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.
EDIT Story has now been picked up by Alternet:
https://www.alternet.org/trump-constitutional-crisis/
Edit 2 The missing sections are now restored.
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.
Holy shit, it’s indexed in search engines but 404s:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/
Removed here too:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/
Here are sections 9/10 on another government website, just to make sure I’m not crazy: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#1-9
Help! I tried to archive https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/ – but it won’t show up in archive.org. It tells me I can go to:
- https://web.archive.org/web/20250806054229/https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/ but when I look at the URL, it seems to be redirecting to July 21st (https://web.archive.org/web/20250721170235/https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/), which does not look like the live page. When I try to dif, I see the July page, too.
Did the government break wayback, too?
I thought I read an article recently about the government taking over one of the archive sites.
It isn’t part of the government, but was designated an official federal depository library . There are over 1000 such libraries, but archive.org is the most ‘digital’.
The wayback machine can’t really archive errors, it just assumes the content is gone.
Wayback does have some option to archive error pages, I’ve seen recently… hmm
I can’t get it to work either.
Yeah that pretty much confirms it wasn’t just a text based whoopsie. Which… there’s no real reason to be modifying the contents of that page anyways. Even the browse article 1 section no longer has links to section 9 or 10.
I mean… they could be automated indexes and something got accidentally deleted from a database?
I am playing devils advocate and grasping at straws here, though. The implications are also profoundly stupid (especially since other .gov websites are intact).
Yeah that would make sense to automate if the text was changing frequently. But … it’s not.
And yet it seems to be.
I see what you did there
Could still be some standard database.
Again, I emphasize, I am grasping at straws here… An accident or corruption like this would be an incredible coincidence.
Except that going to Article 8…
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8/
Article 8 ends at Clause 12 about the Army. In the original there are 18 Clauses.
So it’s not just that 9 and 10 are gone, the details for 8 stop at the exact same point!
That’s really getting into deeply unlikely to be an accident territory.
His Amurica Bible came with a copy of the constitution. Did that omit the same things? If not, I don’t believe he’d be trying to change just an online copy while there are hard copies with his name on them. What would be the point? Just the assumption that anyone who bought his copy is obviously never going to read it?
I wouldn’t put it past him to have text removed he didn’t like.
It’s just so fucking stupid and terrifying at the same time.
They don’t got to burn the books, they just remove them.
They don’t care if the whole country screeches and rages about it, they only care about how people will have gotten used to it in ten years time. People adapt very fast to new normals, and that’s their plan, to push a new normal on all of us so they can have their techno-feudalist empire with kings and barons sacking misbehaving states and other nations who have oil, because it’s a lot more profitable to take someone’s resources than try to maintain an equitable production and high-tech service economy like we all thought we were going to have.
Yes, and it’s not just adults.
Children are brought into this world with no experience of how things used to be different. The ruling class has mastered taking advantage of children.
The ruling class has mastered taking advantage of children.
In more ways than one.
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.
Picked up by engadget and this thread was specifically called out.
Lemmy mentioned!
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.
So?
-People who defend MASS SCHOOL SHOOTERS because of the Second Amendment!
Hell, they defend pedophiles too. Backwards country full of yokels
Is this getting media attention?
I’m not seeing it anywhere. So I’m mass-texting people.
It wont be a big deal until people know. Start harassing your friends and family and get the word out.
So far as I’m aware, its circulating among environmental journalists, but not the broader press yet
Who discovered this initially? This lemmy thread is the earliest record I’ve been able to find of it.
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.
So we’re straight up doing an animal farm now, great
This needs to get posted at Reddit. I can’t, I’m under a seven day ban.
There’s one up that I see in white people twitter, but it has a stupid title.
Reddit will just pull it anyway and ban the person. Just like you
It is there, I saw it there before I saw it here
“What the founding fathers wanted.”
Who cares what those slave-owning genocide fantasists wanted.
I get your point but I think they were making a /s kinda comment
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.
Time to organize and resist













