local law enforcement office that assisted in a federal investigation of the assassination.[^22]When it passed the JFK Act, Congress intended for the JFK Collection to include the record groups that it identified in section 3(2), but it also intended for the Review Board to consider carefully the scope of the term "assassination record" and to issue an interpretive regulation defining this crucial term.[^23] The Act requires government agencies to identify, organize, and process those assassination records that are defined as assassination records in section 3(2). Chapter 6 of this report explains how the Review Board interpreted its responsibility to define and seek out "additional records and information." Set forth below is a description of some of the core government holdings on the assassination which were released under the standards of the Review Board.a. The FBI's "core and related" files.The FBI's "core and related" files consist of those records that the FBI gathered in response to FOIA requests that it received in the 1970s for records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. The "core" files include the FBI files on Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, as well as the FBI's Warren Commission files and the JFK assassination investigation file. The "related" files include FBI files on Lee Harvey Oswald's wife Marina and mother Marguerite, Oswald's friend George DeMohrenschildt, and the Oswalds' Dallas friends Ruth and Michael Paine. The FBI began its processing of the core and related files in 1993. The Review Board applied strict standards to its review of postponements in the core and related files.