The National Archives has done it again—another document dump, this time related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This release fulfills President Trump’s long-standing promise, but if you were expecting bombshell revelations, you might be disappointed.
For those of us who follow national security, classification, and declassification, this is less about what’s in the documents and more about what the release itself signifies. Some speculated that these files might contain embarrassing details about the CIA’s past, but so far, the contents seem to align with what we already knew about intelligence activities in the 1950s and Cold War-era operations. No shocking secrets—just a reaffirmation of history.
What interests me more is the broader trend at play. The intelligence community has been shifting toward a greater embrace of open-source intelligence (OSINT). The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has hinted at this push, emphasizing that not everything needs to be locked behind a classified curtain. And I agree—some things should remain secret, but when everything is treated like a national security asset, nothing has the value it should.
This ties directly into a conversation we need to be having about how classification works in the U.S. government. If we’re worried about the size of the cleared workforce, maybe we should take a closer look at what gets classified in the first place. Transparency around clearance processing times, workforce makeup, and non-sensitive intelligence insights could actually strengthen trust in the system while protecting what truly matters.
So while historians and conspiracy theorists might be busy combing through the latest JFK files, I’m looking at the bigger picture—are we finally seeing a shift in how we handle classification? If this is a step toward more thoughtful declassification, I’m here for it.
