Library: Parts of Constitution Vanished Due to Coding Glitch

Library of Congress representatives are blaming a "coding error" for sections of the  Constitution being missing from the congressional website for the document on Wednesday, when the sections governing habeas corpus, forbidding U.S. officials from accepting emoluments, and banning the bestowment of titles of nobility, among other laws, went missing. 

"It has been brought to our attention that some sections of Article 1 are missing from the Constitution Annotated (https://constitution.congress.gov) website," the congressional library posted on X Wednesday afternoon. "We’ve learned that this is due to a coding error. We have been working to correct this and expect it to be resolved soon."

Article 1 of the Constitution outlines the powers of the legislative branch of the government. 

According to a report on 404media, users of the open-source aggregation platform and forum Lemmy spotted the changes. 

The Internet Archive shows that the last full version of the webpage, archived by the Internet Archive on July 17, still included the deleted sections.

But as of earlier in the day on Wednesday, the archive showed that parts of Section 8 of Article 1, as well as all of sections 9 and 10 were missing from the site. 

The latest version of the archived site on Wednesday afternoon, as well as the congressional site itself, showed that the full Constitution was online. 

Several X users argued with the Library of Congress on social media, saying that they did not believe the official report that a coding error was at fault and calling for transparency on the issue.

"I code," one user posted on X. "Coding errors do not happen on their own. And unless the Constitution has been recently changed (which I do not recall Congress having a 2/3rd approval and a majority of states ratifying any changes), there is no reason for anyone to have accessed those sections to make any changes."