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July 02, 2006

where do government websites go when they die...

Have just been reading around the Coalition Provisional Authority administration in Iraq again - and remembered that their website was due to be taken offline a couple of days ago. There's a huge amount of information online here (more than 250MB of files, lots of that quite dense text). I'm sure some reports will be archived elsewhere, but you wonder how much of this information will cease to be publicly available. They apparently haven't got round to pulling the plug yet - this is still online.

There's more data here than anyone's likely to read - to the extent that it's tempting to stare at this pile of data, and echo Baudrillard's question of 'where is the information?' But there is lots of striking information here as well - lots of fascinating details about CPA government. For example, you can read the license agreement for the rather generous deal that the CPA did re. cellular phone operation in Northern Iraq ($US100,000 per year, and the phone company gets a free satellite thrown in!)

At the moment the website's surviving after it was meant to be closed - must admit that I kind-of hope this continues. Even though the CPA's now gone, it'll be a shame when its website follows it...

Posted by jon_mendel at July 2, 2006 10:49 PM