If the intention is to restore these data sets at some future date, when sanity has possibly been restored, then there needs to be a way to demonstrate that the archived data hasn't itself been modified. Without that, malign actors (e.g. oil/gas lobby) could very easily poison the future.
If the originals are gone, and if the original authoritative, trustworthy data custodian no longer exists, then how will we know what the checksum/hash should be?
