The Act requires all documents related to the assassination that have not been destroyed to be released to the public by no later than 2017.
Additionally, several key pieces of evidence and documentation are described to have been lost, cleaned, or missing from the original chain of evidence (e.g., limousine cleaned out at hospital, Connally's suit dry-cleaned, Oswald's Marine Corps service record file lost, Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink missing, forensic autopsy photos missing, etc.)
On May 19, 2044, the 50th anniversary of the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, if her last child has died, the Kennedy library will release to the public a 500-page transcript of an oral history about John F. Kennedy given by Mrs. Kennedy before her death in 1994.
The Assassination Records Review Board was not commissioned to make any findings or conclusions. Its purpose was to release documents to the public in order to allow the public to draw its own conclusions.
From 1992 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed many documents. However, tens of thousands of pages of other documents will remain classified and sealed, away from the public, until 2017, including:
It is a common misconception that the records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy are in some way sealed. In fact, the records are largely open and available... With a very few exceptions, virtually all of the records identified as belonging to the Kennedy Collection have been opened in part or in full. Those documents that are closed in full or in part were done so in accordance with the Kennedy Act ... all records in the Kennedy Collection will be opened by 2017 unless certified as justifiably closed by the President of the United States.