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White House to Temporarily Shut Down Petition Website, Put New One Up in January
The White House is briefly shutting down [bbc.com] the "We The People" petition website [wikipedia.org], but promises that all existing petitions will be reinstated on the new, less costly site:
The White House has said it will be shutting down its website for petitions from midnight on Tuesday until a new one is set up in late January. The "We The People" site was set up by the Obama administration in 2011. It promised a response to all petitions drawing more than 100,000 signatures but the Trump administration has not responded to any since January.
The White House said its new platform would save taxpayers more than $1m (£746,500) a year. The total budget of the White House for 2018 is $55m and its information technology budget for the year is $4.94m.
A White House official told the Associated Press news agency that the administration would "respond to public concerns next year" and that all existing petitions would be reinstated then.
