~3,400 datasets removed from Data.gov and 14 NOAA datasets decommissioned by Feb 2025

By February 21, 2025, ~3,379 datasets had been removed from Data.gov (308,000 → 304,621), alongside >8,000 web pages modified. NOAA decommissioned 14 datasets covering earthquakes, marine science, and coastal systems (S-0033).

The removals are documented by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), the Data Rescue Project, and Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab's Data.gov archive project — independent rescue efforts that mirrored what they could before the removals propagated.

The case sits at the intersection of C-0019 (funding-driven termination) and C-0020 (state-action access restriction). The proximate trigger is the FY2025 federal administration change; the architectural property is that 14 NOAA datasets were held in a single failure domain (NOAA's own infrastructure) and thus removable by single administrative action.

The rescue projects are themselves a Tier 3 response: independent volunteer mirrors, content-addressed snapshots, off-jurisdiction replicas. The presence of the rescue activity at this scale demonstrates both the failure mode and the architectural fix in the same event.