EDITORS’ NOTE:

Recent events have sent shivers through America’s data, scientific, medical, environmental, civil rights and, in a multitude of other civil society communities.

Like a descending dark cloak of censorship, denial and revisionism  federal agencies are stripping public access and government databases of critical data about climate change, disease outbreaks, environmental hazards, and human rights violations. Research based on fact is vanishing. Databases are going dark. Statistical reports are being altered. The CDC is no longer allowed to release information that could save our lives.

This isn’t about politics anymore. This is about public safety, national security, and the fundamental right of citizens to know what’s happening in their own country and around the globe.

As federal agencies become increasingly opaque – or worse, sources of misinformation and revisionist history–like the medieval monks copying texts to preserve civilization’s knowledge in the Dark Ages , today’s civil society organizations may become the essential guardians of truth and knowledge for future generations.

America’s vast nonprofit sector may need to step into a role it never anticipated: becoming the guardians of truth and knowledge in an age of deliberate forgetting.

Our nonprofit sector comprises over 1.5 million organizations employing 12 million Americans. These organizations hold vast stores of scientific data, research findings, and documented evidence across every field affecting human life and wellbeing. They have the expertise, the infrastructure, and most importantly, the public trust to serve as a bulwark against the erosion of fact-based reality.

The following story is fiction. We hope it’s the kind of fiction that serves as a warning – served up at a time when failure to imagine the worst and prepare for it is the worst kind of failure.  And perhaps it’ll also server as a blueprint.

In the Dark Ages, it was medieval monks who preserved civilization’s knowledge through decades of darkness. In our own gathering dark, who will play that role?

Perhaps it’s time for our civil sector to begin building that capacity. Before we need it. Before it’s too late.

Roger and Kevin

The Last Keepers: A Cautionary Tale

Within days after the new Trump  administration announced it was no longer releasing medical research and disease and vaccination information; that it would begin prosecuting former U.S. prosecutors and purge the FBI;  that it would eliminate a vast array of regulations; and began to erase content on U.S. government websites and government databases,  the major charities with scientific, librarian, public information, and issue-specific knowledge got together and formed the Emergency Information Protection Committee.

Like the monasteries in the Dark Ages, they knew isolated efforts of individual organizations  wouldn’t be enough. They needed a network, like the ancient orders that had spread across continents, copying manuscripts, preserving knowledge in their scattered monasteries from destruction and desecration by the Visigoths, Vandals, Vikings and other barbarian tribes.

Taking a leaf from the playbook of the UK’s  successful umbrella group—The Disasters Emergency  Committee—which for 62 years has coordinated assistance in major global disasters—they pooled their technical and subject matter skills, set aside egos and formed the Emergency Committee.

On this Thursday evening  the screens on the wall showed faces from across the country – the Sierra Club’s data team, the American Cancer Society’s researchers, archivists and librarians from major universities, legal teams from the ACLU’s and the ABA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s digital security experts and experts from a dozen more groups.

 It was clear.  Like those medieval monasteries linking through secret messenger routes, they’d built encrypted channels between their organizations.

“They’re deleting the glacier melt data,” Sarah from WWF announced, but this time her voice wasn’t so tired. She had backup now. Real backup. “National Geographic has copies,” a voice from one screen said. “The Natural History Museum in London too,” from another. Like monks sharing manuscripts between abbeys, making sure no single raid, no single government edict could destroy everything.

Rachel from the American Library Association thought about how the Benedictines had built their network – monastery by monastery, script by script, each house supporting the others. Now here they were, centuries later building something similar. The Emergency Information Preservation Emergency Committee had 137 member organizations already, with more joining daily.

Maria burst in, wet from the rain. “They’re moving to shut down three more women’s health clinics tomorrow,” she shouted, but she wasn’t just addressing her own organization’s small team anymore. The screens lit up with responses. Legal aid groups offered support, women’s organizations and a medical association committed safe houses and pledged to backup medical records. Like the old monastery networks that had provided both sanctuary and documentation.

“Remember how the monks had different orders?” Rachel said. “Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans – each with their specialty, but all working together?” She gestured at the screens. “That’s us now.”

The room was cold. Servers hummed not just here, but in hundreds of locations. Their modern scriptoriums, linked by fiber optic cables instead of footpaths. Each organization kept their specialty – environmental groups protecting climate data, medical charities preserving health and research records, civil rights organizations documenting abuses – but now they worked as one.

Tom’s screen showed the Committee’s master database. Like the ancient library catalogs that had tracked manuscripts across Europe, it showed where every piece of data was backed up, who had copies, how to access them. “The monks knew you couldn’t keep everything in one place,” he said. “Had to spread it out. Had to have redundancy.”

Their phones buzzed in chorus. Not just their team now – hundreds of phones across the country, the Committee’s alert system warning of new threats.

“Environmental impact studies,” Sarah said. “Disease surveillance data,” from Rachel. “Indigenous language archives,” Michael added. “Water quality reports,” Tom finished.

But now each alert triggered an immediate response. Teams across the country backing up data, verifying records, creating secure copies. Like monastery bells warning of danger, calling others to help.

“The Benedictines had a rule,” Rachel said, looking at the screens full of faces. “Any monk from any house could find shelter in any other house. The network protected everyone.” She opened her laptop. “That’s what we’ve built here.”

They worked through the night, but they weren’t alone anymore. When Maria’s clinics needed help, legal teams were ready. When the food banks needed data and outreach to new sources of supply, research and logistics teams had it ready. When evidence needed protection, hundreds of secure servers stood ready.

The Emergency Information Protection Committee had become what the monastery networks had been – a system for preserving truth, protecting knowledge, and defending those who needed defense.

Sarah stood up, stretched. “Coffee,” she said, and this time others on the screens laughed. They were all running on coffee, all keeping their own vigils.

The servers hummed. The screens glowed. Their phones kept buzzing.

What else could they do?

This was their monastery network now. Their linked scriptoriums. Their chain of sanctuary and knowledge.

This was how information survived. This was how truth persisted. This was how they fought the dark.

Together. Like the monks before them. Like keepers of a flame that wouldn’t die.  Download. Encrypt. Store.  Backup. Share.  Protect.  Verify.  Preserve.

Again. And again. And again.

Until truth survived. Until light returned. Until knowledge was safe again.

The rain kept falling. They weren’t alone anymore.

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