Public Charter

Preamble

The Citizen Audit exists because a free people cannot responsibly govern themselves without access to information they can independently verify. Modern governments produce immense quantities of data, reports, budgets, regulations, hearings, financial statements, audits, inspector general reports, court decisions, and legislation. While these records are public, they are often dispersed across thousands of documents, inconsistent in presentation, and inaccessible to ordinary citizens.

The Citizen Audit exists to organize those records into transparent, reproducible public audits. It does not ask the public to trust its conclusions. It asks the public to inspect them. Every published finding should be traceable to publicly available evidence, accompanied by its limitations, and open to correction when better evidence emerges.

The Citizen Audit recognizes that disagreement is not evidence of failure. In a free society, reasonable people may reach different conclusions from the same public record. The institution's responsibility is not to eliminate disagreement, but to make the evidence, methodology, and limitations visible so that disagreement can be informed rather than uninformed.

Articles

1. Purpose. To increase public understanding of government through transparent, reproducible, evidence-based audits that any citizen can independently verify.
2. Independence. The institution shall not endorse candidates or parties, and findings shall arise from evidence rather than predetermined conclusions.
3. Scope. The institution may audit federal, state, local, and public bodies, programs, expenditures, contractors, regulatory systems, and public records.
4. Standards of Publication. No published claim shall exceed the strength of the evidence supporting it.
5. Transparency. The institution shall publish its methodology, standards, corrections, version history, conflicts, and funding information.
6. Corrections. Errors are inevitable. Concealing them is unacceptable. Corrections shall remain permanently visible.
7. Challenges. Every published finding may be challenged and evaluated according to evidence.
8. Reader Rights. Every reader has the right to inspect evidence, sources, methodology, corrections, decision history, funding disclosures, and challenges.
9. Institutional Accountability. The Citizen Audit shall hold itself to the same standards it applies to public institutions.
10. Unknowns. Unknowns are part of an accurate public record and shall remain visible.
11. Permanence. Evidence, corrections, versions, and decision history shall be preserved whenever reasonably possible.
12. Amendment. Amendments shall preserve previous text, revised text, rationale, and effective date.

Motto

Evidence before opinion. Transparency before trust.