My read is that they aren't (yet) proposing defunding the data, "just the maps" e.g. visualizations that make it accessible. Nothing (yet) stopping a public-interest project from hosting the same information on an open platform.
The language in Sec 3 is specifically "database of geospatial information on community racial disparities or disparities in access to affordable housing". It is true that disparities may arise from either discrimination or other sources.
Thanks for the guidance, I changed the title to comply. I'm looking forward to a bill that would dismantle support for federally maintaining climate data visualizations -- likely to be titled the "Climate Monitoring Protection Act of 2017" ;)
House and Senate bills (H.R.482 and S.103) have been introduced to ban further federal funding or use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that disseminate data on racial discrimination in housing and other community issues.
The government created visualization site https://egis.hud.gov/affht/# specifically would be banned for further support, maintenance or use by members of the federal government.
Fortunately the raw data is still available for download.
To me, government-ordered public-interest website teardowns sound a lot like a 21st century version of book-burning.
Bill sponsors include Marco Rubio and Mike Lee in the Senate
> To me, government-ordered public-interest website teardowns sound a lot like a 21st century version of book-burning.
Fortunately that's not what this is. No longer operating a website is not the same as ordering other such websites to be torn down. No need to overstate the problem.
Burning a book isn't ordering all other books of its type be burned, but it sure sends a message -- let's destroy this representation of knowledge because it contains knowledge or thought I don't approve of. It's entirely analogous to book-burning, though not book-banning (which is analogous to making such data illegal -- though it's arguable that since the federal government is really the only body capable of collecting such data, banning the federal government from collecting it IS banning it.. an argument for another place and time, I think) but OP didn't claim it as such, so it isn't an overstatement.
Scala -- great online learning resources (Coursera series), good integration with Eclipse, unique and convenient "worksheet" interface and repl, and significant benefits when working developing big data applications with Spark.
