“The 180-page sheaf of medal commendations, officer’s fitness reports and medical entries released under federal guidelines by Kerry’s Senate office provided a few new nuggets of information about his 1968 to 1969 stint as a Swift boat commander during the Vietnam War.”

There are no “Federal guidelines” for releasing such records, once the subject has waived privacy rights. But, if any Federal guidelines are in effect, then they must be rights retained by the subject under the Privacy Law; namely, rights to withhold some documents altogether, or to redact them at will.

So now the LA Times admits another layer of oversight in this release. First from the NPRC, then to Navy PersCom – then through Kerry’s office – then to the LA Times.

Someone needs to do what the Washington Post did during the election and ask for all the documents from the NPRC. At that point the NPRC will aknowledge that the form 180 has not been signed and that X number of documents remain unreleased in the file. At least then this will put a lie to the Kranish and Braun stories that everything has been relesed.

What Kerry is hiding is his discharge status from 1972 until the 1978 Presidential board’s honorable discharge. Would also like to see his security clearance status in the 70-72 time period. Wonder if that might be available from general archives (a listing of all officers with Secret, TS or higher) rather than from his own file.

Given the phrase “The 180-page sheaf of medal commendations, officer’s fitness reports and medical entries released under federal guidelines by Kerry’s Senate office” one might conclude that “complete” in this context has to due with a federal guideline for completeness. One wonders: what is permissible to redact?