Come back, CIA!

The BBQ Pit
1

Every year, my capstone project with my advanced fifth grade English Language Arts students is the Create-a-Country project. Students imagine, write about, and present an imaginary country a la Wakanda, set in modern times, detailing its geography, climate, ecosystems, population centers, cultures, government and economic systems, relations with other nations, history, and more. It’s tremendous fun, and the goal is to get students invested in both research (to learn about real-world countries as inspiration) and writing (to convey the marvels of their country effectively).

I give them lots of sites they can use for research–different ones for different aspects of the country–but there are two baseline websites I use. National Geographic Kids has a great selection of kid-friendly information about several dozen countries (I haven’t counted), but it’s somewhat shallow. CIA World Factbook, on the other hand, is a mammoth resource, with incredibly detailed information about every nation on Earth. I tell them that this is where they want to go if they want to get into the weeds on a nation, it’s the last stop before going to the library to check out a book. I sent students there earlier today.

But that’s the last time.

Because tonight I was doomscrolling BlueSky, and I saw a note: “CIA World Factbook is gone.” I went to check, and sure enough, the entire site has been taken down, replaced by some happy slappy bullshit about “Bidding a fond farewell” to the site.

WHY? I get that Trump is a terrible shitstain of a person, and his goons and lickspittles are the worst of humanity, but of all the awful things the CIA did, making this website is surely the most innocuous. Is that why they had to ruin it?

I’ll see this group of kids on Friday, and meanwhile I’ll have to update the list of research websites.

2

It’s likely they had to take it down because it presented factual information that the USA is not exactly the best country in many, many aspects.

It’s like North Korea proclaiming itself the best country in the world, and preventing it’s citizens from finding out anything different.

3

Plus, owning the libs.

I hate this news. It’s so petty and mean.

4

Damn. I used that all the time in the classroom. Phenomenal reference page.

5

Here’s the happy slappy bullshit, where you get redirected if you try to visit the site:

And it looks like Archive.org has a complete archive. I have no idea whether that’ll be useable–either whether it’ll make it past our school’s filters, or whether it can be accessed at a reasonable speed.

6

It’s extraordinary – or I should say, it would be extraordinary in normal times – for such a valuable and important site to be abruptly taken down, and furthermore, taken down with no explanation whatsoever.

But these are not normal times. These are the times of Trump, with contempt for law, for established norms, and contempt for education at all levels. A regime where facts are usually regarded as inconvenient and eagerly suppressed.

The CIA has been gathering this type of information for 64 years, and making it publicly available in unclassified form for over half a century. Trump has cut back funding to the CIA, but this kind of essential information will continue to be gathered, so cutting off public access without reason can only be seen as an arbitrary act of spite against education, educators, and all those interested in the state of our world, and perhaps finding out that some other countries do things better.

7

Trying to figure out alternatives, I came across a subreddit thread on /r teachers, where dozens of teachers are flipping out and frantically trying to rework their lessons for tomorrow.

8

Jeebus titty fucking christ, that’s stupid as fuck. But totally the type of thing you’d expect from this fuckwad administration. May they all die painful, lonely deaths knowing they are despised.

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It’s currently functional, at least. That suggests the search is built in, likely with JavaScript. So it shouldn’t be too hard to mirror or even download for offline use, I’d think.

It’s all public domain, so I’ll link it:

Seems there is already a move to get it into a KiwiX file, which is basically used in an offline web browser.

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Then ISTM that it’s time for you, as a committed educator, to do something to find out

Although, even if the archive is usable, the data provided probably has a “best by” date.

11

Woah, that definitely hadn’t even occurred to me when I posted this gripe right before bed last night! I clearly hadn’t already been looking into solutions. Where would I be without your wisdom and keen advice, I ask?