Your Help Needed Reviewing JFK Related Documents

March 1, 2008 11:07 PM

"Exclusive: Help us examine the lost JFK files." The Dallas Morning News has put a chunk of documents found in a vault in Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins' office online in PDF form for the public to review for notable information. "Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why we are calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination." Though I was able to load one of the documents at first, it will likely require registration after a few attempts. [via].

There's also a forum at the dallasnews.com site, with little activity currently (4 topics) besides some bug reports. Indeed the pdfs load sometimes and not others, often crash when you try to rotate images, and sometimes the links just don't work. But when they load it is exciting to participate in examining these items.

What can you find, MeFites?

posted by cashman (9 comments total)

I've discovered that it was Miss Scarlett in the library with the pipe wrench.
posted by amyms at 11:20 PM on March 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Seriously, though, this is a cool resource. Thanks, cashman.
posted by amyms at 11:20 PM on March 1, 2008

Watch this turn out to be a viral for something. I've no clue what, but just you wait...
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 12:05 AM on March 2, 2008

It's pretty cool - I picked Group 41 PDF 256 and got three pages of notes on people that knew Ruby - Mr WHALEY stated that when OSWALD was a fare in his cab immediately following the assassination of KENNEDY, OSWALD made practically no conversation and said nothing to indicate possible relationships with RUBY.

I could definitely see myself getting involved in a project like this if it concerned something I cared more about.
posted by meech at 1:40 AM on March 2, 2008

TPM has been doing this sort of crowd review thing for White House document dumps for quite a while.
posted by srboisvert at 3:06 AM on March 2, 2008

"It was love that killed John F. Kennedy! He should've never messed with me!"
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:07 AM on March 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Indeed the pdfs load sometimes and not others, often crash when you try to rotate images, and sometimes the links just don't work.


Watch this turn out to be a viral for something. I've no clue what, but just you wait...

They crash because after you view X number of random documents, the predetermined sequence of documents culminating in the ad for the upcoming movie/CBS miniseries on the Kennedy assassination is supposed to load, but they didn't adequately test it. Wasn't there just a "recently discovered" audio tape that was supposed to be Oswald and Ruby talking to each other that turned out to be a hoax? Hmmm.

Seriously though, no one's had the time to look through them, so they're enlisting the aid of random JFK conspiracy yokels? Come on, now. Germany has a small government organization whose sole purpose is to paste back together the documents shredded by the Stasi during the fall of East Germany. They still haven't made even a large dent to this day, but they're doing it. If there were anything important or revealing in these documents, do you really think they'd be outsourcing the job to the Alex Jones fanclub? If anything, it's a gimmick to get attention for the paper.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:08 AM on March 2, 2008

I see dead people.
posted by Senator at 9:12 AM on March 2, 2008

L'histoire appartient a nous!

It's about time.
posted by grounded at 9:45 AM on March 2, 2008