“The administration removed hundreds of federal web pages containing critical information about Americans. Fortunately, it still lives at Philly-based PolicyMap, whose director walks us through what just happened — and why it’s too soon to Last week, President Donald Trump came for our data. Executive orders to eliminate any DEI and climate change-related language from federal agency websites triggered a full scale removal of hundreds of pages on the U.S. government’s website — including Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency. (The CDC has since come back online with a note that says its “website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”) Along with those pages disappeared thousands of pieces of information about Americans’ health, housing, income, climate, communities and other important data that informs state and local policies and business strategies around the country. The administration has not said if or when that data will be returned to the Internet — and, indeed, information on women’s health, LGBTQ issues and climate change may never see the light of day under Trump. Meanwhile, some media organizations and universities have saved most of the info, and researchers have archived a lot of the data, as well. As the Association of Public Data Users put it in their statement: “The loss is not abstract: Among other things, data lost today helped people address urgent issues like teen mental health, bullying, and violence prevention. Put quite simply, today’s actions to remove taxpayer-funded data from the public domain impacts everyone in the United States, directly contradicts the mission of the federal statistical system, and robs the public of a benefit paid for by them.” Thankfully, most of the deleted federal data exists at a Philadelphia benefit corporation called PolicyMap that collects private and public data and creates explanatory maps. On Tuesday, PolicyMap sent an email to its (panicked) customers assuring them that “Data that was recently removed by the federal government is, and will always be, available in PolicyMap.” [h/t Pete Weiss]