From: Ernest Hua <hua@XENON.chromatic.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 02:16:11 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: stupid national security excuse again ...
Message-ID: <199607091410.HAA28836@ohio.chromatic.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Ok.  Not that I really care, at this point, who really killed Kennedy
or whether there was this or that conspiracy, but I am really sick of
this bull shit "national security" excuse.

What kind of "national security" excuse could there be for the CIA to
say whether they confirm or deny the employment of some guy (whom they
could easily discredit by saying that they have nothing to do with
him)?

This sort of maneuvoring by (insert your favorite TLA) is just exactly
why I am so against encryption regulation by the government.  They can
snowjob anyone just by saying "national security".

Ern

--------

 COURT REJECTS BID FOR FACTS ON ALLEGED KENNEDY PLOTTER
 
 REUTERS
 
 SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court Monday rejected a bid to force
 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to disclose whether it employed
 a man who claimed he was involved in the murder of President John
 F. Kennedy.
 
 The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied an
 appeal by a California judge who sued to try to force the CIA to
 disclose information about Claude Capehart.
 
 Capehart, who died in 1989, claimed to have been a CIA agent involved
 in the November 1963 assassination of Kennedy in Dallas, according to
 the court ruling.
 
 In February 1992, David Minier, a municipal court judge in Chowchilla,
 California but acting as a private citizen in this case, made a
 Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA to say whether the
 agency had ever employed Capehart.
 
 Minier, 61, later asked the CIA for all records of the ''activities,
 assignments, actions and whereabouts of (Capehart) during the month of
 November 1963,'' according to the Appeals Court ruling.
 
 The CIA denied Minier's request, saying that to confirm or deny a
 relationship between the CIA and Capehart ``would jeopardize national
 security and compromise CIA sources and methods,'' the ruling said.

 ...