“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion”*…

Further, in a fashion, to a post ten days ago...

Arguing for the collection of detailed data in the first U.S. census, James Madison argued that comprehensive information was necessary to ensure legislative decisions were based on, in his words, “facts, instead of assertions and conjectures.” Since then, the importance of data has become obvious across a broader array of government activities (e.g., regulatory and judicial) and has proved a crucial service both to research and commerce. Our government, our economy, our education and research, our agriculture, and so much more depend on government-collected data.

But since the early days of his current term, NOTUS reports, President Trump and his appointees have been systematically eliminating much of that data…

Joy Binion worked for the federal government collecting data on emerging substance abuse trends in emergency rooms across the country. Her work was part of the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which President Donald Trump’s first administration funded at the recommendation of his commission on the opioid crisis.

Six months into Trump’s second term, his administration axed the data collection effort entirely, laying off Binion and her division.

“They flat out eliminated DAWN, which was actually surprising to me, because DAWN was kind of the Trump administration’s baby in 2016 as they really looked toward fighting the opioid epidemic,” Binion told NOTUS, adding that healthcare providers no longer have a comprehensive resource to learn about the new drugs that could require emergency medical responses.

Since retaking office, the Trump administration has transformed how the government collects data, cut access to previously-public data and stopped collecting some data altogether. This overhaul has left significant holes in data on everything from substance useto maternal mortality.

NOTUS spoke to 18 data experts and researchers who rely on federal data who said the breadth of information no longer being collected or distributed by the federal government has been nearly impossible to track. Researchers estimate that well over 3,000 data sets have been removed from public access.

The current reality is that the federal government is no longer a reliable source of widespread data collection… [Here] is only a small sample of the data collection the Trump administration has made changes to:

• The Department of Agriculture terminated a report on household food security in September, claiming it was “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.” Feeding America said it relied on this survey to guide its programs.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped releasing data on maternal and infant mortality in April 2025 after the administration placed all of the agency staff managing the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System on administrative leave. The data collection resumed in at least some states in July 2025, but recent data contains gaps.
• Trump directed the Justice Department last year to suspend a Biden-era database tracking misconduct by federal law enforcement officers.
• The administration removed questions on gender identity from the National Crime Victimization Survey, the National Health Interview Survey and other surveys. Homeless shelters, mental health hotlines and substance use recovery programs all used this data for policymaking and planning.
• The Department of Homeland Security ended public access in October to its public safety and infrastructure dataset, called Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data.
• The National Center for Education Statistics missed a mandated deadline to release its annual report on the condition of the American education system, and the materials released were lacking in data compared to previous years.
• The Health and Human Services Department’s 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health omitted information about drug use based on race and ethnicity. HHS laid off the team that collected the data, though the agency is reportedly working with a contractor to resume its collection.
• The Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration no longer allow researchers to apply to access and study their data.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces fewer calculations for its producer price index program and has cut down where it collects data from.

Some of these cuts were made without any public fanfare, like the administration’s decision to end DAWN. In other cases, agencies slipped the news into routine announcements. And occasionally, like when the White House mandated that questions about gender identity be removed from federal surveys, the administration touted the deletions as quelling “gender ideology extremism.” [See also here and here.]

Researchers told NOTUS that the federal government’s reasoning for terminating data collection is flawed. And in some cases, the Trump administration has run afoul of congressional mandates to produce data, including by failing to publish required reports on time and removing reports required by law…

More at: “Federal Data Is Disappearing” from @notus.com.

Several not-for-profits (the Internet Archive, libraries, and academic groups) are valiently trying to preserve data sets that have been removed. But they cannot of course preserve data that is never collected…

[Image above: source]

* W. Edwards Deming

###

As we drive with our windshields painted over, we might recall that on this date in 2020 ice fisherman Thomas Knight caught a 40 inch, 37.7 pound lake trout on Big Diamond Pond in West Stewartstown, New Hampshire. It is the largest lake trout on record in New England.

source

#Water use and availability information disappearing in the US. Praying that some reliable #InternetArchive cached downloaded and saved the data before it began to vanish.

At least the #USGS is still able to own up to removing this info from public view (and possibly possibly from existence).

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/blog/nwisweb-decommission-campaign2/

#transparency #DataLoss #governmentData

US Department of Justice: Two Virginia Men Arrested for Conspiring to Destroy Government Databases. “According to court documents, brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, of Alexandria, Virginia, were indicted on Nov. 13 for conspiring to delete databases used to store U.S. government information. Both men were federal contractors.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/07/us-department-of-justice-two-virginia-men-arrested-for-conspiring-to-destroy-government-databases/

Gizmodo: The White House Is Going to Put Government Statistics on the Blockchain (Yeah, We Don’t Know Why Either). “President Donald Trump held a televised ‘cabinet meeting’ at the White House on Tuesday that clocked in at over 3 hours and 15 minutes. It was a marathon session of ass-kissing from the Trump regime’s most despicable characters. But the announcement that really stood out to […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/27/gizmodo-the-white-house-is-going-to-put-government-statistics-on-the-blockchain-yeah-we-dont-know-why-either/

Microsoft outsourced U.S. government cloud support to China - because nothing says "secure government systems" like having sensitive data maintained overseas 🤔 Their competitors AWS, Google, and Oracle all avoid China-based support for federal contracts. Sometimes knowing which clouds to avoid IS the strategy ☁️

https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/25/1613250/microsoft-used-china-based-support-for-multiple-us-agencies-potentially-exposing-sensitive-data

#Microsoft #CloudSecurity #GovernmentData

>>The problems have led staff at certain agencies to rely more on statistical estimates than hard data, potentially fueling volatility in benchmarks, particularly for inflation readings from the Labor Department. Falling response rates to government surveys, coupled with pandemic-driven seasonal quirks and long-standing budget strains, have made it harder to collect and analyze reliable data — including for an employment report due Thursday. Agencies have also shed staff through early retirements, deferred resignations and normal attrition.<<

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/03/federal-reserve-economic-benchmarks-data-challenges/

#USPol #USEconomy #AmericanDecline #GIGO #GovernmentData #FaultyData #JobsReport

Harvard Libraries: Harvard Library Guide to Public Data Conservation. “Public data collected and maintained by federal, state, and municipal governments is a critical resource for the Harvard community. Harvard Library is committed to helping researchers maintain access to the information they rely on. This guide provides resources and recommended pathways for researchers concerned about […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/10/harvard-libraries-harvard-library-guide-to-public-data-conservation/