[dustind]

US to purge anything against Bush regime policies from ed.gov

the headline is An Orwellian Purge
I changed it so ppl could tell that it is about education

A May 31, 2002 internal memo from the Education Department, "Criterion and Process for Removing Old Content from www.ed.gov,"; the department's Web site, is strangely akin to what occurs in 1984.

According to the memo, a justification for removing content is not just that it is out of date or a duplicate of other materials but that it "runs counter to current administration priorities ... does not reflect the priorities, philosophies or goals of the present administration."

According to this memo, items on www.ed.gov will be deleted unless they meet five criteria, two of which specifically involve support for administration priorities and initiatives and consistency with administration philosophy.

It has been estimated that, using these criteria, up to 13,000 documents of the total 50,000 will be removed.

In addition, this ideological purging is also being done on the Department of Health and Human Services Web site, where scientific information is being deleted if it does not adhere to the administration's stands on issues such as abortion, risky behavior in youth and contraception.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.orwell28apr28,0,5045377.story?coll=bal%2Doped%2Dheadlines

[Waitone]

I'm suspicious.

[Justin]

Down the memory hole!

[dustind]

i knew something like this would happen ever since i was a kid. I was always paranoid that something on the internet would be taken down while no one is looking.

[Coronach]

Yeah. There is a reason why the government isn't in the media business (NPR notwithstanding). I mean, it would be REALLY orwellian if these reports suddenly disappeared. :p

Mike

[HBK]

Oh no, the sky is falling:rolleyes:

[dustind]

HBK

You think the goverment erasing information that makes it look bad isn't something to be worried about? History is the last thing we want the goverment influencing in schools. How can children think for themselves if someone else decides what they see? I know this isn't as bad as 1984, but this it is still "double ungood." (not quite doubleplus ungood)

[MeekandMild]

Dustind, what do you think they did during the 90's? You think they didn't do exactly the same thing or worse?

[tyme]

The wonders of www.archive.org

[Don Gwinn]

Hey, guys, I don't mean to sound less paranoid than optimum, but we are all aware that this is the Department of Education's own website, right? They're going to change their website. They intend to remove their content from their site when it isn't consistent with their department's priorities or the philosophy of the administration for which they work. Web designers have a term for this sort of thing. They call it "our job."



What is sinister about this, exactly?
:uhoh:

[Destructo6]

You think the goverment erasing information that makes it look bad isn't something to be worried about? History is the last thing we want the goverment influencing in schools. How can children think for themselves if someone else decides what they see? I know this isn't as bad as 1984, but this it is still "double ungood." (not quite doubleplus ungood)
Those "someone else"s are called University Professors that write textbooks for the kids. www.edu.gov websites are the least of our problems.

[dustind]

Don Gwinn

I would agree if this was private property, but this is the government. The government misleading the public, especially school children is sinister. I know this is not the first, or last time is has, or will happen, but that does not make it right.

Think of the children! :neener:


Destructo6

I agree 100%, but this is still wrong.

[Lone_Gunman]

I think it would be nice if 100% of the information provided by the Dept of Education was removed permanently.

[Khornet]

What makes you think the deleted info wasn't itself misleading? The Dept. of Ed. has never been honest. Maybe the Admin is actually improving things, removing propaganda, not practicing it.

[tyme]

Agree with Lone_gunman. We got along without it fine before about 1980, we'd get along fine without it today.

I don't have a problem with them removing information. Executive branch agencies that are not intended to be politically insulated should always align themselves with the official exec-branch policies, as far as that alignment is incompliance with the Constitution.

[cuchulainn]

The documents are not being destroyed, just removed from the websites.

While the government has an obligation to preserve the documents it creates, that preservation is not and never has been the purpose of .gov websites. Rather, the documents are preserved through the National Archives.

It's nice for the government to put stuff on websites for us to get in a few seconds, but it has no obligation to do that. None. If Bush said, "All government websites shall be shutdown completely," he would violate nothing.

This is no different than documents being periodically moved out of the public reading rooms at the actual brick-and-mortar government offices -- completely benign housekeeping that's gone on since the 18th Century.

You do realize that millions of pages of documents never get on the webpages in the first place, yes?

[dustind]

I had been planning on posting a partial retraction to some of the comments i made. I guess i over reacted. Although removing stuff on the bases that it makes the president look bad, tells us something about our rulers.

It amazes me how you guys debated things with logic and facts. I read the article on two other websites and this was the only one that actually had an intelligent discussion.

[Sergeant Bob]

The article was rather vague and I think written solely to stir up controversy. In the words of my least favorite former President: "There is no "there", there"

[buzz_knox]

Sounds like the Administration is amending the website put out by one part of one branch of government so as to make it consistent with the requirements of the head of said branch. Big woop de doo.