09/06/2026
Julian Assange warned about online history being erased. Then Climate.gov went dark.
In the 2012 book Cypherpunks, Assange described how news reports could be quietly removed from websites and search indexes without leaving a public explanation.
“History is not only modified, it has ceased to have ever existed,” he said, calling the process “the undetectable erasure of history.”
That warning was about privately controlled news archives, but it also illustrates the vulnerability of public information stored on government websites.
In 2025, the Trump administration terminated the federal employees and contractors responsible for Climate.gov’s daily operations.
For 15 years, the NOAA website had published climate data, maps, educational resources and accessible explanations of scientific research. It stopped producing new material and was eventually redirected to a general NOAA climate page.
Federal webpages hosting previous National Climate Assessments also went offline. These congressionally mandated reports explain how climate change affects different parts of the country and help communities plan infrastructure, water supplies and disaster responses.
The administration also dismissed roughly 400 experts working on the next assessment, leaving its future uncertain.
The changes were part of a much larger removal of public information.
More than 8,000 federal webpages disappeared shortly after Trump returned to office in 2025. Some were later restored following public pressure and legal action, but researchers found that certain resources returned with altered material, disclaimers or incomplete documentation.
Independent archivists are now preserving what they can.
Former Climate.gov staff members and nonprofit partners rebuilt much of its collection at Climate.us. Harvard’s Library Innovation Lab archived more than 300,000 federal datasets, while the Internet Archive and data-rescue organizations preserved additional government resources.
Copies can protect records that already exist. They cannot replace continuing research, updated forecasts or future data collection.
Digital information can be duplicated almost instantly, but its authoritative version remains vulnerable when one institution controls the website, its updates and every link leading to it.
Online, history can disappear behind three words: Page not found.
