Off topic: Most Federal agency websites I’ve visited seem to be up, though they all include a message that information may not be up to date and requests will not be processed due to the Federal government shutdown.
A few Federal government agency websites have made their entire content unavailable, though. Several redirect to notice.usa.gov with a generic “we sincerely regret the inconvenience,” while others have their own shutdown notice page. Here’s a list of down pages that I’ve run across:
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which suggests a visit to weather.gov).
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A few subsites such as Jet Propulsion Laboratory continue to make content available.
- US Department of Agriculture, including several subsites offering services such as the National Genetic Resource Program (GRIN) and APHIS.
- All of the various Census Bureau web sites and tools such as Fact Finder are down. Steven Vance suggests backup sites such as this backup site and this handy tool from Census Reporter.
- Other Commerce Department bureaus that have gone offline include International Trade Administration, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Institute of Standards (including, as noted in the comments below, the web time service).
- The National Park Service, which redirects to the Department of Interior main site after a brief “we’re closed” message.
- The Library of Congress is down, although THOMAS remains up.
- Federal Communications Commission.
Nobody is quite sure why these agencies removed their online content.
What websites have you needed information from that you can no longer access due to the Federal shutdown?
NIST’s time.gov is dark
Electronic Washington Monument Syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome
Excellent; I wondered if this has a name.
nasa.gov is also down… 🙁 However, many of the science support webpages for space missions (which I need for work!) are up with a notice on top stating: “Due to the government shutdown, information on this website may not be up to date. For information about available government services, visit USA.gov”, such as http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/
usgs.gov is down. It’s an important site for tracking earthquakes and getting information about earth hazards.
I was in a meeting the other day with a furloughed federal employee who said that delivering information via a federal agency website is a form of “work” provided by the employees of that agency and thus subject to the government shutdown. I took this to mean that the Administrative branch of the government shrewdly understands the benefits of taking the shutdown quite literally — not that I entirely disagree with the strategy, esp. if it brings the maximum pressure to bear on those whose bluff has been called.