University of Kwazulu-Natal

Federal Data Has Been Disappearing Under Trump Marketplace

Bonisiwe Shabane
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federal data has been disappearing under trump marketplace

Monthly jobs numbers and the Census Bureau might be the first—and only—things that come to mind for many Americans when they think about federal data. But government data undergirds many of the everyday essentials Americans rely on, like weather forecasts and tornado warnings. Federal data keep track of crime and public safety, provide early warning of epidemics, and help farmers plan their crops. To President Donald Trump, data are both a weapon and an enemy. On the one hand, Trump cites spurious—and often outlandish—numbers to justify his policies. He’s claimed, for instance, that as many as 20 million unauthorized immigrants are living in America—or about double the real number—to rationalize the intensity of his detentions and deportations.

He’s also boasted of securing “over $17 trillion” in new U.S. investments—presumably to validate his tariffs as a strategy for domestic economic growth. (The White House, however, claims $8.8 trillion in new investments, and even that figure is fiction). At the same time, Trump is suppressing, disappearing and even altering data to fit his agenda or to hide inconvenient truths about the impact of his actions. Earlier this fall, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ended its annual survey of hunger in America, just weeks before the recent government shutdown that paused food stamp benefits for millions of Americans.

This summer, Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a weak jobs report he didn’t like. And as part of Trump’s campaign against “DEI,” government agencies have quietly altered at least 200 federal datasets to remove references to “gender” in favor of references to “sex,” according to an analysis by... Preserving federal data has long been essential to transparency, accountability, and evidence-based policymaking in the United States. While every administration faces its share of data management challenges, the sheer volume of lost or altered information under the Trump administration suggests these challenges have now reached an unprecedented level. In the months since the presidential transition, more than 8,000 webpages and thousands of datasets have been removed or altered across agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Census Bureau, and Food... Removal of this data from government agency websites jeopardizes access to vital public information on health, safety, environmental, and demographic issues.

At the same time, sweeping executive orders on interagency data-sharing and the consolidation of sensitive information under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have drawn criticism from privacy advocates, transparency experts, and civil society... These concerns are magnified by weakened oversight mechanisms following the dismissal of key members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. In response to these developments, Just Security is launching a new series, “Data Preservation Under the Trump Administration,” to explore the legal, ethical, and policy implications of current federal data practices. As political pressures intensify and the risk of data loss grows, this series aims to provide comprehensive analysis of how federal data is stored, shared, and accessed. The series contains the following articles and will be updated regularly: Dr.

Brianna Rosen (Bluesky - LinkedIn - X) is Senior Fellow and Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies (AIET) Initiative at Just Security. She is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford and previously served for a decade in the U.S. government, including at the White House National Security Council and Office of the Vice President. Federal datasets have been manipulated and removed since the beginning of the Trump administration and continue to be under threat. In this piece, three data experts explain the critical consequences of this loss. This article was republished from The Journalist’s Resource.

As the chief demographer at the nonprofit Data Center in New Orleans, Allison Plyer receives hundreds of data requests and questions each year. The Data Center compiles and analyzes data from multiple sources, including the federal government, with a focus on Southeast Louisiana. And to Plyer, the consistent data requests are a clear example of why federal data is critical infrastructure for media, policymakers and citizens. “It informs so many decisions, and many decision-makers assume data exists to answer nearly any question they have,” Plyer said during the webinar “Vanishing Numbers: How Federal Data Manipulation and Removal Threaten Journalism and... 1. (YouTube webinar link)

Community-Led Advocacy Groups, Archivists, and Universities Scramble to Download Climate Resources and Datasets EPA, NOAA, and CEQ all Targets of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency End of Term Web Archive and Internet Archive's Wayback Machine Crucial in Preserving Web Data Washington, D.C., February 6, 2025 - In the first two weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has begun to scrub critical environmental resources and datasets from federal agency websites. To combat this effort to suppress and censor public data, the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project today publishes a selection of materials on climate change and environmental justice that have been deleted... During President Trump’s first term, organizations like the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) documented the administration’s widespread campaign to suppress climate and environmental data,[1] like when it deleted all webpages, fact sheets, and...

Since the 2024 presidential election, EDGI and environmental advocacy organizations alike have anticipated the targeting of federal environmental and climate data and have been archiving datasets and preparing to rebuild public access to web...

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He’s Also Boasted Of Securing “over $17 Trillion” In New

He’s also boasted of securing “over $17 trillion” in new U.S. investments—presumably to validate his tariffs as a strategy for domestic economic growth. (The White House, however, claims $8.8 trillion in new investments, and even that figure is fiction). At the same time, Trump is suppressing, disappearing and even altering data to fit his agenda or to hide inconvenient truths about the impact of ...

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Brianna Rosen (Bluesky - LinkedIn - X) Is Senior Fellow

Brianna Rosen (Bluesky - LinkedIn - X) is Senior Fellow and Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies (AIET) Initiative at Just Security. She is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford and previously served for a decade in the U.S. government, including at the White House National Security Council and Office of the Vice President. Federal datasets have ...