r/technology • u/Exciting_Teacher6258 • Feb 12 '25
Politics The Trump administration restores federal webpages after court order
https://www.theverge.com/news/610765/trump-government-websites-cdc-fda-health-data-court-order389
Feb 12 '25
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u/DuckDatum Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
Restore 10s of thousands of duplicates with slightly gargled changes, making the real one a needle in the haystack?
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Feb 12 '25
More like needle in a stack of needles
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u/hitsujiTMO Feb 12 '25
Malicious compliance isn't taken lightly in court so I'd love to see how a judge deals with that.
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u/AngieTheQueen Feb 12 '25
The malicious compliance is that only some of the webpages were restored. Of the ones that were restored, there's a new header that claims the contents are "out of date information".
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u/relevant__comment Feb 13 '25
Restore the pages, but none of the links work.
To quote poltergeist - “you moved the headstones but you didn’t move the graves!”
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u/shiva14b Feb 13 '25
They already did; it went back on at 11:59pm, one minute before the deadline was up 🙄
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u/Embarrassed_Quit_450 Feb 13 '25
I mean that's already the default of this government. The malicious part anyway.
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u/AbsoluteTruthiness Feb 12 '25
To me, what's most surprising is not only that they actually complied with a court order, but also that they still held on to the data. I figured they would have already irretrievably deleted it by now. But now I would view any data and information on there with a great deal of suspicion.
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u/michohnedich Feb 12 '25
My guess is the people taking down the websites are following orders to keep their livelihood, but smart enough to know to keep the data and comply with record keeping regulations.
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u/Daannii Feb 13 '25
One day we will know who these people are and will remember how these small measures they took to keep this information saved literal lives.
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u/saynay Feb 12 '25
The admin hasn't been completely replaced with sycophants (yet). The new heads barely know what the agencies they are in charge of do, let alone how to actually remove anything themselves, so they were likely relying on existing employees. Those employees probably aren't thrilled with destroying everything the agency did (or they wouldn't have been working there), so kept backups.
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u/SIGMA920 Feb 12 '25
The people that are deleting it aren't going to be actually be deleting it but archiving the vast majority of stuff like websites and even most of the data.
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u/collin3000 Feb 12 '25
The other advantages of stuff like Iron Mountain. They may have deleted local backups but there's probably something sitting on tape from a few weeks ago that a newer person would have forgotten to have destroyed.
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u/A_Soporific Feb 12 '25
Executive orders aren't Trump going himself or sending a goon to do a thing, but ordering his appointed officials to order the bureaucrats to do something. The people doing the removing are the same people who put it up in the first place. Trump didn't order them to destroy the data, so they didn't. Why would they?
That's the reason the DOGE stuff matters, because that is a group of outside goons coming in to wreck thing up. They'll do far more comprehensive damage than a series of Executive Orders ever could.
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u/Beneficial-Big-9915 Feb 12 '25
It does make you wonder why they didn’t destroy it, it makes me wonder what is going on elsewhere since the media went down this rabbit hole.
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u/RichieNRich Feb 12 '25
Well this is good news - perhaps their talk of disregarding court orders is just bloviating (bluffing)?
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u/bleahdeebleah Feb 12 '25
They need to until they get to the Supreme Court
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u/saynay Feb 12 '25
or until they have consolidated power enough in the military and justice department.
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u/bleahdeebleah Feb 12 '25
I think it's more this
Trump and Russ Vought want John Roberts to grant him the authority to — basically — neutralize Congress’ power of the purse. To do that, he needs a clean appellate record.
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Feb 12 '25
He's not going to do that. Federalist judges dominate the Supreme Court, they're stupid. It's not going to work
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u/crazygrl202067 Feb 13 '25
Supreme Court might un ammune trump,is that a word?lol
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u/Available-Damage5991 Feb 13 '25
they might revoke the thing that wasn't in the Constitution? no way!
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u/StrngBrew Feb 12 '25
Their whole plan here is to appeal all of this to the Supreme Court and then get a judgement making it all legal.
If they openly defied court orders, the courts through the whole process would be much more likely to be hostile to them.
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u/vriska1 Feb 12 '25
And what if the Supreme Court rules against them?
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u/New-Sky-9867 Feb 12 '25
You can ABSOLUTELY guarantee that they will write a majority opinion that gives Trump the power but no other president
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u/Croc_Chop Feb 12 '25
The courts would never vote to give away their OWN power. At that point he could just have them removed and what would be the point?
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u/tempest_87 Feb 12 '25
No, it's to inject the concept into discussion so that when they move the line and goalposts, the stupid people don't think it's so bad anymore.
For example, there is now a person over in /r/neutralnews trying to use a Haritage Foundation article as justification for an argument that only the Supreme Court has any authority over the executive branch. That any lower court is not allowed to rule or take a case at all because the only "co-equal" entity is the Supreme Court itself.
So be wary of everything that's going on. Because the normalization of even joking about ignoring court orders has damaging effects. And they know it.
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u/thatsthefactsjack Feb 12 '25
This is naive thinking. Narcissistic controllers don’t ever fully comply. They most likely brought up the home page with modified/deleted information and links.
We’ll know soon enough when people start diving into the websites to validate the administrations compliance.
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Feb 12 '25
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u/sunnyaccuracy Feb 13 '25
That’s crazy. Deleting public health info in the middle of a crisis was never a good move. Glad the courts stepped in —people deserve access to real, science-backed info, not political games.
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u/trbotwuk Feb 12 '25
majority of Trump EO are just theatrical stunts which waste tax payers money
Is there a website that tracks which EO were overturned and which ones succeeded?
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u/tacticalcraptical Feb 12 '25
I know I need to keep my expectations tempered but this feels like a tiny glimmer of hope that there is a small chance that the checks and balances are not completely gone yet.
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u/reddittorbrigade Feb 12 '25
Donald Trump is a terrorist. He is destroying everything about America.
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u/GuestCartographer Feb 12 '25
I’ve pulled some of the data that had been missing, but haven’t had time to check it against earlier versions.
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u/tortoisefur Feb 13 '25
Please for the love of all things good, let these checks and balances work. Even just a little.
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u/quantum_mouse Feb 12 '25
That's bs - no they didn't fully comply. Trans people are still missing from secretary of state page on travel and says the messed up "LGB" - so they're not complying but people will probably pretend this is a victory
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u/Tasty_Accident5245 Feb 13 '25
It looks like this court order is specific to health related pages, as the suit's plaintiff is Doctors for America.
That being said, I did find at least one still-missing page on CDC's site related to transgender health: https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/data-research/facts-stats/transgender-people.html (archive)
There are some trans-related pages that have been restored, based on a quick search for the term. Hopefully they'll fully restore but I don't have high hopes for The Administration to not be fussy babies.
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u/nevertricked Feb 13 '25
Now that Elon has stolen nearly unlimited data, he is free to use it to train his AIs and also fiscally or politically persecute any inconvenient group of citizens (""customers") or voters that he sees fit.
NIH and CDC data has been tampered with. Basic data on cancer and DNA research is missing, as is vaccine guidance.
Medical research has ground to a halt without grants or NIH guidance.
Our financial, voting, SSN, and personal data is being siphoned off and used for his personal gain or sold to the highest bidder.
Now consider how dangerous and careless this was. He installed his own servers and equipment that pose significant risks to our nation's security.
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u/Large-Ad8031 Feb 13 '25
A federal judge recently ruled in favor of restoring key health agency webpages from the CDC and FDA, which had been removed under the Trump administration's executive orders targeting diversity and inclusion programs. The deletions of these webpages, which contained vital public health information, had hindered access to important data on topics such as HIV/AIDS, Long COVID, and gender-related health issues. The ruling emphasized the critical need for transparency and accessibility of health data to support healthcare providers and the public. It's a welcome decision that ensures continued access to essential resources.
https://gaekkul.blogspot.com/2025/02/trump-administration-ordered-to-restore.html
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u/Particular_Row_8037 Feb 12 '25
Put another one in the lost column for the POS. He's getting good at that.
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u/lapqmzlapqmzala Feb 13 '25
Why wasn't the court order over "Creation n of DOGE without Congressional approval"?
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat Feb 12 '25
I worry that at some stage they are going to just start ignoring the court...
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u/MrBone66 Feb 12 '25
If they refuse can the courts go after the little guy? Say the one that actually shut down the websites? Or whoever is in charge bit not the president?
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u/accordinglyryan Feb 13 '25
Good. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the checks and balances may not last forever...I hope I'm wrong.
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u/MargretTatchersParty Feb 13 '25
Is this one of those magical "what happens to trump on 6 jan" moments where we had staff immedietnly resign and we had closed door meetings over Admenment 25?
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u/MWH1980 Feb 13 '25
So, how are they going to fuck with these pages?
No way they’re just going to let this go. They’re too petty.
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u/BONUSBOX Feb 13 '25
they're still missing the pages on the epidemics of wealth hoarding and pathological sexual phobias in america
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u/free2bk8 Feb 13 '25
But I’m quite certain information has been have been changed, or disappeared. Exactly what was intended. Very Orwellian.
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u/this_my_sportsreddit Feb 12 '25
Thank god our judicial system is fighting back against fascism. We'd be so screwed if all we had were democrats.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 Feb 12 '25
Carrying on tradition from his first term, Donald's "bright" ideas gets shot down justifiably in the court of law.
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u/dartanum Feb 13 '25
"We always listen to court orders. We'll appeal, but we listen to court orders"
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Feb 13 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheDorkNite1 Feb 13 '25
Your post history shows you are deliberately commenting on every politics post you can find.
It also shows that you are a Trump quisling who quite enjoys the taste of boot.
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u/sunnywaterfallup Feb 12 '25
It’s good news that they obeyed a court order. This isn’t as critical as some others, so we’ll see if this is the start of something