In an alarming recent episode, whole swathes of the U.S. Constitution disappeared from the Library of Congress’s website. In response to these concerns, the update omitted some content to better reflect constitutional scholars’ perspectives. This amendment fills the gaps of the most recent Supreme Court rulings restricting Congressional authority, state sovereignty, and due process.
As far as I could tell, the Library of Congress—even with its unsurpassed electronic resources—didn’t have the full text of the Constitution available online. This summer, when we recently went in to update the site, we inadvertently removed that important XML tag. Therefore, important language from Article I disappeared beyond the end of Article I mid-section 8. This specific incident set off alarm bells. It occurred at a moment when civil liberties were front-page news, particularly as the Trump administration wanted to suspend habeas corpus.
In his original statement about the mess, Bill Ryan, the Library of Congress director of communications, blamed the whole escapade on Congress. As he described it, the web-based Constitution Annotated is an incredibly valuable civic and educational tool. It has background on the Supreme Court’s most recent opinions, all tied back to the text of the Constitution.
“When updating the site to reflect our constitutional scholars’ analysis of the impact of the latest cases on Article I, Sections 8-10, the team inadvertently removed an XML tag,” – Bill Ryan.
The Library of Congress responded both quickly and appropriately to this egregiously bad and harmful decision. Ryan has since tweeted that the problem has been worked out. Yes – the full text of the Constitution is available on the site once again!
“This prevented publication of everything in Article I after the middle of Section 8. The problem has been corrected, and our updated constitutional analysis is now available. We are taking steps to prevent a recurrence in the future,” – Bill Ryan.
Dominic-Madori Davis is the senior venture capital and startup reporter at TechCrunch. So based in New York City, she called this recent tide change. Along with Zack Whittaker, TechCrunch’s security editor, Davis made the case for why it’s so important to try to keep authentic historical records online.
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the meeting place of the country’s legislature, has long served as a backdrop to American democracy and governance. The Library of Congress’s swift actions to rectify this incident underscore its commitment to preserving and providing access to fundamental legal texts. Though officials have placed their focus on the next planned update, taking steps to ensure that similar events do not happen again.
