New (Terrifying) Constitution Just Dropped!

A government website "accidentally" removed the parts of the Constitution that guarantee people the right to challenge their detention...then claimed it was just "a glitch."

Politics
New (Terrifying) Constitution Just Dropped!

Surprise! If you thought you’d had enough of strange occurrences in U.S. politics, the Trump administration is the gift that just keeps giving. This time? It’s an alternative (and more terrifying) version of the U.S. Constitution. Portions of the Library of Congress website went viral Wednesday after it was discovered that the Constitution was missing sections that allowed people to challenge detention and that the government must provide justification for detainment. After getting caught, officials started quietly blaming it on a “glitch.” Sure. It’s not like we’ve seen the horrific ICE raids and detentions in El Salvador. 

The missing sections of the Constitution included Sections 9 and 10 and portions of Section 8 from Article 1. Section 9 includes the “Writ of Habeas Corpus,” which protects Americans from being unlawfully detained. In May, White House deputy chief of staff (and anti-immigration ghoul) Stephen Miller said the administration was considering suspending habeas corpus to increase deportations, citing “invasion.”

“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,” the Constitution (currently) reads.

Sections 8 and 10 both cover the powers the Constitution gives Congress and the powers the Constitution denies to the states, respectively. Noticeably, the affected sections have all been recently targeted by the Trump administration.

“Funny coincidence,” a federal worker told Rolling Stone. I’m practically keeled over.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Library of Congress confirmed the missing sections were merely a coding error. Lol.

“When updating the site to reflect our constitutional scholars’ analysis of the impact of the latest cases on Article I, Sections 8-10, the team inadvertently removed an XML tag,” a Library of Congress spokesperson told 404 media. “This prevented publication of everything in Article I after the middle of Section 8. The problem has been corrected and our updated constitutional analysis is now available. We are taking steps to prevent a recurrence in the future.”

The website now displays the Constitution in its entirety, but archived versions of the website show that the sections had been missing as early as mid-July. Had it not been pointed out, how long would the “error” have stayed up for? Until Trump deleted the entire thing?

On Twitter user who said he’s a software engineer quoted the Library of Congress’ apology tweet and said that the mishap doesn’t align with how coding errors actually work: “It’s like saying my car won’t start because it’s out of washer fluid. Gibberish. They are lying to you,” he tweeted. Wonderful.

A Reddit user on r/politics also commented, “This is almost comically stupid. Like an evil villain twirling their mustache while giving a long monologue about their evil plans. Things that writers don’t seriously do nowadays unless they are parodying something because it’s clearly unrealistic and cheesy.” Preach!

These are deeply unserious, serious times. I’m just surprised they didn’t try taking out freedom of speech or the right to assembly. Maybe we’ll see it on the remix?


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