This Blog Is Republishing All the Animal Welfare Records the USDA Deleted (vice.com)

Last year, thousands of animal welfare records were removed from the web by the Department of Agriculture. Now, a government transparency blog is on a mission to recover and republish as many of these records as possible. From a report on Motherboard: "Whenever there are documents that were online, but got pulled offline, they're automatically important," said Russ Kick, who runs the blog The Memory Hole 2, where many of the documents have already been re-published. "Nobody's going to go through the trouble to delete something that doesn't matter." The documents, which were removed by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) late last week, included inspection records and annual reports made under the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act. The USDA indicated that removing the documents was in response to a court decision, but a spokesperson contacted by Motherboard would not specify what court case. The records were typically used by animal welfare groups to keep tabs on how well these laws were being enforced, but were also used by the general public to research the inspection records of everything from dog breeders to circuses and zoos. "I've learned that if I see something and think 'I'm really surprised the government posted this,' I need to download it," Kick told me. "So when I found these reports, I thought 'this is surprising,' and I downloaded them."

Comments

Shock of all shocks

[Nutria]

Trump did not order the files taken down, having been done under the not-so-watchful eye of Barack "Government should be transparent" Obama.

Re:Shock of all shocks

[Nemyst]

Except he most likely did, considering the files were taken down last week, not last year. TFS has it wrong (though it says last week later in the summary).

Re:Shock of all shocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he did NOT, if you followed the article and read the WaPo writeup which says:

"In a statement, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service cited court rulings and privacy laws for the decision, which it said was the result of a “comprehensive review” that took place over the past year."

So deletion now, decision to delete last year. But Obama is surfboarding and wave riding so it's not his fault.

More information

[No Longer an AC]

*Update, 7 February, 12:15 p.m.: The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a statement this morning regarding the removal of animal welfare reports from its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) website:

“The review of APHIS’ website has been ongoing, and the agency is striving to balance the need for transparency with rules protecting individual privacy. In 2016, well before the change of Administration, APHIS decided to make adjustments to the posting of regulatory records. In addition, APHIS is currently involved in litigation concerning, among other issues, information posted on the agency’s website. While the agency is vigorously defending against this litigation, in an abundance of caution, the agency is taking additional measures to protect individual privacy. These decisions are not final. Adjustments may be made regarding information appropriate for release and posting.”

Re:Good

[Wootery]

People will take you more seriously if you don't lead with idiotic nonsense like Animals should be treated as a separate nation.

Not posting as an AC would also help.

It's possible to make a strong moral case against meat-eating, but you're not even close.

Except that USDA statement is a LIE.

[denzacar]

"The review of APHIS' website has been ongoing, and the agency is striving to balance the need for transparency with rules protecting individual privacy.
In 2016, well before the change of Administration, APHIS decided to make adjustments to the posting of regulatory records.
In addition, APHIS is currently involved in litigation concerning, among other issues, information posted on the agency's website.
While the agency is vigorously defending against this litigation, in an abundance of caution, the agency is taking additional measures to protect individual privacy.
These decisions are not final. Adjustments may be made regarding information appropriate for release and posting."

A blatant and stupid lie.
Trump administration forgets that people from the Obama administration are still alive and around.

Matt Herrick, director of Communications of USDA under Obama, tweeted this regarding the disappearing of animal abuse reports:

Decision by @usda 2 remove animal abuse reports not required.
Totally subjective. Same option given 2 past admin. We refused. #transparency

And it's not the first (and probably not the last) time that Trump administration, once caught doing something they shouldn't be doing, tries to blame it on Obama.
Like the Muslim ban, Yemen raid fiasco (BTW, that was "winning"), Trump's disastrous calls to Mexican and Australian heads of state... and now this.
More here.