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By Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Ms. Bloch-Wehba is a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law who studies, teaches and writes about law and technology.

The Trump administration has identified a key weapon in its campaign to remake the federal government: information control. Shortly after taking office, it ordered federal health agencies to freeze their communications with the public. The government promptly scrubbed many of its websites of data about climate change, public health, foreign aid and education. The Department of Government Efficiency slashed federal data-gathering activities, and the president fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a middling July jobs report.