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A-18 — Government Information, Scientific, Statistical, and Factual Integrity

Generalized Institutional Concern

Official information, public-facing government terminology, data, scientific findings, public-health guidance, economic statistics, historical information, and technical assessments remain vulnerable to suppression, alteration, delay, selective publication, political reinterpretation, or misleading presentation that can confuse the public about legal authority, constitutional status, enacted law, or institutional reality.

Active Issues

  • FACT-001 — Scientific, Statistical, and Technical Integrity
  • FACT-009 — Misleading Official Terminology, Titles, or Institutional Labels

Prior Issue Numbers

These numbers were assigned during preliminary review but did not become separate proposals. They are listed only to explain gaps in the sequence.

  • FACT-002 through FACT-006; FACT-008 — Merged into FACT-001 as dataset, publication-schedule, statistical-agency, terminology, unfavorable-finding, archival-preservation, and methodology-protection components of one technical-integrity framework.
  • FACT-007 — Returned to preliminary intake on July 24, 2026. Review of the Smithsonian episode showed that the potentially distinct defect concerns executive circumvention of congressionally assigned governance rather than establishment of historical fact. The episode is preserved as INTAKE-GAP-013; this routing correction does not decide whether later evidence could support a separate historical-presentation-integrity proposal.
  • PRESS-007 — Integrated into FACT-001 or FACT-009 according to whether the conduct alters technical substance or misrepresents legal or institutional reality. Protected presidential criticism of the press remains outside the proposal.

Issue Boundaries

  • FACT-009 concerns executive or agency use of public-facing terminology, secondary titles, institutional labels, or official communications that may mislead the public about legal authority, constitutional status, enacted law, declared war, statutory office structure, or institutional reality. HOR-005 is integrated here as a source-development example: Executive Order 14347 authorized use of "Department of War" and "Secretary of War" as secondary titles while acknowledging that statutory references to the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense remain controlling until changed by law. See Executive Order 14347, 90 Fed. Reg. 43893 (Sept. 10, 2025); 10 U.S.C. § 111. This issue should cross-reference A-03 where war-status terminology may confuse public understanding of Congress's constitutional war powers, and APPT-001 only where terminology also obscures who legally exercises office authority or facilitates confirmation evasion.
  • FACT-001 owns scientific, statistical, public-health, economic, and technical information integrity, including datasets, publication schedules, methodologies, terminology that changes technical substance, independent preservation, and suppression or alteration of findings.
  • Relationship to A-24. A-24 owns civil-rights administration, anti-discrimination enforcement continuity, identity records, federally funded civil-rights conditions, detention classification, and medical-privacy safeguards. A-18 issues should remain in A-18 when the central defect is suppression, deletion, alteration, delay, selective publication, misleading terminology, or manipulation of government information. Cross-link A-24 only when the remedy primarily concerns civil-rights enforcement, identity records, grant conditions, detention classification, privacy, or rights-bearing administrative process.

Notes

FACT-001 is in development after consolidation. FACT-009 remains an unresolved candidate. Full source development and an initial vehicle for FACT-009 are pending.