USAID's Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) is now offline.This massive online repository, which housed nearly 50 years of USAID's work, is no longer accessible. Over 150,000 documents—including oral histories, program planning materials & records of past USAID projects—have disappeared. . - ThreadSky

erinsnider.bsky.social • 22 days ago

USAID's Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) is now offline.This massive online repository, which housed nearly 50 years of USAID's work, is no longer accessible. Over 150,000 documents—including oral histories, program planning materials & records of past USAID projects—have disappeared.
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Reposted from Bethany Albertson

Presumably government data is backed up, right?

Comments

chomiji.bsky.social•22 days ago

Short answer : the data *may* still be where it always was, but all the pages linking to it have been removed. But yes, in addition, there should be backups.

tajmahalo.bsky.social•22 days ago

I don't see how this doesn't violate the records management regulations set up by the National Archives and Records Administration. Destroying government records is a serious offense!

edolis.bsky.social•22 days ago

hmm, I seem to remember a certain habit of trump of destroying WH Oval office memos in the first term.
Nothing happened.
And uh, the top secret docs in MAL.
Nothing happened.
This round the extant is just being amplified as the rest, proportionally.
Guess what's going to happen?

andrewross.net•22 days ago

My guess would be that the records aren’t destroyed - they just took down the web application that serves them to the public.

erinsnider.bsky.social•22 days ago

They've disappeared from the public is all we know for now.

dogstar2005.bsky.social•22 days ago

So is overthrowing the government but we all know how that turned out.

cv-danes.com•22 days ago

They're disappearing huge chunks of government.

afirefly.bsky.social•22 days ago

They want to make parts of history disappear.

sjmueller.bsky.social•22 days ago

run https://dec.usaid.gov through internet archive to access - https://web.archive.org/web/20061001000000*/https://dec.usaid.gov

erinsnider.bsky.social•22 days ago

you can access the first layer from what I can see via the wayback machine. When you attempt to do a search via this route, you just get this:

sjmueller.bsky.social•22 days ago

use just url of https://dec.usaid.gov - I can get access to it

sjmueller.bsky.social•22 days ago

erinsnider.bsky.social•22 days ago

I did--see my first response to your message:) I can access it, but any attempt to use DEC for what it's meant for to get past that first webpage--to search through a massive database of projects--does not work. Have tried across multiple years.

sjmueller.bsky.social•22 days ago

are you able to get here? any example of what you're looking for, I can test it out?

erinsnider.bsky.social•22 days ago

I get there, but can't get beyond that when trying random queries. Just as a broad example, you can try and input 'democracy' in the title field and search. Thank you for trying it out on your end!

sharon1753.bsky.social•22 days ago

🚨

billbeaird.bsky.social•22 days ago

They are after the $50 BILLION bank account. Data shmata

blackeyed-susie.bsky.social•22 days ago

Do none of these agencies have disaster recovery sites tucked away somewhere?

starlightwishes.bsky.social•22 days ago

When ISIS moved in to take over countries, one of the first things they did was to destroy history. This has always been the way of thugs and conquerors.

nekron999.bsky.social•22 days ago

Drumpf is really taking #BrainDrain to epic levels.

#kakistocracy all for Putin

brooklynkid53bskys.bsky.social•22 days ago

another example of how useful academics are in a crisis

arielglenn.bsky.social•22 days ago

A partial archive is available: https://2017-2020.usaid.gov/developer/development-experience-clearinghouse-dec-api At least for the moment. A similar site covers 2012-2017.

rickmarriner.com•22 days ago

When history vanishes with a server update, it’s not just data loss—it’s memory theft. Fifty years of development work shouldn’t disappear like a forgotten login.

#PublicRecordsMatter
#DigitalErasure
#WhoControlsThePast

carl3settlemyer.bsky.social•22 days ago

📌

peregrinamom-sandy.bsky.social•22 days ago

Whoa!

keauhou.bsky.social•22 days ago

The same people who took the website offline control the backups

moocowsue.bsky.social•22 days ago

WTAF!!??

tinjack.bsky.social•22 days ago

I sure hope it is backed up somewhere these folks can’t get to it.

phoenixwomanmn.bsky.social•22 days ago

https://Archive.org

soulmetal.bsky.social•22 days ago

Hopefully just temporarily off-line?

rkfatheree.bsky.social•22 days ago

Are they on the Wayback machine?

ameliabennetts.bsky.social•22 days ago

Wtaf!!!!!!!!!!!!!😳

citizenw.bsky.social•22 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3lh4fi5qjds24

bmomani.bsky.social•22 days ago

Wow 🤯

donwest84.bsky.social•22 days ago

As I recall, the justification for freezing aid was to gather and review the historic work of USAID, which supposedly isn't collected in one place, in blatant contrast to the contractually required storage of all documents on DEC. It's almost like they're working in bad faith.

mikusa.bsky.social•22 days ago

If no one is reading this why would you miss that?

erinsnider.bsky.social•22 days ago

remoaugusto.bsky.social•22 days ago

📌

millieto2.bsky.social•22 days ago

Hitler removed all
democratic institutions in 52 days. President Musk and his toady will beat that record. The US is free falling into a fascist state in record time. This regime will last longer than 4 years.

wrynn.bsky.social•22 days ago

It certainly will if the US public resigns itself to that in 2 weeks. Authoritarians do everything they can to breed fatalism and make people forget their own agency. So let's not.

pamelasamuelson.bsky.social•22 days ago

On Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine hopefully

dbrody.bsky.social•22 days ago

Hopefully IA and others are hardening their cybersecurity to protect against bad actors—foreign and domestic—who may try to tamper, alter, or destroy backed up federal datasets.

It is a reasonably foreseeable possibility that US govt resources could be used to attack IA and similar repositories.

erinsnider.bsky.social•22 days ago

so limited, it's not useful sadly. you can access the first layer from what I can see via the wayback machine. When you attempt to do a search via this route, you just get this:

melf.bsky.social•22 days ago

Try going the long way around

https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://dec.usaid.gov/*

use the filter box to narrow things down

okcmedsim.bsky.social•22 days ago

I was in this system on Wednesday, working on getting a project going with USAID in Zambia 🇿🇲 for a surgical simulation center. Do these aholes have any idea how much good that agency has done on this planet?!? 😡😡😡

brazuca.bsky.social•22 days ago

They are closing USAID. Probably be under State now

cpbloom.bsky.social•22 days ago

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

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