In the lead-up to Inauguration Day, the transition teams of the current administration and the incoming President are gearing up for a significant turnover. One area that will see a major transformation is the content on federal government websites. This raises the important question of what will happen to the existing information on these websites.
As the end of each presidential term approaches, a collaborative initiative known as the End of Term Web Archive steps in to address this issue. The primary goal of this initiative is to collect, preserve, and make publicly accessible the content found on United States government websites at the conclusion of presidential administrations. The End of Term Archive project is currently spearheaded by the Common Crawl Foundation, Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), Internet Archive, Stanford University Libraries, and University of North Texas Libraries.
The necessity of such an initiative becomes evident when considering the changes that take place on federal websites with each new administration. Different administrations bring in new officials, prioritize different issues, and often have distinct ways of addressing various topics. For instance, following the transition to the Trump administration in 2017, there were noticeable shifts in the language used by federal agencies when discussing climate change.
The End of Term Archive project involves “crawling” federal government websites and accepting nominations from the public regarding which webpages should be archived. This process essentially freezes the webpage in time, allowing researchers, journalists, and the general public to access and compare the information available on federal websites at the end of each administration.
The significance of initiatives like the End of Term Archive was particularly emphasized during the previous Trump administration, which saw the censorship of science-based information related to environmental issues on federal websites. According to a report by EDGI, the Trump administration made approximately 1,400 changes to information on federal websites concerning topics like water pollution and climate change. A substantial portion of these alterations involved the removal of information from agency websites, including fact sheets and guidance documents.
The censorship of science-based information not only impedes the public’s ability to engage with regulatory processes but also has the potential to lead to weaker public health regulations. Access to accurate, science-based information is crucial for public health and safety, and efforts should be directed towards increasing, rather than decreasing, access to such information.
If you are interested in ensuring that current information on federal websites is preserved and accessible, you can nominate websites ending in .gov (as well as federal content on .mil and .com websites or on social media) to be archived. Additionally, efforts are being made to preserve federal environmental and climate data through initiatives like EDGI, which welcomes nominations for such data preservation.
The Data Liberation Project (DLP) is another valuable endeavor focused on making government data available to the public. By submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for federal datasets and documents, the DLP aims to provide access to important information that may otherwise be restricted.
By actively participating in these initiatives, individuals can contribute to safeguarding science-based information and ensuring that data used in decision-making processes are shielded from political interference. The crucial work undertaken by our government on behalf of the public should not be at risk of disappearing without a trace.
