Chris Dodd: “In this amendment, we took Public Law 102-526, section VI, entitled ``Grounds for Postponement of Public Disclosure of…”

“In this amendment, we took Public Law 102-526, section VI, entitled ``Grounds for Postponement of Public Disclosure of Records.'' This is the so-called ``Kennedy assassination'' language. What I did is I took the exact language--all of the language, which provides the exemptions of where this information should not be provided, and I took the word ``assassination'' and replaced it with the words ``human rights.'' Here is an example. Reading from the existing law: Disclosure of assassination records and of particular information to the public may be postponed subject to the limitations of the act. We write: Disclosure of human rights records. 1. Threat of military defense intelligence, conduct, foreign relations, and so forth. Intelligence agents, intelligence sources, and other matters currently related to the military defense. All the way down this entire language, all we did is replace the words ``human rights'' for ``assassinations'' when it comes to Honduras and Guatemala. We added an additional provision that is not in the Kennedy assassination statute. In addition, the amendment provides that ``a document may remain classified if its public disclosure would be expected to reveal the identity of a confidential human source.''”