If US government shuts down, many dot-gov websites will go dark

Declan McCullagh at CNET reports that many federal Web sites will likely go offline if the government shuts down Friday night. "A 16-page memo (PDF) to federal agencies says their Web sites may stay online only in a small number of situations, including tax collection and handling 'exempted' activities such as payments and other functions that are paid for by previous annual budgets."

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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dainel

the tea party should be ecstatic. shut down all non-essential government services. you cannot have a government smaller than that. think of it as an experiment on a vast scale, an experiment on minimalist government.
Tonewah

That sounds like a threat from tyrants. The Federal Government doesn’t do much that’s useful, anyway. Driver’s licences, Police, Fire Department… anything we really have to have is provided by State or local government. Yeah, there are a few things that government at the Federal level needs to do, but they’ve been doing such a poor job, maybe they need to have some time to think about it.

I guarantee the CIA won’t stop. They’re too busy messing around with foreign governments to notice the government shutdown.
echolocate chocolate

Don’t we pay these clowns vast amounts of money to, like, do politics and negotiate and shit? If there’s a government shutdown, do we get to fire them all and hire new ones?
codesuidae

Both sides have to show how committed and serious they are. It’s a big game of chicken. Who’s going to turn first?
Anonymous

See America, this is what you get when you vote Republican. It’s been less than 20 years since this happened last. Wake up!
chaoskitten

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to establish an interim government…
lknope

I just wanted to point out that the people who are causing the government shutdown? They will keep getting paid. That’s right, the president and members of congress will continue to receive their paychecks while a lot of active military personnel will not. Stay classy, U.S. Govt. Stay classy.
RufusTheGreat

Will we simultaneously stop bombing Libya?
Chong

The government is shutting down?

I feel like I’m missing something here.
- Anonymous
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdown
  
  A shutdown can occur when a legislative body (including the legislative power of veto by the executive) cannot agree on a budget financing its government programs for a pending fiscal year. In the absence of appropriated funds, the government discontinues providing non-essential services at the beginning of the affected fiscal year. Government employees who provide essential services, often referred to as “essential employees”, are required to continue working.
  
  Potential government shutdown of 2011
  
  Congress would force a government shutdown on April 8, 2011 if their plan to reduce the U.S. federal budget deficit is not resolved. This could leave 800,000 furloughed workers without a job, out of 2 million civilian federal employees. Congressional leaders will meet on April 7, 2011 to agree on budget cuts in an effort to stave off a government shutdown; but an agreement looks difficult. Federal agencies are already beginning preparations for potential closures.
- eviladrian
  
  Yeah, I’m Australian and this hasn’t got any news coverage here.
  The term “shut down” sounds like kind of a bad thing, what’s the deal?
  - emmdeeaych
    
    A vocal minority in one branch of the legislature refuses to pass a budget, so the executive branch will need to suspend activities that involve money. Yes, to some degree this includes the military, national security, as well as all sorts of safety inspectors and bean counters.
    
    Basically everything but, and the irony is not lost, tax collection.
    
    Why? Ask Ayn Rand.
    - William George
      
      Why? Ask Ayn Rand.
      
      Has she finally risen from the dead to distribute Mr.A comics to the masses like the Randroids have been hoping?
    - benenglish
      
      Not a good point, nor well made.
      
      The IRS will continue to receive electronically transmitted money and forms, but paper won’t get processed.
      
      And “tax collections”, as in the way most people think of that term, an officer knocking on your door, will most certainly cease. Revenue Officers, the people who come knock on your door to ask you why you haven’t paid, will be furloughed. So will the people in the Automated Collection functional area, the people who call you on the phone asking for money.
      
      In meaningful ways, “tax collection” will stop when the shutdown happens. Not in all ways, true, but there’s no dark conspiracy behind the way the IRS does business. References to Ayn Rand are meaningless in this context.
      - emmdeeaych
        
        And “tax collections”, as in the way most people think of that term, an officer knocking on your door, will most certainly cease.
        
        Most people do not think of that term that way. Fail. “most” people and biusinesses file electronically, and thus ‘most’ tax bills are still due and will still be processed.
        
        The strawman you built there tells me my reference to Ayn Rand was chock full of meaning, and it was not lost on you.
        
        :)
jackdavinci

I can see freezing tech support but shouldn’t the servers and domains be prepaid long past the arbitrary budget dates?
- johnnyaction
  
  If the government owns the servers, no. They will probably set up some dns re-directions and power down.
oncogenesis

See America, this is what you get when you vote Republican.

YAAAWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.
oldtaku

Whyyyyyyy do the sites need to be shut down? Sure, no updates, but the connection and hosting and whatever other monthly fees are already paid for. Just leave them up. Now if it goes into next month and you can’t pay the bill for that, sure, goodbye sites.

Update: this 16 page memo is EIGHT MEGABYTES because they have rendered the dirt-simple text as graphics. With this much bureaucratic bloat of their webservers, I can see how they might need to live day to day.
Davidget

You shut that thing down, and we are not gonna be held responsible for what ever happens.
Anonymous

Will this shut down all the robots and cyborgs and war machines? The CIA attack drones? The NSA supercomputers that are reading this post at exactly this moment? The US is spending gazillions in hidden budgets to fund war, CIA and NSA etc., and now it’s broke?
Antinous / Moderator

Thank God the IRS will still get my electronic filing on the 15th.
- benenglish
  
  Actually, this year it’s the 18th, assuming you want to wait until the last day.
- Dr Watson
  
  It’s actually April 18th this year. Don’t give them your money before the last minute ;)
Anonymous

Sure, keep the servers running while everybody in the world knows that the sysadmins are not on duty, and when even if they get a ping from their monitoring systems, they’re not allowed to respond.

I’m sure nobody would take advantage, no sirree.
Cheqyr

@oldtaku: I work at such a government site. Some websites are hosted on government servers at government facilities. If the budget runs out, there may be no money to pay for the electricity that powers the machines and their cooling systems.

Plus, some websites are front-ends onto government services which require human support at the back-end. It would be irresponsible to allow people to submit forms under the mistaken belief that those forms will be processed in the usual timely manner.
Anonymous

I’m sorry, but… is this for real??
After I stumbled upon “government shutdown” I was a bit confused – I’d never heard about something like that in my country. So I looked at wikipedia and read about your “government shutdown”. And all I could think was “WHT??!!”.
If I understood this correctly, your goverment puts their own employees on leave for an unknown space of time because the politicians can’t agree? Is that it? You punish your people and your economy by shuting down “non-essential” services because your politicians behave like hardheaded egoists who can’t compromise? For real? Is it at least a paid for leave?
(Never heard of a budget freeze? Wouldn’t that be a better solution? Politicians can still argue and talk while the employees keep on working)
- valdis
  
  @anon: “(Never heard of a budget freeze? Wouldn’t that be a better solution? Politicians can still argue and talk while the employees keep on working)”
  
  Actually, that’s what we’ve been *doing* for a while now, under the name “continuing resolutions” – those basically say “we will continue to operate under last year’s funding and allocation levels”. However, some of the politicians involve are refusing to pass yet another continuing resolution. So later today when the current resolution expires, we hit a brick wall.
Anonymous

Something interesting that may not be known: Because the District of Columbia is funded by the federal government, if the federal government shuts down the city of Washington will as well.
Anonymous

Here, why don’t we suggest some things to do for all those poor government employees who will be forced to stay at home? I mean, they will have a lot of time on their hands; how about some Make projects specially suited for them? Any suggestions?
Anonymous

Don’t forget that in the background people are constantly maintaining the hardware and software behind these sites. What happens if a disk fails while no one is there to maintain it… it’ll just run until the entire array fails, probably losing data. What happens if Microsoft pumps out a new security vulnerability tomorrow… will everything just run vulnerable & unmonitored? Not likely, and not a good idea.

Oh, and the Captcha as I type this includes the word “Baconian.” I’m not sure what that means, but I want to be one.
tp1024

What the hell is going on in that country?

How come that anybody still has the least little speck of trust into the currency of a country, that can be shut down by an argument between two political parties?

Did the USA, after becoming the Banana-Republic they always claimed they weren’t, finally turned from yellow to brown? Or is it going back to (mouldy) green?
- SamSam
  
  How come that anybody still has the least little speck of trust into the currency of a country, that can be shut down by an argument between two political parties?
  
  Belgium has been completely without a federal government for 290 days, longer than any country in the world except Cambodia, because their parties have been deadlocked in negotiations for forming a new government, and yet Brussels has not lost any world trust, nor has there been any decline in the waffle stock market.
  
  That said, it is true that the US is one of the only governments in the world where if a budget doesn’t get passed then services shut down. Most other governments, even when they reach identical gridlocks, continue to have all services running indefinitely. On the other hand, if we had that then our parties would never pass a budget, because they would have no deadline or incentive to ever agree with each other.
SamSam

Typical government foolishness:

Q5: What if the cost of shutting down a website exceeds the cost of maintaining services?
A5: The determination of which services continue during an appropriations lapse is not affected
by whether the costs of shutdown exceed the costs of maintaining services
Anonymous

I say call their bluff, let it shut down. The Republicans with the big banks, corporations etc will feel more pain than anybody else.
- SamSam
  
  I say call their bluff, let it shut down. The Republicans with the big banks, corporations etc will feel more pain than anybody else.
  
  Don’t be completely ridiculous. The big banks and corporations can still keep functioning almost exactly as normal. Nothing’s preventing them from doing so.
  
  On the other hand, the lower-middle class family supported by the city clerk, the DMV employee, the national park staffer, the janitor will suddenly go on unpaid leaves. During the last shutdown, over 800,000 employees were forced to take unpaid furloughs.
  
  Also affected will be anyone who needs to deal with these services — the working parent needing to get their driver’s license renewed. The unemployed trying to submit their paperwork to get food stamps.
  
  Also affected will be anyone who sells good or services to any of the hundreds of thousands of those who will now be unemployed.
  
  So don’t buy into the tea party line: a government shutdown will only hurt the poor and the middle class. The “Republicans with the big banks, corporations etc” will barely notice anything.