CIA World Factbook shuttered by Trump administration

Politics CIA World Factbook, trusted source of knowledge about nations, shuttered by Trump administration April 6, 2026 / 5:57 AM EDT / AP Add CBS News on Google If you attended school any time after the Nixon administration, you likely beheld at some point the CIA World Factbook, a map and reference manual of Planet Earth and its inhabitants nearly everyone could agree on.Maybe you read parts of it from a floppy disk or a CD-ROM for that social studies project due tomorrow. Or scanned its list of countries for Latvia, because that's the country you're representing next week in Model U.N. Even better, you wandered Earth in your imagination as you held the physical Factbook in your own hands, unfolding its maps and understanding, perhaps for the first time, that the thumbs-up gesture your friends flash each other is considered an obscene insult in parts of the Middle East, Europe and Argentina. Who knew? The Factbook and its readers did, for more than six decades. Its authors - some of the world's best intelligence-gatherers, who contributed thousands of their own photos - kept the curated database updated and online for public use at no charge. The reasons stated were geopolitical and philosophical. But since we're talking about facts, it also is true that the Factbook went public in 1975 with lofty statements of purpose at a time when Congress was revealing abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA. "We share these facts with the people of all nations in the belief that knowledge of the truth underpins the functioning of free societies," the CIA itself explained in its pages. The spy agency isn't sharing them anymore. On Feb. 4, the Trump administration abruptly shuttered the widely accepted account of humanity and its flags, nations, customs, militaries and borders. The CIA framed the move as one of progress for an agency whose core mission has changed. A great wave of grief rose from Factbook fans. Many said they mourned an America that valued knowl...