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Exposing the hijack

A finding that lives in a folder is not a finding. Exposure is a separate job from detection, it has its own standard, and most of that standard is about making the work attackable.

What gets published, every time​

  • The claim, stated narrowly enough to be wrong. Which force, over which decision, in which period.
  • Every source, linked at the door. The roll call, the filing, the contract, the court record — the primary document, not a story about the primary document.
  • The arithmetic, in full. Not a number handed down. The inputs, the operation, and enough detail that a reader can redo it with a calculator and get the same answer.
  • The gaps, named. Where the record has been withheld, that is written down as its own fact rather than smoothed over. See Naming the gaps.
  • How much we know. A knowledge figure sits beside the result so nobody over-reads a finding built on thin coverage.

The standard it has to survive​

A hostile, competent reader with the same sources reaches the same result — or shows us where we are wrong, in public, and we publish that.

That is a higher bar than persuading a sympathetic audience, and it is the only bar worth anything. A finding that can only survive among people who already agree is a press release.

The rules about people​

Exposure is where the risk of getting it wrong is concentrated, so the restraints are hard rules and not preferences:

  • No claim of a crime by a living person unless a court established it. Everything short of that is attributed — according to, alleged in, reported by — with the source named.
  • Arithmetic over the public record is not defamation, and we do not flinch from publishing it. The two rules sit side by side without conflict: compute freely from what is on the record, assert nothing that is not on it.
  • A record is never quietly edited. Corrections are published as corrections.

Where it is published​

Into the public repository, not into a database you are asked to trust — clone it and check any claim without our permission. See Open Data and Repos.

Also in this area​

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