UPDATE: The removed sections have been added back to US Constitution site.
“Due to a technical error, some sections of Article 1 were temporarily missing on the Constitution Annotated website,” the Library of Congress told PCMag. “This problem has been corrected, and the missing sections have been restored.”
Original story:
Key sections of a US government website that hosts the Constitution have vanished.
On Wednesday, internet sleuths on Reddit noticed that the section of the Library of Congress website for the US Constitution was missing sections, including “the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” which protects citizens from unlawful detention.
A before-and-after view from the Internet Archive shows the site omitting parts of Section 8 and the entirety of Sections 9 and 10, which were accessible last month. Another part that was removed says, “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them.”
Before and after (Credit: Internet Archive)
The omissions have sparked worry that the Trump administration changed the site. One Constitutional law professor even tweeted: “Do I have to teach Art. I Sec. 9 and Sec. 10 now that they’re removed from the congressional website?”
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However, the Library of Congress attributes the missing text to a “coding error,” without elaborating. “We have been working to correct this and expect it to be resolved soon,” it tweeted. It also added a banner to its website that reads: “The Constitution Annotated website is currently experiencing data issues. We are working to resolve this issue and regret the inconvenience.”
Still, some internet users are skeptical that the text was mistakenly removed. We reached out to the Library of Congress and will update the story if we hear back.
In May, Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden because, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” Hayden was appointed in 2016 by former President Obama and served through Trump’s first term, told CBS that, “It’s been puzzling in many ways, to think about being ‘inclusive’ as a negative.”
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
