Left Forum JFK Session
May 31, 2015
Session 6 Room: 3.304N Sunday 12 pm – 1:50 pm
Details: http://www.leftforum.org/content/legal-solutions-jfk-assassination-research
Summary: This workshop will be conducted by the newly formed Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA, an organization composed of journalists, attorneys, researchers, medical professionals, forensic pathologists, and others dedicate to investigating major political assassinations in the United States, and applying pressure through persuasion and legal action to promote an end to government secrecy with respect to these cases and substitute a new policy favoring transparency. This includes a commitment by the National Archives, other government agencies, and Congress to enforce the provisions of the “JFK Records Act” requiring expedited declassification of the more than 100,000 pages of JFK assassination-related records that remain classified more than 50 years after the assassination. Expert presenters will address the state of the evidence, the role of the media, and our Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuits regarding the JFK and other political assassinations.
Moderator: Jerry Policoff
Lancaster, Pa. 17601
Home: 717-295-0237
Cell: 717-682-4434
Bio: Jerry Policoff is a retired broadcast advertising/sales executive who has been studying and writing about the JFK assassination since 1966.
Topic: History of media censorship on the JFK investigations based on four decades of research
Extra Reading/Video:
New Orleans District Attorney’s 1967 response to NBC: Jim Garrison Response – Kennedy Assassination (27 min.). On July 15, 1967, NBC allowed New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to respond to an NBC program that was highly critical of Garrison’s pursuit of alleged Kennedy assassination conspirators in New Orleans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqo2c_SxQag (Jerry: I’ve listed this also below my segment but it might logically be mentioned here. He’s missed some things, but it’s amazing what he did know in 1967!)
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Lawrence Schnapf
New York, New York 10128
212-876-3189 (p); 917-576-3667(c)
www.SchnapfLaw.com
Larry@SchnapfLaw.com
Bio: Environmental lawyer with 30 years of experience and am an adjunct professor at New York Law School. He has been researching the JFK assassination since the late 1960s and did an independent research project while at Rutgers University (also did a screen play but professor told me it was a waste of time since everyone knew what happened to JFK!).
Abstract: To date there have been 329 people exonerated in the United States who have been wrongfully convicted largely based on flawed forensic evidence. The misapplication of forensic science is the second leading contributor to wrongful conviction, playing a role in nearly 50% of the wrongful convictions proven by post-conviction DNA testing. Indeed, The only more common contributing cause of wrongful convictions is eyewitness misidentification, which has played a role in nearly 75 % of known wrongful convictions.
My presentation will be take a new look at the forensic evidence used by the WC and HSCA in light of what we have learned over the past decade or so from the Innocence Project and the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report on the current state of forensic science, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.”
Under current standards for admissibility of evidence, much of the evidence used to support the conclusion that Lee Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy would not be allowed into court because it was unreliable and amounted to “junk science”.
Extra Reading/Video:
• Anthony Ray Hanton released after 30 years on death row-flawed ballistics) http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/04/02/us/02reuters-usa-alabama-death-row.html
• 300 people released from jail because of tainted evidence by state chemist http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/annie-dookhan-defendants-mass-supreme-court.html?_r=3
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Andrew Kreig
Justice Integrity Project Editor (www.justice-integrity.org) &
Presidential Puppetry author (www.presidentialpuppetry.com)
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 638-0070; (202) 787-8335 (c)
Bio: Andrew Kreig is an investigative reporter, attorney, author, business strategist, and non-profit executive based in Washington, DC. His 2013 book, Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters documents intelligence ties of leading politicians and grew out of his work leading the Justice Integrity Project, a non-partisan legal reform group that investigates official misconduct. The project has published a 24-part “Readers Guide to the JFK Assassination” encompassing catalogs of books, films, libraries, etc., plus interpretative analysis. He holds law degrees from both Yale and the University of Chicago and a B.A. in history from Cornell University. He speaks also at a 3:50 p.m. panel on “The American Deep State” and will sign books after his talks and in the exhibit hall.
Topic: Kreig’s segment, “Why Bill O’Reilly’s Lie About JFK’s Murder Might Matter To You,” used the Fox News host’s recent scandal involving JFK assassination reporting to draw a link between the corrupt media practices described by Policoff to the current media environment, which remain just as biased and misleading – in part because some of the same reporters are still involved, at least until recently (Bob Schieffer, Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer and Bill Moyers).
Moving from media coverage to substance, Kreig outlines recent research indicating that Lee Oswald was a government asset and patsy, just as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison argued in an iconic 1967 video rebuttal to NBC’s smear campaign against him in coordination with other news outlets trying to derail his murder investigation targeting New Orleans businessman and suspected CIA asset Clay Shaw. Then and now, this segment argues, many government agencies, businesses, universities, media organizations and even religious groups have been heavily penetrated by intelligence operatives working either fulltime or part time and who, on behalf of their banker-level oligarchical masters, direct their subordinates and allies on a need to know basis.
Examples:
• George de Mohrenschildt, a friend of accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, is back in the news following his mysterious death in 1977. His death in effect marked the beginning of the end of official investigations of the JFK murder. The circumstances showed that neither congress, the media nor the justice system dared confront that historic tragedy even though important witnesses remain alive today. As for the recent news, CNN reported this month that Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly lied about being present during gunfire at de Mohrenschildt’s death in Florida.
• Antonio Veciana, onetime leader of the anti-Castro assassination squad Alpha 66, last fall admitted for the first time publicly that his CIA handler in 1963 was famed CIA officer David Atlee Phillips – and that Veciana saw Phillips meet Oswald in Dallas six weeks before the assassination. Phillips went on to form the politically powerful Association of Former Intelligence Officers, which most immediately in the 1970s help create political pressure to thwart congressional investigations and, longer term, became an asset of the Bush political family in the 1980 election and subsequent dynasty.
• The commission-style cover-up has become a staple of Washington life, but is being overcome in the JFK case at least by the release so far of some 4 million pages of once declassified documents making astonishing revelations paralleled by similar disclosures: Operation Mockingbird, CIA instructions on “Conspiracy Theory” smear, Operation Northwoods. Showing the continuing importance of such research, Kreig describes how several recent presidents had CIA or FBI ties before they entered politics, and are understandably nervous in view of the JFK assassination in policies that would antagonize powerful interests.
• Kreig describes the status and necessity of further JFK document release, based on his discussions this spring with top representatives of the CIA at a National Archives forum and at a National Press Club news conference.
Extra Reading/Video:
New Orleans District Attorney’s 1967 response to NBC: Jim Garrison Response – Kennedy Assassination (27 min.). On July 15, 1967, NBC allowed New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to respond to an NBC program that was highly critical of Garrison’s pursuit of alleged Kennedy assassination conspirators in New Orleans.
See the 50-second video introducing Presidential Puppetry: http://www.youtube.com/user/PresidentialPuppet
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William Kelly
Bio: William E. Kelly is a freelance journalist who has written extensively on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is a founding member of Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA)
Topic: Planned launch of major new research organization, CAPA, with description of mission and ways to get involved. Details:
• Suing the government to locate and obtain the release of all assassination records – including the records of the CIA, Secret Service, ONI, NSA and WHCA.
• Petitioning Congress and the National Archives to see to the enforcement of the JFK Act, hold public hearings on missing and destroyed records and ensure the October 2017 date for release of the last records is met.
• Make the release of the JFK records, secrecy and transparency a campaign issue in the coming presidential election and endorse and support agreeable candidates with a Superpac fund – we want to become the NRA for those opposed to human hunters and government secrecy.
• Hold Congressional Briefings on the current status of the JFK and MLK records and provide a platform for witnesses and whistle blowers who want to publicly testify of what they know.
• Review and analyze the recently released records and point out their news-worthy significance.
• Peacefully Protest the continued secrecy at selected sites and
• circumstances –
• Work close and directly with NARA and Congressional staff to facilitate the release of records, identify specific documents and ensure all of the appropriate records are part of the JFK Collection at NARA and available to the public.
• Develop a media strategy to make political assassinations and secret records valid issues that are seriously and regularly covered by the mainstream media.
• Respond to and correct false and misleading news and feature articles, books, radio and TV programs and expose propaganda and disinformation as it relates to political assassination and secrecy.
• Be prepared for future political assassinations that have yet to occur and ensure they are properly investigated and justice is served.
• Create a permanent Think Tank -Center for the Study of Political Assassination and Secrecy in Washington DC that will carry on this work after 2017.
Join us in our multi-faceted effort to correct history, free the files, prevent politically motivated murders and enforce the laws of the land and the constitution.
Become a CAPA Member!
Extra Reading/Video:
JFK Countercoup, Is the JFK Assassination Relevant Today? William Kelly, May 13, 2015. Is the JFK Assassination Ancient History or a Current Event that’s Relevant Today? http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/05/jfk-assassination-relevant-today.html?m=1
Some of the FBI records on the assassination of JFK that have been released. More than that are still being withheld — over 3,500 documents remain withheld in full or over 30,000 pages while another 35,000 documents remain withheld in part, with redactions. These still sealed JFK Assassination records make it relevant. If what happened at Dealey Plaza is ancient history and not relevant today, then why are so many JFK assassination records still being withheld by the government for reasons of national security?
Why does our nation’s security depend on the government keeping the American public from knowing what information is contained in over 3,000 documents – 30,000 pages of records? John Newman, whose new book “Where Angels Tread Lightly” deals with what we have learned from the release of these records so far, had said that not only Dealey Plaza, but the Archives II is a crime scene, as it has possession of most of the evidence in the murder as well as the relevant government documents that would give us a pretty good picture of what happened at Dealey Plaza if they would only let us read them.