Edit: as pointed out in a comment below, the official cause is coding error
Compare with the original, from a few weeks back
Half of section 8, governing Congressional power over the military is removed.
Section 9 had, among other things:
- Habeas Corpus the right to get a court hearing instead of arbitrary imprisonment
- a ban on foreign emoluments for the US officials (eg: payments from foreign governments)
Section 10 reserved foreign policy for the federal government instead of the states.
Technically this should be removed as it’s not a news article discussing the edit, but it’s important enough that I’ll leave it for now.
Full text here:
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text
(Removed sections in bold)
Section 8: Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings;-And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Section 9: Powers Denied Congress
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
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.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Section 10: Powers Denied to the States
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
The most logical take is that this was an error committed by some employee. This is an administration is staffed with incompetence.
My more conspiratorial take is that this was done to muddy the waters for lay people. Judges, lawyers, legal and constitutional scholars would know that the missing sections still apply. The general public? That’s a different story. The general public doesn’t know what needs to be amend the Constitution nor what is contained in it.
The average person will go to an official government website to check the Constitution and all the changes made. The thought process for the average person will be “I guess they amended the Constitution.”
When judges, lawyers, and other experts start to say “No, the Constitution hasn’t been changed and these rights still apply.” The Government will push the message of “Don’t listen to these experts, listen to us.” Get a substantial minority of people to believe the Government’s message, viola! Problems for all!*
Case in point, sovereign citizens and how sheriffs are the only real law enforcement. These people believe absolute bull shit legal theories. Imagine when you have the Government backing the theory of “the rights were amended out of the Constitution” or what crack brained shit the Government comes up with.
*Just no problems for the authoritarian government.
Picked up by engadget and this thread was specifically called out.
Lemmy mentioned!
So?
-People who defend MASS SCHOOL SHOOTERS because of the Second Amendment!
Hell, they defend pedophiles too. Backwards country full of yokels
So we’re straight up doing an animal farm now, great
@silence7 they claim it’s a coding error, but maybe it’s a deliberate coding error?
Or maybe they just wanted to update the “explanation” part of those sections, but doing so being the build.How can it possibly be a coding error? It’s just a wall of text, simple html/css.
@AlphaOmega
It’s not just that – it has markup explanations/comments.
Imagine if someone was told to change the explanation of those particular sections – they could totally have made some change that accidentally made those parts unrendered.
Some static site generators silently drop template sections that have errors, for example.
Of course, this theory still requires that someone told someone to change what those sections say, which seems plausible enough…
Accident isnt impossible, and I’ll be really surprised if we get a definitive answer
Hard to buy the idea that they accidentally removed the exact same parts from the page containing the full copy, the page containing just Article 1, and the links to said parts.
Like, that’s a pretty unlikely coincidence if it was just an accident…
For a non US and non Lawyer. What exactly does this mean? What safefuards does this remove?
It has no real impact other than on people sourcing this web page for accurate information.
The Constitution is still a founding document and changes to the text on a web page have no actual impact on it as written.
The lack of standardization and the confusion would be the point. Get enough confusion to get the people who would enforce it clamoring over the right order and way to do it and then you can bully your way past it while they squabble.
What matters is how we enforce our rules in the current and that doesnt matter what a document does or does not say but how people act.
Thank you! Hopefully it stays that way
So the constitution is the foundational legal document in the US, determining the powers of each part of government. If they actually stripped out these parts, it would mean no oversight over the military for Congress, no right to go to court to contest an unjust imprisonment, and no restrictions on payments by foreign governments to US officials among other things.
It was either a coding error, as the Library of Congress is saying or a really ham-handed way to announce an additional step towards dictatorship, which are now being walked back as too outrageous.
Thanks for the thorough explanation! I’m wishing you all the best from across the Pond, I sadly think you have some really hard years ahead of you.
Internet archives about to get unreliable.
https://tech.yahoo.com/general/articles/internet-archive-now-official-us-123036550.html
First delete it from the website. Then delete it from the internet history.
Then say it’s all gaslighting.
That doesn’t give the government any power to control the contents of the Internet archive or any other library.
Update from the Library of Congress says they’ll fix it and gave a weak excuse, for now they’ve added a banner to the website saying its not accurate
At least they are not doubling down
https://bsky.app/profile/librarycongress.bsky.social/post/3lvqilhwb6k2x
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me a thousand times while I gargle Trump’s balls, call me MAGA.
Ok, everyone ITT needs to calm down. Do you really think this is some roundabout attempt to amend the Constitution? Obvi it is an issue, but there are many many ways this could happen.
People act like it is somehow impossible that webpages can’t get corrupted.
My bet, they use a static site gen, someone added some unclosed escape sequence while making changes to an annotation in a document and the SSG built it anew with the rest of Article 1 being left behind.
You know, in any other political climate, I would agree. But in 2025…not so much.
Does no one know the difference between the executive branch and the Library of Congress?
I can guarantee you the executive branch DOES NOT. And with and few left to check that power care to.
Some people discussing this on mastodon: https://social.coop/users/cwebber/statuses/114981633667255962
I think these are probably the main bits they wanted to remove (both Article I section 9):
- 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.
- No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
- No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
Pure speculation to be clear, but they removed only the end of section 8, and probably removed section 10 because it would have to be numbered differently. Habeas Corpus has been causing them trouble, they’ve been stealing money pretty blatantly already, and bill of attainder/ex post facto laws seem convenient to them.
Ex Post Facto so they can pass a law allowing Trump to run for a 3rd term.
And give him a title of nobility.
With every month that passes, comes greater confirmation that investing in a firearm is the right call. That sucks, because training is expensive as heck on my budget. Hopefully, I won’t have to use my shotgun.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that blood will tell the direction that North America ultimately takes. The original Constitution was written in red, and I expect a renewed one to also drip with crimson.
Oi piss off with “North America”. Fight your own fucking fight, you fucked it up and you can fix it.
Maybe we’ll help in a small way, because unfortunately the US has made itself everyone else’s problem, but otherwise ya’ll gotta deal with your bullshit and actually learn something.
Like it or not, nations don’t exist independently of one another.
It’s true, but the US fucking everyone’s shit up and ruining lives for decades only to immediately beg for us to fix it while doing barely anything on their own? I say let them suffer for a bit, a consequence will do them good.
And I’m not isolationist, I just want them to fuck off.
It’s exactly that isolationist attitude, the delusion that people and their issues stop at the imaginary lines we’ve drawn, that helps lead to situations like the US is experiencing.
What do you think os gonna happen to Canada and Mexico when the US goes full fasc? You think Canada is gonna be allowed to jut chill up there? Or do you think tabks are gonna come rolling into Toronto just like they did in Austria during the anchsluss?
I think that it’s absolutely going to be our problem, but I also believe that every person from the US just assuming we’re going to solve all their problems, while they’ve barely done anything to stop it themselves, can go fuck themselves.
They have hurt so many people and now they expect everyone to rush in and save them? Piss right the hell off.
No one here is expecting Europe to solve our problems, aside from maybe some deeply unserious liberals who think that politics begins and ends at voting. I have never seen someone suggesting the rest of the world comes in to “save” America. You’ve invented a strawman in your head and are now saying that it is what everyone in the US believes.
But America’s problems are very much the world’s problems, and as America begins to accelerate towards collapse, the rest of the world will feel the affects as well.
That’s great for you, but a) the person at the top of this thread says “the direction North America takes” and, as Canadian, excuse me, and b) I have seen others even on this platform say things like how Canada has to go save the US from itself via military intervention. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened.
Absolutely the US has made it so that as it fails catastrophically it has a lot of tools to try to take everyone else down with it and yes, I understand that means we can’t just ignore the problem, but what was once hope that we could work together to help them has turned into finding ways to untangle ourselves from them and work with more serious countries. It’s gone from “let’s treat this wound” to “there’s necrosis and we need to amputate”. The US has shown the world over and over again that it hates everyone else, that it thinks itself superior and that it has no interest in being civil about any of it. It is a dangerous and self-serving country that can barely handle the basic fundamentals of democracy and human rights and is currently going backwards at an alarming rate.
If they want to isolate themselves from everyone else, and that seems to be the goal, then let ‘em. Even though it will be hard, the rest of the world can pick up the slack. The US doesn’t deserve or need to be in charge and I don’t care how uncomfortable that makes you.
Canada has a population similar to California and a GDP that os a little over half of California’s. Anyone who thinks they could invade the US is not living in reality. It seems to me like you are in circles filled with morons. Canada and Mexico have economies that are entirely dependent on the US market. 2/3rds of Canadian trade is with the US, 97% of Canadian oil is exported to American refineries. The US doesn’t have to try and do anything to take Canada and Mexico down with us, theor fate will almost inevitably tied with ours, same as what would happen to the EU if Germany suddenly imploded. The time for Canada to insulate itself from America’s economic swings was 10 years ago.
I don’t think the American empire is a good thing and at no point have i indicated that i do. But you are delusional if you think Canada will be better off in the short term when America goes up in flames. Your best option is that the Canadian economy implodes. Your worst option is a full on fascist invasion by the US military. If America is Nazi Germany, then Canada is our Czechoslovakia/Austria. At this point, Canada is all but guaranteed to go down with the US.
I don’t think it will be better off in the short term, and have been fairly clear about that. I also said that I am fully aware how entangled everything is and that we need to work to get away from the US even though it will be difficult. It appears you are far too fucking stupid to read what has been written so explicitly and that’s just not the basis for a conversation so bye, dumbass.
The tree of Liberty must refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots from time to time. I do agree with you. That time is perhaps drawing near.
checks watch Is it time to start murdering people yet? Because we are definitely going to get a better government by allowing a bunch of edge lords to start killing anything they think is bad.
I did plainly state that revolutionaries tend to not be very good at governance if they win. They are very often captivated by the absolute power and refuse to give it up.
We are already a murderous society. We would not create a better society by going to war with each other. I shudder to think of the government that would arise if we give in to violence again.
That time is perhaps drawing near.
That time has passed and y’all still sitting on your asses.
No, it’s not here just yet. People still aren’t ready to risk dying because they are starving and have no hope for tomorrow. As long as the bread and circus are here, there will be no bloody revolution. It takes a very long time to push people that far and we aren’t quite there just yet. But you and Korg and start the revolution today if you wish and call all to your banner.
Oh, and one thought to keep in mind as you start that bloody revolution is that historically, revolutionaries make for poor leaders after the revolution. Because they are mostly very unwilling to give up the power the revolution gave them. Best have a solid plan for the transition to peaceful government after the revolution.
[…] "And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. […]
Excerpt from the book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer. Longer excerpt available here.
No, it’s not here just yet.
Tell that to the people being ICEd.
I just emailed 404 Media about this.
I contacted my representatives. They’ll make some noise, if nothing else.
Same. We’ll see if they read my essay of a message.
What is whatever this is, called? It’s not technically “amending”…has it ever been done before??
Isn’t this just an incomplete copy of the constitution? Changing a website doesn’t change the law.
How wrong can I be?
A coup
Typically Hanlon’s razor (“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”) is best to live by, but honestly what in the fuck else could cause this other than malice?
We’re approaching a time in this country that is really scaring me, and I just hope everyone has enough food, water, medical supplies, weapons/ammo, and community to get through what’s coming. Trump is setting tinder boxes all over the country and trying to provoke a violent response so he can send in martial law, and all (minus like 2) Republicans in the House, Senate, and Supreme Court support this.
Fascists only understand one language.
Doesn’t matter if it’s malice or incompetence, this shit should not happen in a sane country
Of course, but the motivation will influence what the response should be.
Redaction?
All they did is edit the copy on the Congressional website, it has no legal authority. The Constitution is still the Constitution.
The only way to make the change actually have merit is to either go through the Amendment process or have another Constitutional Convention and re-write the whole thing…
Which they ARE trying to do BTW:
Thanks, that’s what I misunderstood. I was thinking it was something more.
Or they could write and enforce unconstitutional laws with the complicity of a corrupt SCOTUS. I feel like that’s a possibility.
Lying?
This is classic Ministry Of Truth tactics, it goes under many names but always exists in authoritarian society, what you recall and what you know isn’t relevant, what the state says is the truth is the only truth.
