From Rolling Stone:
Within the past few weeks, Section 9 from Article 1 of the Constitution — which states, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it” — disappeared from the Library of Congress’ Constitution Annotated webpage.
By this morning, officials in Trump’s government were quietly telling staff that the deletions were the result of a technical “glitch,” sources familiar with the matter say. As a result, personnel scrambled to fix the issue, figure out how exactly it happened, and also review other parts of the website to see if there were any other conspicuous deletions.
Some federal staffers raised their eyebrows at the blame-a-glitch explanation, given the apparently coincidental nature of the deletions affecting sections of the Constitution that the second Trump administration is openly working so hard to shred. “Funny coincidence,” one federal employee who was dealing with this situation tells Rolling Stone dryly.
That explanation certainly gives staffers and their superiors legal cover if they are put on trial for subversion and other such crimes. Just why a coding error would occur in what should be a static part of the site is a bit of a question. It doesn’t seem likely that a change to the presentation code would affect content in this way, but I’m just waving a finger in the air at this point.
