I know a previous submission got flagged quickly but this isn’t a small thing. Yes it’s a deletion on one site of many. Yes the physical text hasn’t changed. Yes it’s likely an error.
But the stability of the US and its ability to be a good environment for business is predicated upon it being a country governed by laws. This is further evidence, even if it’s just an error, that the current government is cavalier in a way that others have not been in a long time.
alistairSH · 1h ago
This is a bit different... most of the previous reports were complete pages being removed. This is a copy of the Constitution that's had a few key sections removed.
It's not just "some info" the admin doesn't like. It's the law of the land.
And given the actions of this administration thus far, attributing that removal to malice is absolutely warranted until proven otherwise.
tpmoney · 1h ago
> And given the actions of this administration thus far, attributing that removal to malice is absolutely warranted until proven otherwise.
No it’s not. Given the actions of the current administration it is vital that else learn to distinguish between a real issue and non-issues and react accordingly. People only have so many hours in their day or every to spend on caring about something. If we overreact to every minor event, we will use up precious energy and political capital on useless panic. Worse we will train people that when we raise the alarm there’s actually nothing to worry about. Have we all forgotten the lessons of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Have we forgotten that not only is the lesson that if you keep crying wolf people will stop believing you, but also that eventually the wolf will come and it will eat all the sheep and everyone will starve?
alistairSH · 57m ago
That's fair, except the administration is also making noise about removing/reducing habeas corpus. At the same time, somebody in Congress has removed the bit of the constitution that informs the people that habeas corpus exists.
This isn't Sydney Sweeney in blue jeans, this is a core tenet of our republic.
tptacek · 38m ago
No, it's a website.
No comments yet
tptacek · 1h ago
It's a small thing. Nobody is losing track of what the constitution says. Also, you're dunking on the Library of Congress, not the administration.
axus · 1h ago
Likely an error? During this administration, while rule of law is ignored, in the nation's founding legal document, localized entirely within powers and rights the executive branch doesn't like?
Yes.
My first impression was everything after a certain line got deleted, everything AFTER "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;" starting with the Navy.
But it's at least interesting that this part of the website was under review at all, let alone that the change made it to production.
tptacek · 1h ago
I love that this says "key sections" of the Constitution. It's a gigantic chunk of Article I, including authorization to form a Navy and the prohibition on unilateral duties of tonnage. It's all a gigantic scheme to allow Kentucky to issue letters of marque and reprisal!
cwmoore · 1h ago
Not so sure about your square quotes or the maritime Kentucky references, but glad that the errors gave me a reason to revisit the document.
Habeas corpus and domestic militias are in there too.
gmerc · 1h ago
It's fine, it's just paper absent anyone actually enforcing it. Whatcha gonna do about it, rise up?
alistairSH · 1h ago
SCOTUS will save us! </snark>
Maken · 1h ago
Nowhere in the Constitution is stated that an Executive Orden cannot rewrite the Constitution itself.
phkahler · 55m ago
It doesn't need to say what cannot modify the constitution. It says what is required to modify it.
kevin_thibedeau · 1h ago
There is already a Reagan era order that subverts the fourth amendment for certain people.
phkahler · 54m ago
Wayback doesn't seem to have the version with those sections deleted. Somebody must have reverted the changes before they got a snapshot.
impish9208 · 1h ago
If the Founding Fathers had wanted the Constitution to be on a website, they’d have done it that way to begin with. Parchment, quill, and some ink was good enough for them; it’s certainly good enough for us.
phkahler · 51m ago
@dang why is this flagged?
93po · 49m ago
its been posted 4 times and users tend to flag things they dont think will incite curious or interesting conversation. i can virtually guarantee you that HN mods did not flag this
also @ doesnt do anything i dont think, his email is easy to find if you have questions
Oarch · 1h ago
They just reappeared in the British Museum
impish9208 · 1h ago
King Charles III finally accomplishes what King George III couldn’t — bringing the colonies back under the Union Jack.
A really basic consideration of the situation gives us the very likely explanation. The idea that Trump was sitting at his desk and randomly pissed about the bottom 1/6th of Section 1 and was like "take that off congress's website!" is basically zero.
1. It's congress's website, not the whitehouse's
2. It's clearly a sort of crappy development approach - the website uses jquery and fontawesome and adobe analytics. this isn't FAANG level engineering happening here
3. It's a website about EXPLAINING THE CONSTITUTION. What do we know people use to make summaries or explanations of things? LLMs, of course
4. What is known for randomly deleting and omitting stuff? Also LLMs!
5. Can we guess why an LLM would have deleted that part? Why yes, actually, we can: if you go to the explanation part of the site, do you know what's also missing (and was prior to this update too?). Wow, it's the bottom part of section 1! What a coincidence
The clear answer here is: someone was using an LLM to write, review, or edit content, and it deleted the bottom of section 1 because there wasn't an explanation to go along with it. It makes even more sense that this is what happening given that this section was already missing an explanation.
It's really tiring how some underpaid intern making a mistake on a website has people suggesting trump is committing a new form of treason.
But the stability of the US and its ability to be a good environment for business is predicated upon it being a country governed by laws. This is further evidence, even if it’s just an error, that the current government is cavalier in a way that others have not been in a long time.
It's not just "some info" the admin doesn't like. It's the law of the land.
And given the actions of this administration thus far, attributing that removal to malice is absolutely warranted until proven otherwise.
No it’s not. Given the actions of the current administration it is vital that else learn to distinguish between a real issue and non-issues and react accordingly. People only have so many hours in their day or every to spend on caring about something. If we overreact to every minor event, we will use up precious energy and political capital on useless panic. Worse we will train people that when we raise the alarm there’s actually nothing to worry about. Have we all forgotten the lessons of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Have we forgotten that not only is the lesson that if you keep crying wolf people will stop believing you, but also that eventually the wolf will come and it will eat all the sheep and everyone will starve?
This isn't Sydney Sweeney in blue jeans, this is a core tenet of our republic.
No comments yet
Yes.
My first impression was everything after a certain line got deleted, everything AFTER "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;" starting with the Navy.
But it's at least interesting that this part of the website was under review at all, let alone that the change made it to production.
Habeas corpus and domestic militias are in there too.
also @ doesnt do anything i dont think, his email is easy to find if you have questions
1. It's congress's website, not the whitehouse's
2. It's clearly a sort of crappy development approach - the website uses jquery and fontawesome and adobe analytics. this isn't FAANG level engineering happening here
3. It's a website about EXPLAINING THE CONSTITUTION. What do we know people use to make summaries or explanations of things? LLMs, of course
4. What is known for randomly deleting and omitting stuff? Also LLMs!
5. Can we guess why an LLM would have deleted that part? Why yes, actually, we can: if you go to the explanation part of the site, do you know what's also missing (and was prior to this update too?). Wow, it's the bottom part of section 1! What a coincidence
The clear answer here is: someone was using an LLM to write, review, or edit content, and it deleted the bottom of section 1 because there wasn't an explanation to go along with it. It makes even more sense that this is what happening given that this section was already missing an explanation.
It's really tiring how some underpaid intern making a mistake on a website has people suggesting trump is committing a new form of treason.