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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Spotted via Simon Willison’s blog, the plug has been pulled very suddenly on the CIA World Factbook [cia.gov]. The old pages all redirect and the CIA has only some short comments and offer no explanation for the bizarre act of cultural vandalism.

Over many decades [cia.gov], The World Factbook evolved from a classified to unclassified, hardcopy to electronic product that added new categories, and even new global entities. The original classified publication, titled The National Basic Intelligence Factbook, launched in 1962. The first unclassified companion version was issued in 1971. A decade later it was renamed The World Factbook. In 1997, The World Factbook went digital and debuted to a worldwide audience on CIA.gov, where it garnered millions of views each year.

The CIA World Factbook [cia.gov] (dead link now) was one of the US government's older and most recognized publications, providing basic information about each country in the world regarding their demographics, history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, environment, communications, transportation, and much more.

Original Submission