91�Թ� researchers on need to preserve data, evidence, timelines as U.S. government sites overhauled

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:59:25 +0000

geoff.vendeville Wed, 01/25/2017 - 10:59

Cutline

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders related to the oil pipeline industry at the White House on Tuesday (photo by Shawn Thew/Pool/Getty Images)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

City & Culture

Hacktivist

Trump

International

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Information

Climate Change

Environment

Subheadline

“This is a moment when universities are needed profoundly”

Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn into office, media across North America began reporting the removal of information related to climate change from the White House website.

Read the New York Times article

A page about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues was also taken down. The section of whitehouse.gov that as recently as last Tuesday focused on Obama's achievements in protecting LGBT rights is now redirecting visitors to a blank page with the message: “The requested page"/lgbt" could not be found.”

Although changes to the website, whitehouse.gov, and the president's social media accounts are normal during a presidential transition, the recent alterations show that certain programs and policies – notably those related to climate change – are at risk, said Michelle Murphy, a professor and feminist technoscience studies scholar at 91�Թ�.

“If we look at the new White House page on America First energy, they are very clear that they are going to cancel the Climate Action Plan,” Murphy said.

Read about 91�Թ�'s work at the L.A. Times

Policy and program changes under the new administration were expected, but “if you cut programs creating and caring for environmental data, you starve out that research and its accessibility,” Murphy said.

A snapshot of whitehouse.gov/lgbt in January before it was changed. Screenshot via the Internet Archive's Way Back Machine

How much existing data is at risk of disappearing is unclear but Murphy, 91�Թ� instructor Matt Price, Assistant Professor Patrick Keilty from the Faculty of Information, and Sam-chin Li, 91�Թ�’s government publications and reference librarian, are trying to preserve U.S. environmental data before it’s too late.

Their effort is part of the Internet Archive’s End of Term 2016 project, the goal of which is to scrape federal websites of data and archive that data during this change of power. The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco that hosts the Way Back Machine.

Read about Murphy's work in WIRED

Soon after Trump’s election, the 91�Թ� faculty members warned that valuable information on the Environmental Protection Agency website was vulnerable. In December, they organized a much-publicized hackathon to identify vulnerable websites.

Hacktivist

91�Թ� researchers on need to preserve data, evidence, timelines as U.S. government sites overhauled

Read the New York Times article

Read about 91�Թ�'s work at the L.A. Times

Read about Murphy's work in WIRED

Read more about the hackathon

Read more about 91�Թ�'s student newspaper The Varsity hiring its first public editor