Earlier this evening, Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times tweeted:
His Tweet was retweeted by someone at the National Park Service, part of the Interior Department. (See above.)
A few hours later:
The Interior Department was ordered Friday to shut down its official Twitter accounts — indefinitely — after a National Park Service employee shared two tweets that noted President Trump’s relatively small inaugural crowd compared to what former president Barack Obama drew in 2009.
“All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice,” said an email circulated to Park Service employees Friday afternoon.
The email, obtained by The Post, described the stand-down as an “urgent directive” and said social media managers must shut down the accounts “until further directed.”
Washington Post
Note: An “urgent directive” from an Administration lacking staff in critical national security and State Department posts as of today. This is what they consider “urgent.”
The Interior Department (which includes the National Park Service) has previously provided crowd estimates at gatherings on federal properties. From 2009 (with details about how they measured crowds):
The U.S. National Park Service, threatened with a lawsuit over its crowd estimate for the Million Man March in 1995, stopped doing crowd projections as a matter of policy. But the agency changed its mind for the Obama inauguration, although it won't release a figure until later in the week, according to USA Today.
Imaging technology also was being used to help the U.S. Department of Interior keep track of crowds for security, public safety, and traffic purposes, according to the GIS Cafe Web site. The Interior Department uses a wall-sized display of high-resolution flat-screen, tiled LCD monitors called the "OptIPortal" that displays 35-megapixel aerial imagery, the report said.
CNET
The National Park Service administers the National Mall.
How convenient.
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UPDATE: The National Park Service is back online.