Methods
& Corrections
How sources are preserved, identified, classified, verified, summarized, connected, published, corrected, superseded, and retained as part of the permanent FederalClaims.us public record.
A public library should show its work.
The Tariff Public Record is intended to remain useful after administrations change, litigation ends, government webpages move, and today's controversy becomes tomorrow's history.
That requires more than collecting links. Each published record should identify what the source is, where it came from, what it establishes, how it relates to other records, whether it has been verified, and whether later developments changed its status.
This page describes the publication rules used to keep that record auditable, correctable, and understandable.
Preserve first. Explain second.
Preserve the Original
The original source remains the evidentiary object. Working copies, extracted text, OCR, annotations, and summaries are derivatives.
Give It an Identity
Published sources receive permanent FCA Tariff Public Record identifiers that are not reused for another record.
Separate Source from Analysis
What the document says and what FederalClaims.us concludes from it should remain visibly distinct.
Verify Before Publishing
Source identity, citations, dates, material propositions, currentness, and status should be checked before public release.
Connect Related Records
Authorities, nations, cases, government actions, economic evidence, amendments, and later records should be cross-linked.
Correct Transparently
Material corrections should become part of the record rather than disappearing through silent revision.
One source. Several controlled layers.
The public website is the presentation layer. Source preservation, verification, record control, and publication status are maintained separately.
Original Record
Official PDF, court opinion, statute, agency notice, government report, dataset, historical source, or other original material.
Master Source Registry
Identity, metadata, verification, editorial status, relationships, corrections, publication control, and internal workflow.
FCA Source Record
Standardized public record identifying the source, its context, propositions, related authority, and original document.
Public Catalog
Approved public fields allowing readers to search records by date, authority, nation, issuer, case, and subject.
Research Pathways
History, Authority, Government Record, Court Record, Nation Files, Economic Record, and Recovery & Compliance.
Internal verification notes, unpublished material, workflow information, reviewer notes, and production fields remain separate from the public-facing Library.
Do not confuse the source with a copy.
Conversion can make a source easier to search, quote, annotate, or publish. It does not convert the derivative into the original evidentiary record.
Preserved without overwriting it with an extracted, reformatted, annotated, or editorial version.
Useful for research and search. Verify quotations and citations against the original.
May contain extraction, annotations, drafting notes, or editorial work.
The standardized public explanation and metadata connected back to the original source.
One record. One permanent ID.
A stable identifier allows the Library to refer to a source even if its filename, public URL, publication channel, or descriptive title later changes.
A consistent public publication format.
Document Title
Issuing Institution · Date · Source Type · Authority · Nation / Jurisdiction
Verification comes before publication.
A record should not become public merely because it has been collected. Publication requires enough review to support the claims the Library makes about that source.
Source Identity
Confirm title, issuer, date, source type, jurisdiction, and original-source location.
Source Authenticity
Prefer an official source and determine whether the document is complete, final, amended, or otherwise qualified.
Citation Verification
Check quoted language, page or paragraph references, statutory references, dates, and material citations against the underlying source.
Proposition Review
Confirm that each statement attributed to the record is actually supported by that record.
Currentness
Check whether later legislation, agency action, judicial history, amendment, or correction changed the status of the source.
Legal Effect
Distinguish enacted law from proposals, opinions from briefs, orders from requests, and binding authority from explanatory material.
Rights & Privacy
Review copyright, privacy, sealing, confidential information, personal information, and publication restrictions where relevant.
Review & Approval
Complete the appropriate factual, editorial, and legal review before the record receives public publication status.
Identify what kind of source it is.
Primary Record
Statute, proclamation, executive order, Federal Register notice, agency finding, court opinion, filing, government dataset, official report, or other direct record.
Official Explanatory Record
Government fact sheet, guidance, FAQ, agency explanation, testimony, press release, or similar official description.
Secondary Research
Scholarship, economic research, historical analysis, professional publication, or other secondary source used for context.
FCA Analysis
FederalClaims.us synthesis, interpretation, comparison, methodology, or explanatory material.
Legal effect depends on the governing law, tribunal, procedural posture, issuing institution, subsequent history, and other context relevant to the specific record.
Say only what the record supports.
Attributes the proposition to the actual source.
Used when the proposition is actually part of the court's holding.
States the observation without automatically asserting why it occurred.
Appropriate only when the source and context actually support that degree of certainty.
Briefs show what a party argued. They do not establish what the court decided.
Economic association may require additional analysis before supporting a causal conclusion.
Publish approved fields, not the production machinery.
The public catalog is designed for discovery. Internal reviewer notes, unpublished records, workflow commentary, and verification discussions remain outside the public interface.
Search the Tariff Public Record →Correct the record. Do not erase its history.
Different kinds of changes require different treatment. The goal is a public record that can improve without becoming impossible to reconstruct.
Metadata Correction
Correct a title, date, issuer, classification, link, spelling, or other descriptive field.
SAME RECORD IDCitation Correction
Correct a quotation, page reference, paragraph citation, statutory citation, or source attribution.
SAME RECORD ID · CORRECTION LOGAnalytical Correction
Correct or materially qualify FCA's description, synthesis, or analysis of the source.
SAME RECORD ID · REVISION DISCLOSEDSource Amendment
A government institution, court, or original issuer publishes a new, amended, modified, or replacement record.
NEW SOURCE RECORD · LINKED HISTORYSupersession
A later source replaces an earlier source for current operational or legal purposes while the historical source remains preserved.
OLD RECORD RETAINED · STATUS UPDATEDRetirement
A record may be removed from normal discovery when publication should no longer be relied upon, while retaining controlled archival history where appropriate.
STATUS DISCLOSEDMaterial changes should remain visible.
A reader who relied on an earlier Source Record should be able to understand whether the publication later changed and why.
See an error? Identify it precisely.
Readers should be able to identify potential factual, citation, classification, currentness, or source-status problems in a published FCA Source Record.
Example: FCA-TPR-SR-000127.
Quote or describe the specific field, proposition, citation, or analysis at issue.
Prefer the official document, court record, statute, government publication, or dataset supporting the proposed correction.
State what appears incorrect and what the record should say instead.
A competing interpretation can be important and may warrant additional sourcing or qualification even when the original publication is not factually incorrect.
Make uncertainty visible.
Reviewed and included in the public record.
A material public correction has been made.
Retained historically but a later record should be consulted.
Relationship or proposition has not yet passed the publication verification gate.
Relevant by subject but not presented as direct legal or factual support.
No longer presented as a current public research record.
Preserve the source.
Show the method.
Correct the record.
The FederalClaims.us Public Library is a research and public-education project. Source classification, abstracts, cross-references, summaries, and FCA analysis are editorial tools intended to make the public record easier to examine. They do not alter the legal status of the underlying source. Official sources, current law, subsequent judicial history, amendments, agency action, privacy restrictions, and publication rights should be independently verified when relevant to a specific matter. This Library is not a substitute for legal, customs, tax, accounting, investment, or financial advice.