A number of key sections from Article I of the U.S. Constitution — including one tied to habeas corpus — recently vanished from a federal government website, as first reported by 404 Media and flagged by internet forums.
A large portion of Article I, Section 8 appeared to go missing while all of Sections 9 and 10 were absent from the annotated version of the document on constitution.congress.gov — which is run by the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office.
The disappearances were noticed in sections on the limits of federal and state powers as well as references to habeas corpus (the constitutional provision used to check the government’s power to detain people), the forbidden granting of nobility titles and federal officials being restricted from receiving foreign emoluments.
The annotated page “hasn’t changed significantly” since 2019, the year when changes were first tracked by the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine website, 404 Media noted.
The Constitution hasn’t changed since 1992, either — which is reflected by a page on a separate site on the document run by the National Archives.
